12:31 am - 12.19.2009
Who Wants Love And Romance In Their Life Anyway?

Well, it was fun while it lasted...I guess...

If you follow me on Facebook, you know this already, but "the big date" on Wednesday has turned into "the big depressing anti-climax".

And I feel embarrassed, and sad, and angry, and...relieved.

After going public with my thought that Wednesday's outing had gone well - more on that in a moment - and with my desire for a second date (Even taking a poll on the proper time-frame for asking), I ended up getting shot down when I made my play Thursday night.

I'm not sure how it could have been more awkward - I asked if she was up for doing something this weekend, and she told me "that's when I do most of my work" (She teaches college-level writing courses online).

Then I said, "Well, what about Tuesday or Wednesday night?", and she told me she was going back home for the holiday, and wouldn't be back till after New Years.

I'm a smart guy, so I was catching on at that point - "This is not going my way..." - but it's also been a long time since I've done this shit (And I was never very good at it), so instead of extricating myself as quickly and gracefully as possible, I dug myself in deeper, by asking, even while knowing the answer, "So...are you interested in going out again at all...?"

She wasn't.

Because, she told me, she hadn't considered Wednesday night to be a "date"(!), but something more along the lines of a "business dinner with a colleague".

(As the kids say nowadays, "WTF"?)

There's something about that I find more humiliating than if she'd come out and said, "I'm just not that into you" - I shared my excitement and happiness over having a "date" with pretty much everyone I talked to (Not to mention everyone who follows me in Diaryland and on Facebook), and beyond that, having that "date", imagining that I felt a mutual "spark" with someone for the first time in years, allowed me to think, for a second, "Maybe it's not all over for me after all...".

And now I feel foolish for having dared hope that was true.

For the record, I really don't think she thought we were having a "business meeting"; I think she believes that was an easy "out" for both of us, so nobody had to have hurt feelings.

It was just a wacky "misunderstanding" - like on a bad sit-com.

I'm wishing now that I'd written about the "date/business dinner" before now, because it would have been interesting to get the perspective I had immediately afterward, a perspective which is pretty much gone at this point.

I was second-guessing everything I said and did after Wednesday's "date/business dinner", because that, after all, is what I do.

But overall, I had positive feelings about how it had gone - I thought well enough of her to want a second date, and well enough about how I'd carried myself that I mostly expected to get a second date.

Now I can't think of Wednesday night without just feeling like an idiot, for either A) Imagining myself on a date I wasn't actually on, or B) Having a shot, but then queering the deal somehow.

So I don't know....

"Nothing ventured, nothing gained", I guess.

But right now, I feel like this "venture" has left me worse off than when I started.

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