K__ and I had a parent teacher conference this afternoon. (I__ is doing great, which was a relief since there were some minor worries early in the year he might be exhibiting signs of emotional distress.) The original plan had been for me to pick up I__ beforehand (it being my scheduled day). K__ has begun a part-time waitressing job at a new restaurant downtown during lunch. It’s too early to say if the money will be much to speak of, but it’s got to be better than nothing. I’m eager to discuss further adjusting our financial arrangement, but I get the feeling the whole business will stay highly erratic.
It was a slow day today, so they sent her home early. Rather than drive home to C__ town only to turn around and come back out to the school in R__ town, she called and invited me to lunch. I’ve been pretty busy at the office this week — trying to get a big project out, and the rest of the team keeps piling on “last minute” changes. If I didn’t go eat soon, I’d probably end up skipping it altogether. I was out pretty late the last two nights, and the whole day was in danger of taking a dive to match my blood sugar.
Lunch with K__ wasn’t very high on my List Of Things I Really Feel Like Doing Today, but what the hell, it wouldn’t kill me. Truth is, my social energy is running a bit close to empty — it very nearly wouldn’t matter who the company was. Between the alcohol, staying out late, and … well, one story at a time. Occasionally it’d be fair to call me a misanthrope — this wasn’t one of those times, but let’s not push our luck, ok?
Lunch was lunch. No drama, neither enjoyable nor difficult, neither noteworthy nor boring. We ate, we talked kid business, job business, small-talk, we left. The only thing that struck me was that it was the first time the two of us have shared a meal (without I__) in well over a year. Two wouldn’t surprise me. It was surreal and yet the only thing surreal about it was that it was occurring in the first place.
…
In the past few weeks, the number of opportunities to pass my card to seemingly interested women has undergone a significant upturn, and yet they neither call nor write.
I’ve done a couple meet-for-beers dates via internet. Absolute non-events. They’re more fun than going out alone, so I’ll probably keep doing it. That in itself is the disappointing part.
S__ and I burned through several drinks and hours together earlier this week. Our bar hopping landed us adjacent a table of women celebrating a birthday. They were mostly a little older, but several had not lost that screechy I-Just-Turned-Twenty-One-EEEEEEK! I had no chance to take any kind of evasive action. I looked up just as they descended on our table. The stand-out attractive one pulled up next to S__. A friendly, if larger, one dropped in next to me. Conversation went around the table, but favorites had likely been decided before “hello.”
After a polite half-hour, getting up the nerve to talk to the hot brunette / blonde pair at the bar started looking completely sensible. “Save me from the birthday girls,” I said. “Five minutes.”
She did, and it was fun, and I was glad I went for it, but … If it was bull, it’s the best bull I’ve ever heard: after the initial smalltalk I asked what she did for fun. At the time, it sounded like she was describing herself as a soft-core porn star, but later, I realized she probably meant that she was part of some kind of swinger group that trades videos. I know what you’re thinking: “This is a problem, why?!” But she says she’s happily married.
By the time I returned to S__, the dynamic had changed and I chatted up another woman in the group. This one didn’t seem so bad — was that the alcohol talking? I’d certainly been drinking a lot faster than usual. She seemed bored. I was introduced to another (where were they coming from anyway?) and we struck up an effortless, interesting conversation. She was tall and opposite-of-beer-goggles attractive — seeing her was a wave of sobriety. The moment comes for my clever, PG-rated innuendo, and forty-five seconds later she’s apologizing and revealing that she’s gay and with the bored girl.
The bar closed soon after, and I left S__ as he was crawling into one of those taxi vans with the pick of the pack and two or three of the remaining revelers. I didn’t get three blocks away and the phone rings, “The one in the pink skirt asks, ‘what happened to your friend?’”
I hadn’t even talked to the one in the pink skirt. Knowing it was pointless, I changed course and drove to the apartment and drank another beer and tried to be charming with the annoying, unpretty ones while S__ snuck off to the bedroom with W__. Only on my way home did it dawn on me — I’d heard of “grenades” before, and I’d just dived on two of them without even thinking about it. Come to think of it, that’s just how those foxhole stories go.
Last night we went out again. It was more of the same — a couple of opportunities that turn into one half-way decent conversation that’s a complete dead end. He wanted to meet up with this younger woman he’s had the hots for. She was out with friends at a college bar close by that I’d never been to or heard of. Now I know why. It sucked. I tried to muscle through, but my only out was going to be hitting on trashy, barely-twenty-one year-olds and I just didn’t have the ‘nads for it. So, I split.
I should be grateful there’s any night-life at all on a Wednesday night, or for that one briefly entertaining conversation, or that K__ and I can share lunch without it being a big deal. But I’m not. It isn’t enough and I’m not going to pretend.