Stood Up

Last night I had a date with a man I met on craigslist. Met, is of course, a euphemism for having e-mailed with him a bunch of times. Amazing how much familiarity we imbue upon messages. The ability to type is a bit less than what's required to develop a relationship.

So, I had this date with this man I "met" on craigslist and he didn't show up. I sat alone at the bar, luckily in a place I don't feel uncomfortable sitting alone, drinking my Stella. And waited. I didn't have his cell number (he had mine, though) so I couldn't call to follow-up.

I was surprised because we seemed to have had a fun time communicating. Seemed to have some things in common. A similar language. He is, most likely, married or otherwise involved, and that's the rub. That's the stopping point. It's the little detail that I could never know unless told.

I was disappointed. In the moment, after my beer and no dinner, I was feeling a bit more than just let down. I have an unhealthy tendency to gather up all my bad feelings into one big pile and look at them one by one, dissecting them and finding all the reasons why they, each of them, are justified. How I'm a loser, an idiot, too old, idealistic, foolish, fat, destined to be alone, stupid...and on and on. A barrage of negative adjectives. Because someone I don't know doesn't show up for a drink.

In the light of day, I'm feeling less devastated. Less pitiful. But in the back of my mind, maybe it's always there, is that feeling that there's no-one. A city of 8 million people plus the suburbs, and I can't find one that I'm attracted to who feels the same and hangs in there with me.

I know it's a numbers game (my therapist reminds me of this regularly...and by regularly, I mean weekly) and I'm racking up the numbers. Even if he didn't show up, I can count him as one more piece in the haystack. One more body in the body-count of dead dates. I'm sure there are more on my horizon. I have no doubt about that. I have to learn to reign in the demon that haunts me when disappointment comes. There are better things to have whispered in my ear than the damaging list of faults and pitfalls I so easily adopt as my own.

Someone not quite so perverted would probably find it appalling that, rather than being called old or fat, I prefer slut and whore.

I continue the search, I suppose, for the man who can replace the injurious rambling in my head with the smut I long for.