Caterwauling

Another busy weekend. Am sitting here with no money left to my name till payday, and even 80% of that goes to rent, so I don’t have any breathing room financially till mid-February. Bleah.

And we all know what comes in mid-February. The date that makes men shudder and women order flowers for themselves while Ben & Jerry’s no doubt makes the bulk of its annual profits in less than a week.

I was thinking today, wow, another Valentine’s Day with no reason to celebrate. And you know, that isn’t the part that bugs me. What does get stuck in my craw is the fact that I’m not necessarily without feelings for someone — I just don’t know WTF to do with them and while I don’t know what their plans are for the day, I know it ain’t with me and that makes me slightly crabby.

In any case, I went out with some friends on Friday night. (Stop and process that for a moment. I — workaholic, chained to desk — was out in the real world when OTHERS are out there. OK, pontification break over.)

It took me over an hour to drive the 10 miles to Silver Spring, and I see why my colleagues who live in that area work late. I was answering e-mails as I rode my brake down MD-95.

Anyway, a friend told us that she had met a great guy on a cruise a few month back and that they were meeting up in his home state of Florida last week. The magic was still there, she had a fabulous time with him, and he hasn’t contacted her since she came home. She tried calling him, but no response.

And she was looking for a “what to do” and, sadly, a “why.” And the cynic in me reared her bitter little head, but I kept it mostly to myself. My feeling was that it’s close to Valentine’s Day and that always ruins it. I have a rule to never bother starting to date someone in January or early February, because it has always backfired when they don’t want to celebrate the Hallmark holiday.

If you knew me, you’d know I am not exactly a hearts-and-flowers kind of girl. (Chocolates-and-handcuffs, however, is a TOTALLY different story. …)

So, my inner theory is that he doesn’t want to be expected to perform for the holiday, so it’s easier to disappear. In my experience, sometimes they resurface after the holiday; sometimes they don’t. Either way, and I did tell her this, “You are too much of a goddess to sit around waiting for him to remove his head from his nether regions.”

And I never saw her look happier. She had asked all of us (five in total) what we thought and if she was nuts for being sad. But I’m the friend who isn’t going to give you false hope (I almost kicked the “maybe he’s busy” cheerleaders) — I’m going to remind you that you’re fabulous and that others suck until they worship you accordingly.

Don’t get me wrong — I did posit a “maybe he got eaten by an alligator” theory. But I did it for a reason. Like I told her, “You’ve been walking on a cloud for weeks; you’ve had a special light in your eyes for weeks and I don’t want you to lose it over someone who’s clearly dumb enough to let you get away.”

I also posited the “Angelina Jolie” theory — you know, he COULD commit but Angelina JUST MIGHT be around the next corner, ready to adopt him. 😉

I don’t know. I guess I live in the real world. And what made her really happy with me was when I said, “He probably realized that he wasn’t good enough for you.”

And that brought up some debate, but I guess I am way more adamant about my friend’s love lives than mine. But I wouldn’t let her think that SHE wasn’t worthy of HIM. That he could/would do better — that’s horse puckey. Maybe he’s got baggage and doesn’t share her ambition or maybe he knows he can’t be as good to her as she deserves. So he doesn’t call/return calls.

What’s funny is how my friends don’t grasp that. They want and demand closure, if it isn’t going to work out. Pfft, I am a textbook Gemini. I drop off the earth even when I DO like someone.

I once had to watch a crush move on to a relationship, only to be told that he would’ve dated me in a heartbeat, if ever I’d shown any interest. Shit, I looked like something out of a Looney Tunes cartoon — eyes bugged out, jaw hit ground, blood pressure exploded. I just assumed I was obvious about that stuff. Apparently I’m fairly good at bottling up the good emotions, way better than hiding the other kind.

Perhaps I get so mad at men like the one my friend is pining over is because, were I born a boy, my ass would no doubt be plastered all over Don’t Date Him Girl.

But alas, I WAS born a girl — and plan to be one for the foreseeable future — and I hate seeing my friends in pain. Not like I’d ever admit to knowing what it feels like, but you know. You read it here; now to attempt to push it out of my mind for another year.

In any case, since I’m so good at doing it for others, I’m going to take this time to remind myself that I’m a goddess with a capital G, and that I hope our other, married friend is right that everyone does have a match out there.

One of my married male friends says that if you can find someone who’s about 80% compatible with you, that’s about as close to utopia as you’re going to get. Shit, I’d go for about 50% at this point — it’s just getting past the realizing what I feel and then acting on it.

The rest might not be smooth sailing, but it’d be a hell of a lot easier than getting up the courage to do something other than wonder. …

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 27th, 2008 at 4:00 PM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.