The Slump
I am in a slump of epic proportions. I have not been out on a proper date since the closeted homosexual took me to dinner and the stranger next to me at the restaurant kindly suggested I try again.
I know a large part of it is because I work weird hours and, with very few exceptions, the men who are free around one in the afternoon are not the guys you want to be dating. I could have my pick of any of the just-this-side of homeless vegetable stand workers that I pass on my way home, but somehow I feel the conversation would be lacking.
There isn’t anybody in the past two months I’ve met that I would go out to dinner with when I could be taking a nap or reading a book. I genuinely enjoy being single and the guy has to be great in order for me to move into “girlfriend” mode. Or at least appear great. They usually turn out to be crazy, but in the beginning they put on a good show. The guys I’ve been meeting lately, they’re not even bothering with the smoke and the stage lights. They’ve all had some major character flaw that they wear on their sleeves like a badge of honor. I want to take them aside and teach them. “No, honey, it’s not a good thing that you’re an out-of-work writer with a coke habit. Don’t broadcast that like it’s one of your better traits.” Then I find myself thinking, “If that’s what they’re showing you, then, Jesus, what’s lying under the surface?” I don’t want to be on a date where I’m praying for shallow waters so I know I’m going to make it home at the end of the night.
How do you keep the faith that there’s somebody out there for you when you’re meeting people that are making you question the existence of God?
I know I’m not the only one out there asking this question. I know because every time I joke that I’m going to die alone and the 80 cats I’ve horded (because that’s what single old women seem to do—become cat ladies) will start eating my flesh before the police notice the stench, most of my single friends laugh. But not the right laugh. It’s not that “Oh, you are so ridiculous” laugh. It’s more like a nervous, “holy-shit-I’ve-had-that-same-thought-we’re-all-screwed” chuckle.
New York is one of the hardest cities in the world to date in if you’re a single woman. People have written columns and articles and chick lit books (one incredibly bitchy queen I met in a book store called them “cliterature” and I loved him for it) ad naseum about this very subject. But the problem with the slump is eventually it just brings out your insecurities and fears. You find yourself asking the important questions: Why is everybody else finding somebody and I’m not? Am I just not looking in the right places? Do I have some startling personality defect? Do I smell funny? It starts to feel like you really are the last single girl in the city and they should stuff you and put you on display in the Museum of Natural History with the Wooly Mammoth and all the other antiquities.
“What’s that, mommy?”
“That was the last single girl in New York.”
“What happened to her?”
“The cats got her.”
I know a large part of it is because I work weird hours and, with very few exceptions, the men who are free around one in the afternoon are not the guys you want to be dating. I could have my pick of any of the just-this-side of homeless vegetable stand workers that I pass on my way home, but somehow I feel the conversation would be lacking.
There isn’t anybody in the past two months I’ve met that I would go out to dinner with when I could be taking a nap or reading a book. I genuinely enjoy being single and the guy has to be great in order for me to move into “girlfriend” mode. Or at least appear great. They usually turn out to be crazy, but in the beginning they put on a good show. The guys I’ve been meeting lately, they’re not even bothering with the smoke and the stage lights. They’ve all had some major character flaw that they wear on their sleeves like a badge of honor. I want to take them aside and teach them. “No, honey, it’s not a good thing that you’re an out-of-work writer with a coke habit. Don’t broadcast that like it’s one of your better traits.” Then I find myself thinking, “If that’s what they’re showing you, then, Jesus, what’s lying under the surface?” I don’t want to be on a date where I’m praying for shallow waters so I know I’m going to make it home at the end of the night.
How do you keep the faith that there’s somebody out there for you when you’re meeting people that are making you question the existence of God?
I know I’m not the only one out there asking this question. I know because every time I joke that I’m going to die alone and the 80 cats I’ve horded (because that’s what single old women seem to do—become cat ladies) will start eating my flesh before the police notice the stench, most of my single friends laugh. But not the right laugh. It’s not that “Oh, you are so ridiculous” laugh. It’s more like a nervous, “holy-shit-I’ve-had-that-same-thought-we’re-all-screwed” chuckle.
New York is one of the hardest cities in the world to date in if you’re a single woman. People have written columns and articles and chick lit books (one incredibly bitchy queen I met in a book store called them “cliterature” and I loved him for it) ad naseum about this very subject. But the problem with the slump is eventually it just brings out your insecurities and fears. You find yourself asking the important questions: Why is everybody else finding somebody and I’m not? Am I just not looking in the right places? Do I have some startling personality defect? Do I smell funny? It starts to feel like you really are the last single girl in the city and they should stuff you and put you on display in the Museum of Natural History with the Wooly Mammoth and all the other antiquities.
“What’s that, mommy?”
“That was the last single girl in New York.”
“What happened to her?”
“The cats got her.”
posted by Still Hopeful @ 6:10 PM
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