Signs of Progress.

After 26 million years and An Incident™, Bob the Therapist has threatened to discontinue watching me ugly-cry a couple of times a month if I don’t start to show signs of progress.

What kind of progress does Bob the Therapist want to see, you ask? [Sidenote: why didn’t I introduce Bob the Therapist as a character back when I started this blog? Why didn’t I focus solely on dating/romantic escapades and failures as my essay topics/themes? I mean, the name of this blog is I CAN SEE WHY SHE’S SINGLE, not LOOK AT ME WRITE A THINK PIECE ABOUT DEATH AND DESPAIR BECAUSE I SAW A BUG FLY INTO A LIGHT. Should I go back and delete all posts unrelated to said topics? Why haven’t I updated in two years? I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS.]

You’re thinking that he probably wants me to present to him an updated resume as a first step towards fleeing the hellscape that is my current job. Or maybe a meal and exercise plan that’ll put me on the path to wellness. How about before and after pictures documenting that I’ve finally moved what remains of my grandparents’ belongings out of the house and even cleaned it up? Nope. Bob the Therapist has asked for tangible proof of my attempts to date and copulate. I hope I’ve partially misunderstood him as I’m not sure what kind of tangible evidence of that second one he’s expecting. Gross.

Bob the Therapist says that my chronic, severe depression (oh boy, here we go) and crippling loneliness (yikes) has not been very good for me and in order for me to not feel so devastatingly awful all the time I need to create healthy, reciprocal relationships with people who are not terrible. What a groundbreaking concept. I can’t believe that kind of insight only costs me a $15.00 copay. How is he only Bob the Therapist and not Robert the Psychiatrist?

That was mean. I’m sorry.

Bob the Therapist says that the average person of my age has married, maybe more than once, and has had children, perhaps even childrens. Bob the Therapist says that I belong in a relationship, that I’d do really well as part of a pair, that I’d thrive, even. Bob the Therapist says that I need to make friends, real friends, and express to them my need to meet someone, that they’d even be happy to take on the insurmountable feat of setting me up.

I was at a bar with this guy, and I asked this guy if any of his many male friends would be interested in meeting me. He said “I don’t know” while chuckling awkwardly and looked into his beer, so I chuckled awkwardly and changed the subject. I was out to dinner with this girl, and I asked this girl if any of her many male co-workers would be interested in meeting me. She awkwardly stammered an “I’ll see what I can do” type statement and looked into her cocktail glass, so I awkwardly stammered something that might have been “Okay, thank you” and looked into mine.

Bob the Therapist says that these conversations, however brief and awkward, were very good and to keep trying. I reminded him that I didn’t really know anyone else and that I also did not want to do it anymore. Bob the Therapist yelled at and wrote something mean about me in his notebook.

I explained to Bob the Therapist that I’d have to, yet again, give online dating a try. I don’t know anyone in real life; no non-homeless man has approached me in years; and the men I’ve approached FREAKED OUT and were never to be seen again. He said something about eHarmony, as everyone always does. I reminded him of my fear of marrying, or at least settling for, the first guy I go on multiple successful dates with. I reminded him that people that use eHarmony are Serious About Meeting Someone. I reminded him that I’d like to just casually date a variety of people, even be a little slutty. It is very hard to be casual and a little slutty using eHarmony.

Bob the Therapist is a luddite, so I told him about Bumble, Tinder, and OkCupid. I told him that since I’d actually gone places and done things this summer, I had full-body pictures that I felt pretty good about. Bob the Therapist said that that was all well and good, but if I wanted to continue to tell him mean secrets while he scowled at me over his reading glasses in his sour-smelling office, I’d need real proof. I’d need to plan a date with some weird stranger that really loves to hike (THEY ALL LOVE TO FUCKING HIKE). I’d have to swipe through pictures of him at a wedding (how great would it be if it were his own?!); the always disappointing to see shirtless pose, and him cuddling a cute dog.

Maybe I should just offer my walking/sitting services in my profile. We all know that’s what I really want: regular access to a dog.

I’m really angry and resentful about having to use the App Store to find someone willing to date me. I don’t know anyone else that has. No one, including Bob the Therapist, can or will tell me why I can’t and don’t meet anyone in real life. Bob the Therapist says that I’m blind to the affection of others. Bob the Therapist says that I could date whoever I want. Bob the Therapist says that he’s confident that people have been in romantic love with me, even though no one has ever told me so, and that I must be too shallow or cruel or narcissistic or stupid to have noticed. Bob the Therapist says that it’s all my fault.

I’m supposed to see Bob the Therapist on Friday. I, surprisingly, have three inboxes full of messages from middle-aged white men I could never imagine kissing. I could write back to them all and show him my progress. Bob the Therapist says I’m supposed to use people, whether I want to kiss them or not, as practice because I don’t know how to date. Bob the Therapist says I’m supposed to cut to the chase and ask Bill or Todd or Jim out for coffee. Bob the Therapist says to stop screwing around. Bob the Therapist says time is running out.

I could cancel my appointment with Bob the Therapist. That might be the biggest sign of progress of them all.

The Ambrosia Project.

I blame you. Source

*August 13, 2017: (very brief) AUTHOR’S NOTE AT THE END*

Hey.

So, I’m back.

I’m not going to talk about where I’ve been. Mostly because it involves TMI about my uterus and the fact that I write an awful lot of fan fiction.

What I do want to talk about is the fact that last night, the season two finale of “The Mindy Project” aired. It was wonderful. I laughed. Out loud. I also cried. Quite a bit. There was screaming. The good kind. I love the show and wish very much that my life mimicked it somehow.

I mean, I wish that about a lot of media. I’m an intelligent only child; like, 75% of my life has been spent daydreaming and inserting myself into television, film, and book plots. And half the time, I’m not even the star. I’m the wacky, foul-mouthed side-kick with a heart of gold. That’s usually because in these dreams of mine I’m too busy with a successful pop/soul/R&B career to commit to being the star and head writer of a hit sitcom.

It has recently dawned on me that in my elaborate fantasies, I am Justin Timberlake. Well, I have Justin Timberlake’s career. Unlike him, I’ve embraced my curls and I can’t see myself settling for Jessica Biel.

Anyway, with all the daydreaming and fantasizing that I do, you’d think that I’d realize that sitcoms and movies and novels are just that: someone else’s daydreams and fantasies brought to life. In other words, these aren’t stories to measure one’s life against. They aren’t even real.

So why do I feel so horrible to have made it to almost 35 years of age without ever having been told “I love you” in a romantic context?

If all that stuff is fake; if it’s just a bunch of made up stories, it shouldn’t really bother me so much that I haven’t had that particular experience. I mean, I love the “Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit” franchise. I don’t curl up in my recliner and weep inconsolably after the midnight viewings because a gang of dwarfs still hasn’t shown up unannounced at my door to recruit me to be their robber so they can take back their mountain kingdom from an evil dragon. That’s just as made up as a sitcom about a chubby, almost 35 year-old, dark-skinned, Indian-American OBGYN living and searching for love in NYC.

