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Dating Diary:
Landslide...
Dear Diary,
WHERE WERE WE?
Well, it's been four months since I wrote my last entry. In those four months I've been through some things that are too hard to encompass in words. Undoubtedly, this sounds depressing and bleak, but it's not. Really. While putting the site together again, I had a chance to look back on a year's worth of Dating Diaries. I basically expressed three themes in my entries: the need to get laid, the need to fall in love again, and the need to hate every man that I've ever come in contact with. Many people would describe this as "bitter" or "angry" or "jaded." I really don't know what to make of it all. It's universal yet subjective, it's painful yet empowering. But at the end of the night, I still close my eyes and dream like everyone else.I have that damn Dixie Chicks song stuck in my head. At first I thought it a little cheesy and, well, country, but it grew on me. Did a landslide fall on me, figuratively speaking? No, it was more like a trickle of pebbles that gently landed on my head, more annoying than alarming. But I am afraid that I've built my life around something - something that was never concrete. And I say something because it was never someone, not that I can remember.
If this were a movie, the scene would pause here and cut to the very beginning. But (most) movies have (passable) plots, right? And you say my life is not a movie, not even an animated short? Okay, who's up for a series of low-grade vignettes then?
I've been on a couple of dates this year, which, if history serves as any indication, would mean that I've officially reached my quota for the year. One of the bachelors was a friend of a friend, a sticky situation for all parties involved. He was wholesome and nice and liked children, and it is truly a wonder why he didn't throw Holy water on me to see if I would melt, or check my scalp for tell-tale horns. Another bachelor was not in any way associated with anyone I knew. I met him while smoking outside my office building. He made me laugh, a big plus in my books. But alas, laughing while strolling into the sunset we did not.
Since I'm all metaphor-loving this entry, I should say that something good did come out of it - it's given me a chance to dip my toe in the dating pool, and the big toe at that! But the first date butterflies never really came like my old copies of Seventeen magazine said they would. I remember telling my boss that I had a date after work. After the initial shock wore off, he snickered, "And you're wearing that?!?" Really, with a boss like this, who needs a boyfriend.
And since we're on the subject of childhood this issue, it would be fitting to mention a night when I bumped into someone from junior high. We were at a local bar celebrating someone's birthday. It was karaoke night, so you can imagine the rowdy crowds that assembled. Anyway, a guy walked up to our table and asked to borrow a pen to write down his song selection. I bore a hole through his scalp as he bent his head down to look up a song. Then I turned to my friend and told him that I recognized him from junior high. Long story short, it was him, although I doubt that he much remembered me (and if he went home to look me up in the yearbook, that would be a shame. For all parties involved).
In junior high, I had a minor crush on him. He was one grade younger and, according to our music program, would be instructed by an eighth-grader once a week. That job usually fell to me. He had a twin brother who was equally cute, so they were hot commodities at the time. I can't recall much of our (short) time together, but I had always suspected that he was mildly irritated by my awkward attempts to make conversation. Back at the bar, the tables were turned. We caught up as much as any estranged stranger could, and I found out that he was majoring in psychology and creative writing, and attended the same university that I did. My soul mate! I thought. As the night progressed, my thoughts turned to: my soul mate…; okay, he's still kinda cute; my soul mate…?; oh my, he's chatty; oh my, he's really chatty; no amount of alcohol could make me think that he's my soul mate; and finally, I have to get away from him before I hurt him.
Salvation came, sort of. I quickly left him after a pool game and his poor rendition of Coolio's "Gansta's Paradise" (which he claimed was put on by accident, but I don't totally believe that). There was another guy at the birthday party that worked with the birthday girl. I had never met him before that day, so of course that meant that I had to hit on him, as he was fresh meat. But a friend warned me that he was a womanizer, and that didn't sit well with me. We sat down to make small talk, and my poor attempts at jokes fell terribly flat - to the point that I could literally see them slap against his forehead and slowly slide down to the floor in a messy goo.
I had my first gay clubbing experience last month. Upon deciding what to wear, I realized that no one would care either way. I could show up in a Madonna bustier or a potato sack and have the same reaction from the men there that I've had in the past six months: utter indifference. So off I went, ready to have some fun and not care about the opposite sex. Seriously, a single, lonely girl should go nowhere near a gay club. The men were hot and shirtless. Did I mention hot and shirtless? A man offered to bite my ass, but as forlorn as I felt that night, I did not take him up on the offer. The only (possibly) heterosexual, (possibly) single man there decided to hit on me, but that was fun for neither one of us.
After that night, I told him friend that I renounced love. He thought I was being dramatic and silly, but I told him that it was true - I do renounce love, for now. I don't want to build my life around love, maybe because when it's gone it feels like a landslide. And I'm not doing it because I have no social life to speak of, or because I'm single and it's easy to say silly things like that when you're single. I'm doing this for the best reason of all - for myself. ¤ C.Ho.
Next month: Christine takes up crocheting.