One month ago, I lost my job and in that same week, I lost my boyfriend.
I got dumped. Twice.
Did my ego take a beating? Not really. My reaction to both was hard to explain: I didn't cry, I just hunkered down and wrote and sort of went to my go-to emotional zone that I've employed since my parents died. I just went to another place and pretended I was an entirely different person.
In further detail, my mantra for the last several years has been: "All I've got is me." That mantra is me being a badass; untouched by the outside world trying to hurt me, part emotional-deflection (because who wants to really FEEL things...gross) and part victim, if I'm going to be truly honest with myself.
I'm a comic book character with a shield and it's my job to be impervious. It's me against the world.
There are a LOT of ugly side effects to living this way, let me tell you. I turn inward. I get intense. I have no patience. I have severe social phobias. I get panic attacks on a regular basis that cause me to pass out and lose consciousness. I am afraid of responsibility and as a result (I discovered recently through talking all of this out with one of the wisest people I know, my dear friend Frankie) I can't commit to things. I can't commit to returning a phone call, let alone a lifelong partnership to someone. I have a weird relationship to food. I'm completely self-destructive. I could go on and on and on. Oh!...and on.
SO. The dumping happened about four weeks ago. Two weeks ago, in a fit of wild rebellion, I decided to truly test my sanity by reactivating my online dating profile (which, hilariously a week earlier I SWORE up and down that I would never endeavor to try again). And I committed, again to bring my sanity to the brink of IMPLOSION to go on four dates in four days. Consecutively.
I'm loyal like a labrador. And once I fall in love with someone, I'm in love for life. So of course, I went on these dates KNOWING full well that I would not be able to feel a whole hell of a lot for any of these poor suckers.
So I guess, for the amusement of my few readers out there, here is a brief summary of those four days:
Date #1: I delight in the fact that I look young for my age. Nice little ego boost there. I still got it. Or maybe I was just ovulating at the time and my pheromones were particularly POTENT that week...even via the interwebs. In any case, Date #1 was 11 years younger (a baby at 26 years old). He was very attractive! He was very young. I knew this would go nowhere. We went out for drinks and it was as if someone gave us a list of three topics we could talk about and if we ventured out of that zone, said phantom person would shoot us execution style. We talked about Music, Movies and Television. No intense emotional connection made there. And yet, by the end of the evening, he had walked me home, asked me if he could come up to my apartment, and I guess it was my odd night of portraying a "Lady" and I gave him a firm no. I sort of jokingly shook his hand, saying goodnight to which he responded by grabbing me and laying a ten minute long kiss on me that made me forget my apartment number and my last name. I never heard from him again after that.
Date #2: Polar opposite of Date #1. He was the sweetest, most gentlemanly fellow a girl could possibly find.
I am not a terribly shallow person, but I will just say this: He epitomized NERD in every conceivable way. The only thing missing was the loud snort laugh. I am not a supermodel by any stretch of the imagination, but the site of the two of us together made for such an odd site, people had whiplash staring at this odd couple as we entered and later exited the restaurant. This all hurts to say. He was LOVELY. But...........NO.
The date ended with him finally coming out and asking if he could kiss me and me having to decline. It was awful.
Date #3: This person must've had Bruce Weber taking their online dating profile photos, because, they did not, shall we say, fully represent the person who appeared in front of me. Though relatively young, at the age of 30/31, haven't "we" gotten through the whole stage of railing against The Man and going on a two hour monologue (shouted to me...AT ME) about the evils of authority and bureaucracy? I feel that "we" have. But this guy isn't done, apparently. So much 19 year-old style anger! Very, very retro of him, I suppose. To top it off, I learned that he just hated people and hated animals. I had nowhere to go with any of this except....HOME.
Date #4: THIS one was promising! We had this incredible banter and chemistry (at least through text and emails) and seemingly quite a bit in common. It was the day of the Brazil/Germany World Cup and apparently he had had a party with a group of friends at his house right up to the minute of meeting me at a bar in Silverlake. This was red flag #1. Red flag #2 was him showing up to meet me a liiiiiiittle bit inebriated. Yes, intoxicated. I gave it my best college try: I was charming, I made jokes, I looked AWFULLY cute, if I do say so myself and I pretended as though this was a normal date. Despite his inebriation, we DID manage to have some interesting conversations. He complimented me on my physical form a few times....I could MAYBE even excuse his partying as "hey, it's the World Cup! Who (besides myself) ISN'T drinking today?!" So things were going just swimmingly when the most shocking ending to a date that I have ever been on suddenly occurred. Date #4 looked to his right, out into the distance, perhaps deeply into his psyche (who knows) and actually uttered the following: "UUUG. I have to go."
With that, he stood up and left.
For a good while, whilst figuring out how I was going to get home, I had the creepiest, most disturbing feeling.
This date, more than the other three, made me miss my ex-boyfriend more than anything and I think that was the absolute worst part of it all.
About twelve hours afterwards, it then became the stuff of legends; the mythical Worst Date of All Time. It quickly made me laugh. HARD. Perhaps a little too hard.
In any case, I have no moral to this story really. The only thing that I've learned is that my theoretical SHIELD is both a blessing and a curse. And every bad date makes for a great blog post.
Addendum: It was actually SIX dates over SIX consecutive days. I just couldn't remember the other two as they all blurred together in some terrifying stew.