The answer is obvious; one is based on some version of a totally plausible reality, and the other is the stuff of legend and religious allegory and maybe a metaphor for World War II (I don’t know; I haven’t read the books yet, okay?).

No one is expecting me to go off on an adventure with Gandalf and Thorin Oakenshield (He’s been mentioned twice on a single black woman’s blog. That’s got to be a record or something. And that was probably racist? Eh.). But people do wonder why I don’t date. And by people I mean me. I’m even wondering if I could at this point. It’s been almost fifteen years since I’ve been in what I thought was any sort of committed relationship or had sex. At this point, I’d be less surprised if Bilbo Baggins invited me over for Elevenses than if I was involved in a sexual relationship with a man.

And that’s not normal.

I don’t know what to do to change this. I’m in therapy. I’ve been in and out (but mostly in) therapy for the last fifteen years. I’ve gone on dates with two men, the last time around the summer of 2011? 2012? And they were both terrible. Pretty sure they felt the same way about me, but we all thought “Well, he/she went to college, and is a sentient being, and I don’t know. This is what people do, right?” That’s it.

There’s nothing normal about any of that.

From what I’ve gleaned from my mass consumption of media involving interpersonal relationships, one either dates around unsuccessfully until finding the one that was always there all along or finds the one at just the right moment or some shit; or is tragically knocked up or widowed and walls their heart off to protect against any future heartbreak, but they’ve got the tragic story or the dumb kid, so there’s that. Or there are the lucky ones, who find someone and it works out and they go along on the suggested path of mortgages and wedding registries and baby showers and date nights and blah blah blah.

There are no stories about weird freaks who got maybe a little bit raped in college and then got fat and then woke up and realized they were 34 and infertile and crying hysterically because Mindy Kaling and Chris Messina just have so much chemistry and overhear some girl – hardly even 21, for fuck’s sake – refer to 35 as being “kinda way up there” and said that a different 35 year-old woman needed to “hurry up and get on the boy thing” while you think to yourself “I wouldn’t even know how and every time I’ve tried the guys have literally run away in the other direction” and you wonder what the hell is wrong with you if every form of media featuring people your age shows them either married with kids or in some weird friend-group-living situation or dating all the time and you don’t have anything, nothing and you can’t even have a one-night-stand because you don’t know how and even if you did what about AIDS and sexual assault and your gross body?

But you’ll always have your – hopefully quirky? – knack for stream-of-consciousness run on sentences on your semi-abandoned blog, right?

I don’t even know what the hell I’m trying to say anymore. It’s almost 5:00am. I’m almost 35. There is something terribly, terribly wrong with me. Please don’t tell me that there isn’t. The number one wrong thing is that I am not Mindy Kaling, for starters.

I mean, look, I’m at the point where I’m thisclose to consulting an astrologist? Astrologer? I don’t fucking know. And this sort of wacky, desperate bullshit would make for wonderful prime-time sitcom television, but the depression and self-loathing and blackness and fatness and fact that men find me absolutely disgusting makes it super hard to pitch my “story”.

Shit, I don’t even want to watch it and I’m the showrunner.

*Aug. 13, 2017: For Very Important Reasons, I stopped watching the show, and being a fan of Mindy’s, about two years ago. I was going to take this post down, but re-reading it provides me with a sense of bittersweet nostalgia which almost drowns out the embarrassment.

Triage.

My needs have not been met.

I feel like a jerk for dwelling so much on the fact that a big part of the life that I dreamed about may not come true, which is weird, since I haven’t even had two weeks to process it. I suppose I feel this way because I’ve been under the impression that I’m to just suck it up and move on when it comes to the little tragedies and heartaches I’ve faced.

It has started to dawn on me that I’ve been trying to function for years and basically failing and beating myself up about it. I just couldn’t understand why I couldn’t simply be normal and thin and do laundry and put on makeup and make my bed and pack a lunch and be on time and take showers and not scream at my parents and stop fantasizing about killing myself until I finally realized that I’ve been wandering around throughout life for the last decade plus three years with a gaping, festering wound that hasn’t been properly dealt with while adding other wounds around it that don’t fully heal and it truly is a wonder that I’m anywhere at all.

I’ve tried to make people understand the screaming void I feel inside, going without any sort of physical intimacy or love for more than a decade. And it isn’t just about the lack of sex. I see single people who’ve gone without sex for a very long time but have children, and perhaps I’m making a huge and incorrect assumption, but I don’t believe that they suffer in the same way because they can hold their child and kiss their child and feel that incomparable parent/child love and know that they are needed and wanted. I imagine that this is not the case for everyone, but it is still something that I do not and possibly will never have.

To never have been held out of romantic love, to go without feeling someone’s lips against mine, a hand in my own; to not feel the pleasure that another’s body can bring mine and to not know if my body can do the same, to continue to go on without these common human experiences year after year after year and to be expected to feel okay and to function normally? I’m starting to figure that that may have been an expectation too great for me to meet.

Perhaps it would be different if we were talking about three years instead of thirteen. Maybe if there had been a kind and gentle lover or two for me to look back on and fondly remember instead of one man-child whose pleasure was derived from the pain he caused me.

How do I make anyone understand what it does to my feelings of self-worth to admit that the only man to see my naked body mocked it? The only words he uttered were meant to criticize and deliver his displeasure? “Find your beauty from within!” everyone screams! “No one is going to love you if you don’t love yourself!” “There is more to life than sex and relationships! By the way, did I tell you all about the fabulous sex I’m having in my feminist, kink-positive, poly-amorous relationship?”

I would just like someone, for once in all this time, to acknowledge my wounds. I don’t want to be handed anymore band-aids or children’s Tylenol in the form of “Well, let’s redo your Match.com profile!” or “What you need to do is organize your closets.” I need wound care. I need stitches and sutures and cauterization. I need major treatment.

I don’t want to hear that no one knew what was going on; that they couldn’t have helped me because I didn’t say anything. The Ambrosia most people knew died 13 years ago and a zombie has been walking around in her place. I don’t know if there’s anything that can bring her back. She’s probably a long lost cause. But I’m here. Try with me.

When I was around, I don’t know, 22, 23 years old, and the wounds were far more fresh, before the gangrene had started to set in, I went to a counselor on my college campus. A black woman. She’d understand me. She’d see the blood, the tears in my flesh, how the wound wasn’t clotting even after two or three years. I don’t know how far how I got with my story. I was telling her about Christmas, about the gifts he’d demanded, and how I’d nervously driven all over the state to make sure I found each thing on the list, worried about what psychological trauma he’d inflict on me if I failed. I might have even told her about my visit to the emergency room in the middle of the night that he wouldn’t take me to. “If you’re gonna go, you’re going alone” he’d growled. She’d rolled her eyes and thrown her hands up in the air. “He was a 19 year-old boy” she interrupted. “That’s how 19 year-old boys are. I mean, really, what did you expect?” That I years later dated and was rejected by her son only added insult to injury.

