Maybe I am old. Or maybe I am just boring. Or maybe… just maybe, there is a chance that I have always been boring. Or old. Or both. Who knows? I have always been picky about people (maybe about everything…), and partners, and I have always accepted aloneness to so-and-so relationships. People admire that. I sometimes hate it (oh, it would be so much easier to just suck it up to a guy to just have a date for that office party and not feel like the third wheel for the millionth year in a row, or for that family wedding). But right now, I really enjoy it. I really enjoy knowing what I want and how I want it. I really have learned over the years two things: how to live in the now, and how to live without regrets. And they are interdependent: if you live in the now fully and completely, listening to your heart, NOW, wonderful memories get created and you never have to regret anything. All you have to look back on are … well, wonderful memories… But I digress, because these are matters for another page.
The point I was trying to make tonight is: yes, I have been single for a while and sometimes I know it’s because of my choosing. It’s not for lack of attention from people. But for lack of tolerance towards the casual, so-and-so, lukewarm relationships. I’d rather be here, writing, resting, listening to Chris Isaak and drinking my wine than be out there, having a boring dinner with an annoying Joe, “just because maybe it can turn into something special and I might not have to spend Fourth of July alone again”… or Thanksgiving…or Christmas… or … whatever…
Sometimes I tell myself that I am quick to judge. For instance, this stranger approaches me in the store, and “wants to hang out, ‘cause I tell him I am single and he likes my hair” (sic). (I guess the small iota of common sense he had left prevented him from allowing himself to tell me what else he likes). And I refuse to go out, of course, because, if you go out with me, even for “just” a dinner, you gotta like more about me than just my hair. Or you have to be sophisticated enough to invoke loftier reasons. I thought everyone knew not only that are a ton of fish in the sea, but also that if you intend to catch one, the bait’s gotta look decent, too! And to me, it’s never “just a dinner”. It’s an hour, two, three , who knows of my time which I will never get back. Yeah… I need a better, MUCH better reason from a complete stranger to give that dinner time away, my friends! Sorry.
Yeah, I may be an elitist and demanding and … I also think I am worth it. If I am not going to be all that, who is? And why sell myself short? Why? When at the end of every day all I have left for sure in that bed is this one person with certainty, why not treat her with the care, love and respect she deserves? If not me, who else is going to do that? And I always feel like I am not 18 anymore, so I can’t just have the excuse that I am “experimenting” either. NO. I have done that. And now I know exactly what it is that makes me tick. And you either have it or you don’t and I can pretty much tell what “first impression cues” are there and what aren’t. I think I am that good, yes. And I am old fashioned too: first impressions do matter as they always have…
At any rate… I guess I am not looking to date or not NOT looking either. I am just being myself every day, and I know that kind of truthfulness will pay off, eventually.
But I am not holding my breath, either. I look at dating as part of life, of course, but not as its air. I look at it, at least now, and for a while now, like a good, really great trip I might take one day. If the money, and resources will allow, it will happen and if not, I’ll read about it in books and magazines, even see a documentary about it – oh, well. And just like that trip: when the time is right and I am ready for it, I will be picky about the hotel, the airlines, the carry on bags and the brand of my suitcase; about the music I bring along, and the books I carry. About the aisle or the window seat and about the beach front or the beach view room. Just like that. If that makes me old and picky and boring… oh, well, again. There is no one else to please by that one person, that I find alone in bed every night now. And that person happens to be pleased.
No comments:
Post a Comment