Seven months into my new found sobriety, I find myself desperately, girly-ley (?), disgustingly desirous of falling in love and wanting just as much the reciprocal.
I don't think I've ever been that unabashed in my intentions before in my entire adult life. And yet, even with all of my fresh, non-alcohol soaked emotion just ready to be smothered all over some poor, unlucky soul, I was totally and completely petrified of getting back in it all.
When I was using, I had that false confidence that one often finds at the bottom of a bottle (booze, pills, whatever) and everything came easily to me. So this whole dating sober thing was a new bag and I didn't know what to do with it. What about the pre-gaming before the date? No shot before leaving the house? No glass of wine (or five) with dinner to you know, break the ice? How do people do this???
And so, I dipped my quaking, uncertain toe back into the pool of dating very recently. I pulled my foot back out and was told that the entire lower half of my body would need to be surgically removed due to hypothermia-induced gangrene. That’s what it felt like, anyway. An innocent enough exercise gone horribly, frighteningly wrong.
Basically, this...person whom I had sort of been set up with and had had three days of getting-to-know-you deep discussions with online (yeah, I'm also nauseous reading that) and it got very, very personal. We had, it seemed, a great deal in common and we both loved talking to each other. It was a little obsessive as a matter of fact. It was great! It was amazing! It was kind of like being super high again! Perhaps (read: OBVIOUSLY) I went overboard. But the great thing was: So did he! It was aaaalll reciprocal. Or so I thought.
Finally, after four days of this incessant chatter on our parts, it was date night! I even spent two weeks worth of grocery money on a dress. I went and irritated every last one of my work-friends with questions about hair, make-up, etc. This all felt very real and very promising. Too promising.......toooooo promising. And there was that fear again: the crippling self-doubt and self-esteem deficit I'd wrestled with for 25 of my 35 years on this planet all rushing to the surface making me feel uncertain, raw and scared shitless.
The night went fine; just fine. All of these hopes and expectations I had for this person were totally fulfilled in the flesh. But something was off. It felt like I was squarely in the friend-zone. Ok, I can do this; I've been here before, this is fine. And we were pretty much engaged in thoughtful conversation up until the moment he dropped me back off at home at the end of the night. Except...he barely looked at me, muttered something about talkingtoyousoon and without even a fucking bro-punch to my shoulder, drove off, with me barely shutting the car door behind me.
After four or five days of this high, I sunk to the lowest of lows, practically crawling up the four flights of stairs to my apartment, making it to the final landing before my floor and collapsed. I was exhausted and I cried. Right there in my building, in front of...whomever, I just sobbed. And I sobbed like that for two full days.
What happened?
The soundtrack to my sobs was an endless, running list in my head of everything that I probably did wrong: I'm too pretentious; I think too highly of my words; my own voice; I'm an asshole; I'm too morose; I'm boring; I'm too old; I'm too immature; I'm not cool enough; I'm too fat; I'm ugly. Just an endless loop of self-hatred.
By the end of those two days I had effectively convinced myself that I wasn't fit for human consumption and I should probably quit the silly charade I had going of wearing make-up, dresses and the whole bathing thing.
It had to be the physical. It was the most logical explanation. He had seen me at my pretentious best in writing. So it could only be, best case scenario: He wasn’t attracted to me and was afraid to say something…..at worst: He thought I was ugly and should be afraid to say something.
When not suffering soul-crushing rejection, I by no means think that I’m gorgeous or “hot” or whatever other pejorative you want to label people with. But I also don’t think I’m the fucking freak of the week either! So what gives? And why did it upset me so much? I wanted to dive head first into a bottle of Svedka but of course, I couldn't and wouldn't. I just had to ride this thing out.
Again, how do people do this?
The worst......THE WORST would be having to explain to my friends what happened. That even after that night, I sent this guy an email 24 hours later about writing (a subject we both liked talking to each other about) and that I received no response. And it's interesting that I would find that to be the WORST part of the whole fucking thing.
Why are we so afraid of rejection and why are we almost always just as pathologically afraid of admitting when we have in fact been rejected?!
Everyone gets rejected: Ugly people, stupid people, intelligent people, beautiful people, all of us. One of my favorite truisms is Chris Rock’s “show me a beautiful woman and I’ll show you someone who’s tired of fucking her” bit. That's totally real but maybe we feel shame because you never hear about it. People don't want to admit when someone else doesn't want them.
Now, it's six days later and I find myself in a more or less neutral position; I've been humbled, to say the least. And I don't know if I'm better for it yet. But I know a few new ground rules for next time and I know that maybe a fresh coat of cynicism would serve me well in the future before the gangrene sets in and they have to amputate.
Maybe this is why the rule of thumb in AA is to wait a year. Maybe I need a puppy. Or maybe it's just time to grow up and realize that I'm not entitled. I'm not entitled to get what I want whenever I want it and I'm not entitled to anyone else's approval of me. The world is rough and cold and not everyone will love you, no matter how desperately you want to love them.
And it's probably time to stop punishing myself for that, too.
He must be a dick.
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