Though I don’t want the focus to be all on him, I do want it to be understood how hard it is to feel normal and unbroken when the last relationship you’ve had and the only physical intimacy you’ve known is with someone who was so cruel to you, no matter their age. I can’t believe it took me this long to figure out that this has been the black cloud I’ve been under for so long. And every time someone said that boyfriends and sex were overrated and that I didn’t want one anyway and did I really want children and that I had to focus on loving myself and that I wasn’t trying hard enough to meet people and maybe it was because I went natural or put on weight or didn’t smile enough or lived in the wrong city, they dug their dirty finger deep into my wound when they should have wrapped their arms around me and said “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. It’s not your fault. You need to heal. You need to rest. ”

In the meantime, does it mean that while I heal, I must still go without physical, emotional, and sexual intimacy? Do I have to continue to starve? When you starve a thing it dies and I’m afraid that my ability to give and express love and intimacy is in fact dying.

In the meantime, while I heal, can I be brought back to life?

Shut up, I probably can’t have kids.

A sexy, blonde, white woman’s story is not exactly what I was hoping for when I googled ‘single over thirty infertile i cry i lie down and i cry’.

I forgot to post something yesterday. And I missed the first day of the month. I am absolutely challenged by following the parameters of this blog challenge. Get it? ‘Cause it’s a blog challenge? And I’m challenged by it? Shut up, I probably can’t have kids.

I should have t-shirts and buttons and business cards made that say that, that way when I inevitably screw up I can just hand people a card or point to the t-shirt or shiny button I’m wearing and silently frown at them, daring them to judge me with their judgmental, fibroid-free uteri and sperm-filled penises. Gross.

When my brain got the message that my hopes of conceiving, carrying, and birthing fat, brown, sweet-potato pie babies were most likely dashed, it immediately decided that the most logical response was for me to stop all efforts at grooming and personal hygiene beyond what could be accomplished with wet wipes. I can imagine my brain shouting orders to the rest of my body like the foreman of some never to be completed, poorly planned construction site:

“All right folks, let’s shut her down! Get those armpits funky and furry! Do not send any additional blood flow to the limbs! That could encourage her to get up out of the bed and/or recliner! Make sure those pupils focus in on the satin bonnet and not the Denman brush and Aussie Moist conditioner! What she can’t see won’t hurt her. Olfactory department, you’ll simply have to get used to the smell. It’s what you were designed for, dammit. I’ll increase her cravings for Oreos, that way any efforts to brush her teeth will be absolutely futile! Why bother, with the beautiful black crust that’s gonna form on her molars? It’s gonna be magnificent, boys! Magnificent!”

Don’t worry; I had to go back to work today, which meant I had to shower and brush my teeth for the good of mankind. My brain tried to fight it, though. I could smell my armpits trying to karate chop against my organic raw shea butter soap as I scrubbed away at them with the wash rag. I poured a little extra soap down the drain in their memory. They lost the battle and the war. Damn.

It’s weird how my brain goes into shutdown mode when things get fucked up, especially because almost immediately after shutdown mode commences, it decides that I want to buy ALL the make up and do ALL the hair and be ALL the Beyonce. Or at least Shangela (and I’m always screaming “Dag, why can’t we be Jujubee?!?”).

Do you remember that episode of “Sex and the City” that I’m not going to bother to link to? You know, the one where Charlotte has a miscarriage and won’t go to Brady’s birthday party and stops taking showers and stuff and gives up on life and then she watches the “E! True Hollywood Story” on Elizabeth Taylor or something and Liz is all “When life is shitty, just put on some lipstick, some pumps, and be like, ‘Fuck that; bitch, I is fabulous.'” That was Liz’s quote, word for word. It’s even on her grave and everything.

Well, Charlotte did put on some lipstick and some pumps, along with this pink dress that was completely inappropriate for a child’s birthday party, which I think is the absolute right thing to do when you don’t and maybe can’t have kids: wear some shit that you should not be wearing to remind everyone that you don’t or can’t have kids to make them feel bad about their lives and/or bad for you because why should all the attention be on some stupid baby that probably can’t even talk or doesn’t even have it’s own blog?

And that is the moral of this story: shut up and pay attention to me, because I probably can’t have kids and did not plan a proper ending for this particular post.

Queen of Southern North America.

The Canadians did not recognize me in my true form.

When I went to Toronto, I was under the impression that the moment I stepped off the plane, Canadian men would begin to fall at my feet and worship me as an exotic queen come to them from a far away land.

Instead, a drunken man who repeatedly bragged that he was retired and had breath that stunk of stale cigarettes violently rubbed my back and hair before vomiting into his beer glass on my second night in town.

A few days later, I played dress up in an H&M. My local store had closed, so I was feeling nostalgic. On my way out of the dressing room, my arms full of clothes, what appeared to be a young adult male gazed at me longingly; his ear gauges stretching his lobes to just the right level of droop; his hair swooped and spiked. He smiled at me, the hoop in his bottom lip gleaming under the fluorescent lights. “Beautiful choices you’ve got there” he cooed. I smiled and thanked him, totally confused as to whether he was trying to pick me up or get me to let him try on the stuff I wasn’t buying.

There was the African cab driver who put his car in reverse to yell something in a foreign tongue and angrily gesture that I get into his vehicle immediately after I got out of a car at a Tim Horton’s. Oh, and the group of 13-year-old boys that whistled and shouted “Excuse me, Miss!” as I walked to the CN Tower.

I was almost and finally recognized as the majestic beauty that I am by a handful of altogether inappropriate and eclectic male suitors and all I had to do was apply and pay for a passport, take a week off work, book a flight, pay for round trip tickets, and arrange for transportation to and from the airport to do it.

 

Gee, has it really been that long?

My last blog post up in this piece was in May. Damn. Sorry, anybody still reading. Well, I’m back. I decided to accept the #31WriteNow blog challenge, which I then promptly forgot about, so of course I’m starting a day late. Story of my life. I have a valid excuse, as I had surgery on July 31st, so there. Feel sorry for me!

A lot has happened in my absence. The Condo of Doom is actually becoming a lovely place. My hair is now blonde. I went to Toronto. I had a spinal tap. I had to go to the emergency room. I had to have something called a blood patch. I had all sorts of procedures involving my hoo-ha. I learned that I probably won’t be able to have children. And I sort of became slightly tumblr famous by writing fan fiction about. . . um. . . ahem. . . Drake.

Yeah, I glossed over lots of ugly bits there in the middle, but I don’t really want to talk about any of that. I’ve had to talk about all that stuff at the one place where I shouldn’t have to utter a single word about my personal life: work. Getting time off requires that we perform a lyrical dance and recite free-form poetry that describes when we need time off and why.

Anyhoodle, you can expect the tales of woe and mirth about my life as an unsexed, lonely, anonymous spinster to return for at the least the next 30 days.

I know you can’t wait.

I can see why I’m single, too.

Hey. So, life’s been rough. At least the one that I live in my head. All I want to do is eat cookies and play The Sims and sleep, so I’m probably a tid-bit depressed, hence my lack of posts to this here blog. I shaved my armpits AND am updating my semi-abandoned blog today; that’s probably the most I’ve done since Christmas.

