Watching the fireworks tonight, I was reminded that the last time I had a girlfriend on July 4th was in… fucking 2004. Jesus H. Christ at-a-taxi-stand-with-an-expired-AmEx, that’s some lame, weak, unforgivable sauce right there!
Men approaching 40 with spotty dating resumes — and I’m certain that there are more than a dozen of you reading this blog — will feel me on this one: there are times when one must fish or get off the pot. My problems with dating are manifold, as I’ve doubtless spat about here previously. But shall we count them, you and I, just for the meadow-strolling loll-aboutery of it?
Hold on, I need another drink. 1.5 oz vodka, .5 oz triple sec, .5 oz creme de menthe. I shit you not! This is a special “project drink” I’ve crafted that will enable me to plow through a bottle of shitty vodka I bought in a moment of ill-advised thriftiness some years ago and have regretted since. People come over and say, “Vinny! Whip me up a screwdriver,” until they spy the jug of reprehensible vodka and quickly switch to straight whiskey, mezcal or whatever civilized liquor I have on the rack. Keeping foul vodka in your liquor cabinet is a slap in the face to a distinguished guest — it obviates so many beverage choices — so I’m hell-bent on drinking my way through the squalor of “Bartlett’s Bulbitation”.
I’m back, toting a vodka ‘n’ creme de cassis ‘n’ bitters payload. Not horrible, but nothing I’d serve to someone I love. So, let’s take a look at that obstacle course, yes?
- New friends are surprised to hear that I’m shy. But it’s true, when talking to women I’m attracted to. I’m a garrulous lad in welcoming company, but can’t get over my assumption that any woman I’m attracted to will find me duller than Sunday’s bus schedule on a Tuesday.
- And why would I resign pre-battle? Track record, ducklings. Two solid decades of dating has laid down a pretty horrifying paper trail: If I’m hot for her, she must be interested strictly in punk drummers, the over-50 set, accomplished professionals, danseuses, wakeboarders, and/or Yalies. If she’s hot for me, I have — so far — wanted so much more.
- “Oh shut up!” you cry, faint with faith that 20 years of dating would have surely dredged up some tender grubling, crackling in her febrile nubility who shuddered with a universally-recognizable aura of Gaia’s sexual imprimatur? Oh yes, and you’d be right. But those aurae have — through thickness of skull, thinness of valiance — been missed or struck at too late. In the dervish-thicket of competitive sperm we males swim in, there are not days, minutes or weeks — certainly not months — that we may lay idle, wondering if phone calls or flowers would be appropriate. Hesitation, pondering, gentle treading, thoughtful chats, apologetic embraces — these have been the guiding lights of my dating MO, the fidgety gestalt I (fussily) foment.
- But what folly! that souls twinned at conception should fall prey to mistimed text messages, asshat flight attendants from Memphis that would chat up one’s True Beloved, that a woman wouldn’t just say, “so, you’re saying you’re into me?” But oh, yes, we live in that world.
I live in it, anyway. There’s 4+ bullet points to go, but they will wait for another night of shoddy vodka and creme d’ cassis.
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