I got dumped. Twice.
Did my ego take a beating? Not really. My reaction to both was hard to explain: I didn't cry, I just hunkered down and wrote and sort of went to my go-to emotional zone that I've employed since my parents died. I just went to another place and pretended I was an entirely different person.
In further detail, my mantra for the last several years has been: "All I've got is me." That mantra is me being a badass; untouched by the outside world trying to hurt me, part emotional-deflection (because who wants to really FEEL things...gross) and part victim, if I'm going to be truly honest with myself.
I'm a comic book character with a shield and it's my job to be impervious. It's me against the world.
There are a LOT of ugly side effects to living this way, let me tell you. I turn inward. I get intense. I have no patience. I have severe social phobias. I get panic attacks on a regular basis that cause me to pass out and lose consciousness. I am afraid of responsibility and as a result (I discovered recently through talking all of this out with one of the wisest people I know, my dear friend Frankie) I can't commit to things. I can't commit to returning a phone call, let alone a lifelong partnership to someone. I have a weird relationship to food. I'm completely self-destructive. I could go on and on and on. Oh!...and on.
SO. The dumping happened about four weeks ago. Two weeks ago, in a fit of wild rebellion, I decided to truly test my sanity by reactivating my online dating profile (which, hilariously a week earlier I SWORE up and down that I would never endeavor to try again). And I committed, again to bring my sanity to the brink of IMPLOSION to go on four dates in four days. Consecutively.
I'm loyal like a labrador. And once I fall in love with someone, I'm in love for life. So of course, I went on these dates KNOWING full well that I would not be able to feel a whole hell of a lot for any of these poor suckers.
So I guess, for the amusement of my few readers out there, here is a brief summary of those four days:
Date #1: I delight in the fact that I look young for my age. Nice little ego boost there. I still got it. Or maybe I was just ovulating at the time and my pheromones were particularly POTENT that week...even via the interwebs. In any case, Date #1 was 11 years younger (a baby at 26 years old). He was very attractive! He was very young. I knew this would go nowhere. We went out for drinks and it was as if someone gave us a list of three topics we could talk about and if we ventured out of that zone, said phantom person would shoot us execution style. We talked about Music, Movies and Television. No intense emotional connection made there. And yet, by the end of the evening, he had walked me home, asked me if he could come up to my apartment, and I guess it was my odd night of portraying a "Lady" and I gave him a firm no. I sort of jokingly shook his hand, saying goodnight to which he responded by grabbing me and laying a ten minute long kiss on me that made me forget my apartment number and my last name. I never heard from him again after that.
Date #2: Polar opposite of Date #1. He was the sweetest, most gentlemanly fellow a girl could possibly find.
I am not a terribly shallow person, but I will just say this: He epitomized NERD in every conceivable way. The only thing missing was the loud snort laugh. I am not a supermodel by any stretch of the imagination, but the site of the two of us together made for such an odd site, people had whiplash staring at this odd couple as we entered and later exited the restaurant. This all hurts to say. He was LOVELY. But...........NO.
The date ended with him finally coming out and asking if he could kiss me and me having to decline. It was awful.
Date #3: This person must've had Bruce Weber taking their online dating profile photos, because, they did not, shall we say, fully represent the person who appeared in front of me. Though relatively young, at the age of 30/31, haven't "we" gotten through the whole stage of railing against The Man and going on a two hour monologue (shouted to me...AT ME) about the evils of authority and bureaucracy? I feel that "we" have. But this guy isn't done, apparently. So much 19 year-old style anger! Very, very retro of him, I suppose. To top it off, I learned that he just hated people and hated animals. I had nowhere to go with any of this except....HOME.
Date #4: THIS one was promising! We had this incredible banter and chemistry (at least through text and emails) and seemingly quite a bit in common. It was the day of the Brazil/Germany World Cup and apparently he had had a party with a group of friends at his house right up to the minute of meeting me at a bar in Silverlake. This was red flag #1. Red flag #2 was him showing up to meet me a liiiiiiittle bit inebriated. Yes, intoxicated. I gave it my best college try: I was charming, I made jokes, I looked AWFULLY cute, if I do say so myself and I pretended as though this was a normal date. Despite his inebriation, we DID manage to have some interesting conversations. He complimented me on my physical form a few times....I could MAYBE even excuse his partying as "hey, it's the World Cup! Who (besides myself) ISN'T drinking today?!" So things were going just swimmingly when the most shocking ending to a date that I have ever been on suddenly occurred. Date #4 looked to his right, out into the distance, perhaps deeply into his psyche (who knows) and actually uttered the following: "UUUG. I have to go."
With that, he stood up and left.
For a good while, whilst figuring out how I was going to get home, I had the creepiest, most disturbing feeling.
This date, more than the other three, made me miss my ex-boyfriend more than anything and I think that was the absolute worst part of it all.
About twelve hours afterwards, it then became the stuff of legends; the mythical Worst Date of All Time. It quickly made me laugh. HARD. Perhaps a little too hard.
In any case, I have no moral to this story really. The only thing that I've learned is that my theoretical SHIELD is both a blessing and a curse. And every bad date makes for a great blog post.
Addendum: It was actually SIX dates over SIX consecutive days. I just couldn't remember the other two as they all blurred together in some terrifying stew.
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ReplyDelete"I still got it." Yeah u do.
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