Anyweiner, I have a month left on that gotdang Match.com and I just discovered that a muscular, well-dressed, silky dark chocolate colored black man just wrote me a nice message. If you know me even a little bit well, you’ll know that I promptly farted on that guy’s hopes and dreams (and my mother’s) and blew him off. He’s SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO not my type. But I did so in a way that was unflinchingly honest and that amused me, so I figured that I’d post it here in lieu of any new content while I get myself together. Please to enjoy, and thanks for hanging in there with me:

Re: Robot

Hahahaha! Hey! You’re certainly not the only one to robot (I’m using it as a verb) in public. It’s fun and awesome.

So M____, I’m a little surprised to see that you wrote to me. I am no vegan and to be perfectly frank, find the idea of veganism exhausting and ridiculous. I grew up in the Pentecostal church, but I chose to walk away a few years ago. I like booze. I don’t drink a lot, but I drink. I haven’t purposefully exercised in probably more than a year. I’m fat; fat is just an adjective to me, so I’m not being “one of those girls” in saying that I’m fat. Basically, I’m a fat, meat-eating, booze-drinking, agnostic-ish, far left-leaning, nose ring-wearing, would-rather-watch-TV-than-do-a-distressingly-long-list-of-things kinda chick who realizes that she dresses a lot of the time like a hipster lesbian and is okay with that.

I say all of that to explain why I don’t think we’d be a good romantic match. I would roll my eyes way too often at your food choices and Bible scripture quotes. You seem like a nice dude with a lot going for him. You’ll find someone. You’re probably dating some nice lady right now that you’re not sure about. I bet you she’s great. Give her a chance! And if she isn’t, you’re a muscular black man; you won’t be alone for long.

Thanks for your email. It made my day to meet another robot aficionado.

Take care,
Ambrosia

Yeah. So in case it’s not clear, I can’t with this fine fellow because:

• He’s a VEGAN.
• He might be a Mormon.
• He’s most likely a Born-Again/Evangelical Christian.
• He has on a bow-tie in one of his profile pictures.
• He quotes the Bible repeatedly in his profile.
• He’s looking for a woman who’s into “eating healthy and exercise”.
• HE’S A VEGAN.
• He was like, super shiny in his pictures. But in a fancy way. Like, he probably searches the Interwebs for Kanye West’s skin care regimen so he can get tips on taking his look to the next level and typing that has made me want to punch everything in the vulva.

 

Le sigh. I’m totally going to have a commitment ceremony with a rescue dog, aren’t I?

 

What’s so ‘no’ about no?

See? ‘No’ is so easy to say that a group of middle-aged men got together and wrote a song about it and then had pretty teenaged black girls sing it. Source

I fear that when I return to my currently godforsaken place of employment in 14 hours and 22 minutes that I will have the living shit embarrassed out of me. Yes, more than usual. Here’s why:

Over the summer, a handsome man began to appear fairly regularly at the old jobby-job. In my line of work (and no, I’m not going to come out and tell you what it is) I deal with a lot of students so I just assumed he was one. All the women save for one sensible and fabulous young lady lost their minds whenever he came in. They went crazy for good reason. Picture Jason Statham’s younger, taller, balder, hotter, vaguely Puerto Rican looking brother and you’ve got this guy. I tried my best to keep my cool because I hate attractive people that KNOW they’re attractive and try to capitalize on said attractiveness and I judge attractive people with a harshness that sometimes frightens me. But not for long.

See, I figure if you look that good, something has got to be hella wrong with you. I won’t put the fault(s) I ultimately find on blast. Usually. They’re more for my own peace of mind. Since I didn’t find any right away in Jason 2.0, I figured he had to be stupid or a dick or a stupid dick and he’d show his true self eventually. Because most men and especially conventionally attractive men look past, beyond, and/or through me, Jason 2.0 didn’t phase me at first. The giggling, panting, trembling mess that I used to call my staff and coworkers wanted to know his name, so I said “Hey, what’s your name?” complete with the thug’s chin tilt and everything. They wanted to know what he did so I says to him, I says “And whattya do?” He told me while The Mess looked on like a bunch of baby deer. And that was that. Jason 2.0 was just another human male type person with a nice face. And body. Not that I was looking. Ahem.

Then his visits became more and more frequent. He was always smiling and so personable, even with me. He remembered my name. He was friendly. And I could feel my cold, dead heart start to thaw. Based on his line of work he couldn’t be THAT stupid. He had proven to be kind, even when I was a total bitch and wouldn’t give him the 20 binder clips he asked for, afraid that he was trying to pull one over on me with his handsomeness. I gave him 12 and made a big deal about it. He smiled and was polite through the whole thing.

Even though Jason 2.0 was shaving his head to disguise male pattern baldness and appeared to be wearing at least some obviously fake or heavily repaired teeth, he was still beautiful, relatively smart, and kind. I felt like a troll in his presence and made myself scarce when he came around, answering in one syllable grunts when forced into conversation with him. He had proven to be a damn near flawless attractive person which made me feel all the more ugly by comparison.

Eventually, the tide started to turn when I noticed an ever present goofiness about his personality. I’ve always been drawn to men who are basically floppy puppies in human form and he seemed to be a very eager Golden Retriever, with his big smile and enthusiasm and loud, excited talking. And maybe did I notice him looking at me, like he actually saw me as a woman and not some angry blob keeping him from the binder clips? I started to come out of my shell and actually smile at Jason 2.0 and stay in the room when he entered it. I started to think that maybe he was a safe person to like who might possibly like me back.

So I did what any girl would do to show interest in a potentially special person: I eavesdropped and I lied. While busy with other tasks I listened as he shared his Thanksgiving plans with a coworker, noting his ever present excitement over his favorite team playing on the holiday. I was unwilling to watch the actual game but made sure to find out if they won. They did, and the next time I saw him made a point of grunt-whispering (my specialty!) “Hey, your team won.”

The look on his face was so. . . bright, I guess, that you’d have thought I’d handed him season tickets. “You remembered!” he gasped. I turned red and farted out a “Yeah.” And you wonder why I’m single.

He then asked me sports-type questions and I felt my eyes start to glaze over. I initially told the truth, sort of, saying that I hadn’t watched the game as I didn’t like either team. He asked me who I did like and I lied and told him who my dad likes, as taste in sports teams seems to be genetically inherited and/or geographically based. He “reminded” me about an upcoming game between his team and “mine” and rattled off facts and figures I tried to listen to. I then shouted out names that I hoped had something to do with the sport and we had a friendly rivalry going. I had something to talk to Jason 2.0 about.

I felt particularly brave after all the fibbing I did about being a sports fan, so I sent him an email telling him how excited I was that my team was going to destroy his and thanked him for the chat. He wrote back the next day, writing that he’d be watching the game with friends who liked my team and like to “talk junk” and could see that junk-talking was right up my alley. He ended his message by stating it was always a pleasure chatting with me.

For a minute I thought that maybe I could become a sports fan. I looked up stats and read about the rivalry between the teams. It didn’t take, but I tried. His team beat “mine” by one point. I couldn’t wait for him to stop in so we could resume our good-natured teasing.

He didn’t and I was a bit disappointed, but it’s a busy time of year in our line of work so I thought I’d be brave and reply to his message. I told him I expected him to come in and brag about his team’s win, but figured he hadn’t since a one point win wasn’t anything to brag about. I then wrote the unthinkable: “Hey, would you like to get a coffee or a drink or something with me?”

And here’s where the title of this post comes in. He hasn’t written back. I haven’t seen him either. He came in looking for me on Monday, telling a coworker he had to talk to me about something and for a chunk of time much larger than I’d like to admit I was excited and hopeful. He was looking for me? He has to talk to me about something? I was ready to pick out flatware until it dawned on me: if his answer was yes, he would have written back something along the lines of “Sure. Where and when?” He’s looking for me to tell me no.

I don’t know what it is that makes ‘no’ such a no for men. Maybe it is for women too but I don’t care about them (In this context. There, is that better?). All of my unanswered messages sent on Match.com. The guy a friend tried to set me up with who wouldn’t write back to my message of “Hello! You sound great! Hope to meet ya?” The dork who took me on six dates and spent hours of valuable phone and email time that he could have spent masturbating to his Star Wars action figure collection. Why couldn’t ANY of them just say ‘no’?

Now this ding dong is gonna come all up in my job tomorrow to tell me how he’s flattered, but oh, he just couldn’t. Hey mastermind; you could have saved us both a heap of trouble and sent this to me in a got dang email three to six days ago. Did it never occur to this nincompoop that I might be getting my hopes along with my BMI up? Why would you wait to dash a bitch’s dreams of caressing your bald head? And why would you do it in person?

I guess I should be touched that he’s doing it at all considering my track record. But I’m not because up until about seven hours ago I was delusional enough to think that he was coming in tomorrow to tell me ‘yes’ until I realized how dumb that would be, waiting a week to deliver good news. There’s a reason motherfuckers never fire workers on Monday. Those sadistic bastards get their rocks off from the wait and the week’s worth of labor. The “nice” ones are simply trying to avoid the inevitable.

I am going to get fired by a handsome-ass man tomorrow. I don’t think he’s going to offer me a severance package.

“But Ambrosia, couldn’t you be wrong? What if he did want to wait and say yes and make plans in person?” you ask. Dear reader, don’t be ridiculous. What in my history would make you think that? Remember, my last surprise was some douchenozzle I called a friend decked out in blackface. Jason 2.0 showing up to my job slathered in shoe polish is more likely than him coming to say ‘yes’ to my coffee or whatever date.

**************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

It’s now the tomorrow I was so fearful of above. There’s an hour left till I go wait in line to see The Hobbit by myself  am finished with work and there has been no sign of Jason 2.0. Actually, I can’t say that with complete certainty as I made sure to busy myself in a remote area far from my desk during the time that he usually arrives. Yes, I am a chicken.

That still doesn’t change my frustration. I’ve mentioned before ’round these parts how hurtful being ignored is. To not even deem me worthy of a response is maybe the shittiest thing ever, second only to the explosive diarrhea caused by a BK Veggie Burger. Or so says a friend of mine.

The worst part is that based on his profession he is supposed to be at least a little bit skilled in the art of interpersonal interaction. Did I miss the study that found that people respond more favorably to being ignored and possibly avoided than to be simply told “No thanks. I’m not interested/dating someone/married/involved in a plot to castrate Justin Bieber and can’t really focus on dating anyone right now.”?

I don’t know. I don’t have anything else to say that I haven’t already said before. Dating while me SUCKS.

Weird science.

What I wanted was a picture of a drag queen done up like a mad scientist, but I’ll settle for this. Source

I’m gonna conduct me some experiments.

Ain’t nothing going the way I want it to, so I’m gonna go ahead and change ALL the things around. To the best of my abilities. Before something else distracts me. Like another weekend marathon of Rupaul’s Drag Race Allstars. Ahem.

My first experiment involved my logging on to that godforsaken Match.com and once I did, shit got real. I put up pictures that I took, like, yesterday, that showcase my fat ass and Bruno Mars butch queen hair cut and took down the ones from thinner, longer haired days gone by. Went ahead and changed my body type descriptor to “Full-Figured” (I would have preferred to use “Heavy-Set”, but it just sounds so masculine.). I changed the essay portion of my profile to one that accurately showcases my sparkling personality. Now it’s time to sit back and wait. For what, I don’t know.

I’ve got three more months to comply with Match.com’s rigamarole surrounding their six-month guarantee before I can get my $100-and-something-dollars back. If I can show that I’ve done all the crap that they say will get me a date but don’t actually get a date after six months, they’ll refund my money. Okay, Match. We’re on. I’ve sent something like 25+ emails to men that caught my eye and received one reply. Well, two, if you count the guy that wrote back to tell me that I had reinforced his decision to never date black women. SUCCESS!

Since I am required to contact five men during each 30-day cycle as part of the six-month guarantee, I did a search to find the next recipient of one of my unanswered emails. I like to use Match.com’s “Reverse Match” option, which is described as “These matches are looking for someone like you based on what you told us about yourself in your profile.” No one is actually looking for a 30-35-year-old, never married, fat, black, average-to-ugly looking woman; it’s just a bunch of guys who have “No preference” listed under height, weight, ethnicity, etc. We simply end up with each other in the list of results when we go searching for someone to pin our hopes and dreams on.

Curious as to who has their sights not really set on a girl like Ambrosia? Here’s one of my favorite candidates:

I love to make aehc ather so happy most to time I lessons the others and I do going out for eating any restaurants and I do love going to en

I do love cooking outside mostly the times I go to park’s a lats and I do go fishing and I go to Parks for the feeds birds and the docs and I love to cooking outside very Mach

AND I LOVE GO TO BY THE BEACH

In case you were wondering, the first part is in bold because that incomprehensible phrase is what this 48-year-old gem used as his headline, you know, that first thing that I or some other lucky girl would see that would draw us into his web of seduction and romance and outside cooking.

I laughed so hard when I read his profile! I laughed and laughed and laughed until I burst into inconsolable tears when it dawned on me that even this man probably wouldn’t respond to an email that I sent to him. I wept bitterly at the thought that unless my super real profile experiment and/or the other I’ve got cooking works, I too will be 48-years-old and still on Match.com and I don’t like feeding birds or lessons the others so what will I write about in my profile?

Speaking of my other experiment: I want to utilize the dying art of the personal ad.

I’d clearly like to have the opportunity to feel like a normal, adult human being that other normal, adult human beings with wieners see as desirable and not as just a sexless lump of too much undigested cookie dough, but clearly the online, picture-prominent dating site isn’t working for me. Set-ups don’t work either, especially ones that are dependent on the introduction being made via picture exchange. I’m just not attractive enough for that sort of thing to work. I don’t have any redeeming physical qualities that a man under the age of 72 would be interested in. But I express myself sort of well through the written word. I mean, I hope I do. The five to nine daily visitors of this blog seem to think so!

The kind of guy that is checking personal ads, which are typically picture-less, is 1.) a serial killer, 2.) desperate, or 3.) that rare breed of man who is looking for someone that he first connects with intellectually and/or emotionally. He’ll worry about connecting with the writer’s vagina later. I need to attract the last two types of men. Though I have always wanted to turn in a serial killer to the authorities. It just stinks that you run the risk of being murdered, probably quite viciously and in a prolonged manner. Anyway.

I’d start my ad by highlighting my physical flaws in the hopes that once we exchange pictures, dudes are saying “Oh, she’s not that bad” after they’ve clicked on the emailed photo attachment. I’d get all the quirky, nerdy things about me out in the open. I could be specific in who I’m looking for, if I ever figure that out. I could be my best and worst self, all in a few hundred words. And I wouldn’t be dismissed right away because I’m too black or fat or old or not fat enough or ugly! They’d HAVE to get to know me first; they’d HAVE to take a gamble on me sight unseen! I NEED the personal ad in my life!

I answered one once and lived to tell the tale. Some Indian man was looking for a full-figured black woman to date. At the time, I was really into Indian men, I thought. To be perfectly honest, I like the idea of interracial dating for myself mostly because as someone who has been bombarded for the last 28 years or so with the message that nobody wants a black women, including/especially black men, it’s pretty dope to have some guy that doesn’t look like me think I’m hot and awesome, maybe even if it’s just because I’m black. Being fetishized does get old quick though. Catch-22, man.

Anyway, I answered that ad and gave the guy a chance for a bit. He turned out to be – or at least looked – far older and hairier than the picture he sent me indicated. He was a braggart and rather materialistic. And I had a sneaking suspicion that he was married. But I lived through the experience. He seemed to like me as much as an obnoxious, arrogant person can like another. It was a short lived confidence boost, too, even if I was the only woman dumb enough to answer his ad.

As the dreaded Holiday Season quickly approaches, I am even more compelled to test out my hypothesis that a not conventionally attractive person like myself may have better luck using personal ads without pictures. I can’t bear the thought of going to yet another holiday party solo. This is why I am thinking about expanding my personal ad experiment and creating one in search of a BFF along with one advertising my need for a lovah.

Now, if you’re reading this, it’s very likely that you’re a friend of mine in real life. You may be insulted by my proposing to advertise my need for a best friend. But here’s the thing: you’re great, probably. I most likely enjoy your company and chances are I think you’re a decent conversationalist. However, you have a spouse/partner/lover and/or children and/or pets and I can’t compete with those people and animals. I need a friend who is as “free” as I am. I need a friend with benefits.

Not those kind of benefits. I’m talking about the benefit of having a friend who has a “lifestyle”, if you can even call it that, similar to mine. I know I don’t rate very highly on anyone’s totem pole seeing as how I don’t give the people in my life sex or macaroni necklaces or poop on the rug.  I know that, apparently, pushing out babies and/or sharing a bed with someone you kind of like makes one much more likely to use the word “exhausted” pretty exclusively. I need someone who wants to go out on weekends and isn’t encumbered and drained by responsibilities to others. I need a plus one for weddings and parties so I can stop being the goddamn third or fifth wheel ALL of the time. I need a stylish fat girlfriend to go shopping with and a gay boyfriend to sit with at the movies.

I sort of have those things already, but there’s always a catch. My gay boyfriends live crazy far away. My stylish fat friends don’t have disposable income for shopping because their kids need stuff. If I’m going to be single, sexless, petless, and childless, then I need a partner in crime. I need someone to whom I am very important. And I’ll say again, I don’t want to compete with the uncompeteable for their loyalty and attention.

I think I’ve provided an excellent basis for my need to conduct these pseudo-scientific experiments. The biggest hitch in my diabolical plan is that damn Craig’s List. I dread and resent having to use that service, the only and creepiest game in town, in an attempt to make my dreams come true while orange-skinned, pushing-40, Chola-brow having HOES don’t have to do ANYTHING but cheat on their second husbands to get what they want (Weirdly specific example, I know, but it’s one that ABSOLUTELY ENRAGES me. Maybe someday I’ll tell the story behind it.).

Years ago, there was a pre-op transsexual advertising her services on Craig’s List to be the live-in companion to a “real” girl, as she put it. She wanted to provide maid services and in exchange, hoped her employer would allow her to do perfectly reasonable things like watch her sleep, paint her toenails, brush her hair, and give her back massages, all while she wore a classic french maid’s costume with fishnets and heels. Change the brush to a wide-tooth seamless comb, and how could I say no?

I still regret not answering her ad. Man, I could have killed ALL the birds with one stone if I had, even if she turned out to be the Bird with One Stone Killer.

Just trying to outlive Jesus.

Totally bummed I didn’t think of the concept of outliving Jesus first, but totally psyched that it was The Onion that beat me to it. Source

It’s been a long time. I shouldn’t a left you. Without a dope post to read to. Read to, read to, read- Eh, it doesn’t really work, but I tried.

Lots of crap has been going on. So much so that it has prevented me from thanking and responding to the handful of new folks who’ve left comments or ‘liked’ past stuff (Thank you so much! I love you!) or writing more than one cuss-filled post during the month of September. I thought I’d start out this post by sharing a list pertaining to the lots of crap in an effort to maybe make you, my dear 6 and 3/4 readers, laugh; feel better about your own life by comparison; and reassure you that this blog and unfortunately I are still alive.

• After six years filled of wonder and amazement, I moved out of my apartment. The plan was for me to move into the home of my beloved dead grandpa; – For mental health and self-esteem reasons I’m supposed to be calling it my home. That ain’t gonna happen anytime soon. – that plan is on an indefinite hiatus, mostly because it appears as though someone set off a bomb in his two-story, three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bathroom condo. A bomb that both destroyed everything and opened a portal to 1975.
• I have been living out of one suitcase in the home of my parents who have recently retired. I sleep in my childhood bedroom that has become the storage space for the stuff my parents don’t want and/or don’t know what to do with (How fitting!) on an air mattress which I managed to pop just this morning (FINALLY!). I have come to the awful conclusion that I might kinda hate my mall-walking, liquid-vitamin-taking, Dr. Oz-worshiping mother and father. Just a little bit.
• I am still single.

Anyway. In two days I am going to be 33 years old. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but like most things, I hate my motherfucking birthday. I especially hate all birthdays after the twentieth, because that’s when the expectations attached to age begin. So not only will someone probably die (my 28th, 29th, and 30th birthdays), break up with me (my 26th), give me the swine flu (my 30th), or lock themselves in my car and refuse to participate in the festivities (my 23rd) on my “special day”, you expect me to have accomplished shit too? Oh, here go hell come.

Birthdays have always been just an overflowing bag of sad for me for as long as I can remember. As a kid, birthday parties were contingent upon whether or not I had been “good”. Ma and Pa Jones would typically do the “Do you think you deserve to have a birthday party, Ambrosia?” thing with me and being a highly intelligent and precocious child, I knew that the answer was ‘no’. I mean, if ya have to ask, amiright? It seemed that Ma Jones loved to say the following, as I heard some variation of it each year: “And you think you’re having a birthday party? You? Ha! Little girls who have birthday parties do not roll their eyes at their mothers!” It was all I could do not to demand empirical evidence from her. “What are you basing this data on? Show me the numbers!”

I’m not anybody’s mother, so I don’t know if birthday parties ought to be doled out sparingly or not. Maybe my parents were doing what most parents do. But to a girl who’s an only child, lives in a child-free neighborhood, doesn’t really fit in with the kids at church, doesn’t get to socialize all that much with her school friends, and experiences a nagging sense of unshakable loneliness that follows her throughout her entire life, the birthday party rations really sucked. It was my one chance out of the year to be the center of attention, to demand things (whether or not those demands were fulfilled is another thing entirely), and be surrounded by friends. To have that be dependent on whether or not I’d been a model child was way harsh, considering that, at least in my parents’ eyes, I never quite measured up.

Don’t even get me started on expectations and birthday parties. Good god, how I loathe expectations. And yet, I am full of them. I was quick to write that I blame my life-long love of books, movies, and television for the ridiculous expectations swirling around in my head when I hear the words “birthday”, “Christmas”, “New Year’s Eve”, “wedding”, and “drag ball”, but to be perfectly honest, I’ve witnessed enough magical loveliness in real life happen to people I know that I am comfortable blaming them. The parties my friends and acquaintances have for their children leave me itching to call 9-1-1 to turn in my parents on a 25 year-old charge of neglect. Every kid in the class gets to come! Brand-name goodie bags! Elaborate themes! PG-13 movies! Designer clothes and shoes! Cake with a picture of your face on it!

A girl I knew rented out part of a nightclub to celebrate her 24th birthday. That’s not even a milestone age or anything. It was sort of supposed to be a joint party for me and some other October babies too, but I only told one friend about it because it was in Manhattan and I knew no one else would come. She had signature drinks, and embossed invitations, and her own waiter, and color-coordinated decorations that matched her outfit and makeup and the drinks and invitations. It was super fun, i.e., I got really drunk. I think I totaled my car on my 24th birthday (Not that same night, or year, even. Drunk driving is lame.). Not quite as fun.

Thing is, I don’t even want my own waiter or a cake with my face on it. Designer clothes and shoes would only be ruined in my grubby little accident-prone hands. “Signature drinks” is a stupid concept that I fall for every time I see them on a menu or watch “My Fair Wedding with David Tutera”. You know what kind of party I really like? Remember that one scene in “You’ve Got Mail” when Meg Ryan’s character has people over and Archie Bunker’s wife plays the piano and they sing and laugh and drink wine and everyone’s wearing a sweater and Greg Kinnear is tone deaf? I love that. The only things that party is missing is candlelight, dancing, more food and booze, The Gays, and me.

Don’t get me wrong, someday I want to blow a couple hundred bucks on a night out at Lucky Cheng’s and maybe have a closed-mouth make-out session on a dance floor with a handsome stranger (It’s a cultural thing, and blech!). But I don’t need any of that to have a nice birthday party – if I were still celebrating my birthday. I have vowed to never again attempt to have a party or make any birthday demands (I did tell Lisa she could make me her chicken casserole and bake a lemon cake, but she asked first.) or even mention the dreaded day after last year’s debacle. I haven’t mentioned last year’s debacle in great detail here other than explaining that it is from hence this blog’s name was birthed. Since The Day of Dread is less than 48 hours away, I’ll tell that story now by revising what I wrote and shared on that social networking site.

Actually, upon proofreading said post, I’ve decided to share it in its (hardly) unedited entirety. A quick re-read after a year made me do it:

I told ya so!  I told ya something bad was gonna happen on my birthday!

I do hate to gloat, truly I do, but I want people to understand that I’m not a sad sack of misery just because.  I’ve got history on my side!  Like my Jane has started to say, I’m looking at the facts!

Okay, if I’m going to look at ALL the facts, I ended up having a lot of fun with some truly wonderful friends.  But you didn’t come here to read about fun and wonderfulness.

What had happened was this:  In order to forget about the fact that I was turning another year older, I wanted to eat some food, go dancing and drink some drinks.  Last year, this was a bit of an issue, so I tried to keep things chill.  I figured if people wanted to come, they’d come.  If they wanted to eat, they’d eat.  If they wanted to dance- you get my drift.  I live in a city that I wouldn’t choose to hang out in, so I picked another as the destination because they have more than one of things and classier people and more interesting violence and danger.  What?  They do!

So I make reservations for the night before my actual birthday.  A group of relatives from out of town and their friends essentially invited themselves (this is key) to the gathering as an act of solidarity as they were aware of the History of Bad Birthdays, which I initially appreciated.  A group of friends offered to drive me that night so I could be free to indulge in spirits if I chose.  The group of friends was coming from another gathering that evening and the plan was for them to pick me up at 8:00 so we could make the 8:45 reservation.  Unfortunately, stuff happened, and they didn’t make it to get me until 8:30.  As soon as I learned that my ride was running late (8:05), I sent word to my relatives and friends already on their way to the restaurant.  Additional stuff happened – none of which involved me being late; bitches, I was dressed and ready to go for 8:00pm for once! – and our caravan didn’t hit the road till 8:45.

Yes, this was unfortunate.  But it was a Saturday night.  The group that was already there was “having fun”, or so I was told.  I assumed they’d have some drinks and order some appetizers and chill.  It was a birthday party, not a business meeting.  And I stayed in contact with them every step of the way, apologizing profusely.

We make it to the other city and it’s after 9:00pm.  We park in the first lot we find – which ended up being 6 blocks away from the restaurant.  The seven of us make our way down the street and I’m texting those already there – “We’re 4 blocks away! I’m sorry!”  “We’re 3 blocks away! I’m SO sorry!”  As we pass the Public Library, which is relevant because that meant we were about halfway there, I get a text from my cousin who I didn’t even expect to show up.  Not only did I not expect her, I had been instructed to keep her presence a secret, which is a topic for another note that I’m not going to write because that mess is none of my business.

Anyhoo, the secret cousin I didn’t expect had an early morning event the following day, my actual birthday, and that was one of the not torrid reasons that I didn’t expect her.  So, I think nothing of the fact that the first text I received from her read:

“This is so poorly planned.”

Yeah, I suppose it was.  They had been waiting about an hour.  I get that that can be annoying.  Buuuuuuuuutttttt, they weren’t waiting at a bus stop.  They were waiting in an awesome Japanese restaurant, with people they knew and supposedly like/love and it was my f’ing party; I’ll show up when I want to.  (I don’t really mean that last bit.)  As I am about to respond with a sincere mea culpa, my cousin whom I DIDN’T EXPECT TO SHOW UP AND TECHNICALLY WASN’T INVITED sent me a second text:

“I can see why she’s single.”

OOOOOOHHHHHHH.  So those texts weren’t meant for me after all.  Home girl hit my Achilles heel with that one.  The only other thing she could have written that would have been as devastatingly hurtful would have been “I can see why she’s fat.”  And shut up, I am fat, and the sooner we all acknowledge that fact the faster we can move on.

I closed my phone, put it in the pocket of my jacket and kept walking.  I could feel the tears start to well up, my heart was alternately stopping and pounding out of control and I didn’t know what to do.  We finally make it to the restaurant and I’m sure the look on my face was not a pleasant one.  If anyone noticed, they probably chalked it up to the fact that I had walked 6 blocks in 3 inch heels and was an hour late to my own birthday party.

Both the restaurant and the folks who had already arrived failed to save/ provide enough seating for the entire group, so a lot of awkward standing around commenced as we waited for extra chairs.  I was shaking and my face was on fire.  I had just learned that my cousin was talking shit about me and I assumed she had realized her mistake by then, too.  If she did, she said nothing.  We finally sit down and I knew that if I said nothing, that text and the venom behind it was going to eat me up and ruin an already screwed up night.  So, I lifted up my menu and whispered what had transpired to my friend Dick on my right, begging him to keep it to himself, and then promptly excused myself.  I felt better already that someone else knew about what happened.  I went to the ladies room and Jane followed me in in outrage.  Dick is her husband and told her that I was probably in tears because of the text I wasn’t supposed to see.

I was actually kind of fine!  No tears, just pee pee, and I assured Jane that I was cool.  No need to confront my cousin and her wig (I’m sorry!  I’m entitled to one dig, right?); let’s just eat, drink and be merry.

The night continued and yeah, dinner was kind of awkward, but sake solved that, mostly.  The out of town crew went home right after dinner because of the texting terror’s early morning thing, and I had a ball with my actual friends who make sure that the nasty texts they write about me make it to their intended recipients.  Ha.

I’m gonna skim over a lot of stuff now because I’m SUPER lazy, but the morning of my actual birthday involved me crying hysterically over the text.  Hey, I didn’t let it ruin my night, which for me is a REALLY BIG DEAL, but I needed to grieve over it.  That shit hurt!  I eventually and very gently, and according to my friend, with class, let my cousin know that I got the texts and assumed they weren’t meant for me and hoped that she enjoyed her charity walk.  She wrote back and didn’t acknowledge the texts, but asked me how my night was.  It took me hours to gather the courage and nerve to answer, but when I finally did, I said this:

“you know, despite those texts you sent me, i had a really great time with my friends.  thanks for asking!”

She called, I wouldn’t answer, got yelled at out of love by Jane and Dick, who had taken me out for birthday pancakes, cried some more, and eventually spoke to my cousin about the Birthday Debacle.  On my actual birthday, mind you.  And here, in helpful bullet point form, is what she said:

• She don’t like waitin’.
• People need to respect her time.
• She’s very punctual and expects others to be the same.
• I should have had a plan B and C.
• I should have left my friends and driven myself to the restaurant so that she didn’t have to wait so long.
• She was mad that the restaurant “kicked us out” at 11:30pm because she wanted to take pictures.
• She didn’t get a chance to go out afterwards because I was late.
• Oh, and yeah, poor planning can in fact lead to chronic singleness.

If you are observant, you may have noticed that her ass never once uttered the following :

“I’m sorry” or even, “Happy Birthday”.

And in case it matters, my cousin is also single.  She’s in the midst of a nasty divorce, actually, and lives back at home with her mother and shares a room with one of her two children.  So much for planning and punctuality!  But that’s mean of me to say.  I guess.

I didn’t respond to anything she said, other than mentioning that I was hurt by the text, particularly the second one.  After she was finished, I told her I was hanging up and that I’d talk to her some other time.  When I was alone that night, I cried some more.

So, that’s it.  That was this year’s birthday fail.  However, I did have oodles of fun and my friends are super loyal and protective and awesome and really, really mean!  And I love it!

But, yet again, that swift kick to the balls really hurt.  I may not be able to trust my cousin(s).  People – my family members! – seem to be ready, willing and able to take a switchblade to my Achilles without warning.  And I’m another year past 30 and still really, really, REALLY single (and fat).

I may have found an interesting name and concept for a blog, though.  Maybe stay tuned for icanseewhyshessingle.com, hmmmmmmm?  (DO NOT STEAL.)

Gosh. Wasn’t I precious? I sounded so different way back then. I was a mere girl, a child really, just turned 32 and all. That’s what happened and yay, I started a blog and took what was meant for evil and used it for good – shout out to Old Testament Joseph – though the “good” part is questionable. But here’s the thing. I said I had a good time. Whenever I’ve answered the question of “What do you wanna do for your birthday?” with “I don’t do those anymore ’cause of last year” and the person I’m talking to was there, they say “Oh, but you had fun!” I didn’t. I did not have fun. I’m sorry.

What I had was a pretend fun time due to the influence of alcohol. I drank a great deal out of nervousness, worried I’d cry or yell or snatch a wig if I didn’t drown my emotions in booze. Four really lovely friends hung out with me all night. We went to two – TWO! – nightclubs and then to a sketchy diner. They did that for me and I’m grateful. But I didn’t have fun.

I don’t have an inner voice that I can shut up with liquor. That bitch went on and on AND ON all night about how awful I am and how my mean cousin was right. I kept giving her bootleg Dark and Stormies (Why doesn’t any bar stock ginger beer?!?) in the hopes that if she insisted on talking, maybe she’d start to be nice the more I drank. When I went to the restroom and looked in the mirror and saw that the belt to my dress was hanging on by a figurative thread, she let me have it. My cousin’s text had given her ammunition, not that she ever really needs it: “See? She was right. Look at you. So FAT. No one will dance with you, you know. Your friends are pitying you because you are pitiful.”

I went back out there and smiled and drank and laughed and danced. She – my inner voice – was right. No one danced with me. I mean, Eric and Dick took turns dancing with me a little, but that’s not the same. I was the fifth wheel at my own birthday party, grinning madly as I danced with my lovely friends who also happen to be two couples.

I don’t make birthday demands wishes any more. Just let me get through the day and come out unscathed. I’ll cry, I’m sure. I’ve cried every year since probably 4th grade. This year the day will be supremely awkward as I am living staying with my parents who prove each day how little they know about their only child. That might be my fault seeing as how I just grunt and growl in their direction, but I believe, perhaps wrongly, that the people who love you shouldn’t have to be told who you are. They ought to be watching. They ought to already know.

Despite everything, my attitude about my birthday this year is an improvement. There were years I had no intention of seeing, but I guess I got distracted by something, as here I am. The only goal I’ve got for this year is to outlive Jesus. Dude made it to 33; if I can make it to 34 I will have beaten a supreme being at something, even if I’m still living with my parents, fat, at a job where everyone hates me, and of course, single when I do it.