Reading: Smithsonian, Biographer's Tale, Light in August, RIchard II

Moving: A day off

Listening: news

Watching: "Chasing Amy" last night--I love Kevin Smith--and "Gladiator" tonight

20 December 2000: Dating

There's a thread on 3WA about being stood up. Since I never really dated, I was never really stood up. Except this one time, first year of grad school when I did kind of date.

I went out with Keith and Tim a few times in the fall. Keith I met through Orlando, with whom I worked in the campus bookstore. 'Lando knew Keith through their gym, told me he was really bright. The fact that I was bright initially attracted Keith to me, but my continuing intelligence and lack of inclination to fuck him drove him away. I didn't have a lot of self-confidence, but I knew to avoid what would kill my soul, a lesson I learned from Tim. When Tim and I ran into each other wherever, he remembered me from Modern Irish Lit two years before. I shone in that class; I loved it. Our first date was to go see "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead." He wasn't impressed (I later realized) but lied when I discussed it positively afterward. He was bright, too, at least academically. Or should I say, only academically. So that fizzled out, and so ended my dating life for a couple of months, until the beginning of spring semester.

A fellow came up to the service window in Scheduling and rocked my sex-deprived world. Furthermore, his name was David. Unbelievably cute, named David, and he too remembered me from Modern Irish Lit, as I would find out.

(It's worth noting that I remembered neither of them from that class. I was at the top of my game physically and academically that semester, and boys noted my foxy braininess. I was myself completely consumed in my own dualistic love life, and, as I recently wrote, not paying much attention to anyone peripheral to it.)

(I also should note that Tim hadn't graduated between that class and when I was in grad school because he'd spent a school year in Sweden. David hadn't because he had wallowed academically, dropped at the end of that semester, and spent the intervening time in the Air Force straightening out.)

What the hell, I looked up his phone number and called him. My face had cleared up somewhat, after all. And I was thin(nish). And when not physically in those classes or social circles that involved my painful ex-relationship, I could seem normal. Plus I had been on anti-depressants for just over a month and was Taking Charge of my life again. And we had this great conversation! He was, when I called him, making vegetarian stir-fry in a wok, and watching "Northern Exposure" with his roommate. This is when I found out he had been in Modern Irish Lit as well and remembered me. It was all charming and wonderful and I thought oh good, a disciplined nice smart boy I can fuck.

It never came to that. We had a date on a Sunday evening, and he called in the late afternoon and said he would be unable to make it. The scary thing about what I remember here is that I might have constructed all these false memories. I know he was in the Air Force and I know that he had studied for his pilot's license but I don't know if he had earned it yet; what I think I remember is that he was stuck on Martha's Vineyard. But that totally could be selective or inventive memory on my part because the idea of being able to fly out to the islands jauntily instead of taking the ferry was (and is) a devoutly held wish of mine. Perhaps he hadn't such a sound excuse. And I don't rememember what happened after that. Well, I remember that nothing happened, but I don't remember why. And anyway it was a good thing that he blew me off because slightly later that night, ABW called from campus needing a jumpstart. I was her first call and seven minutes away--good thing she had cables and a clue though, as I had neither--so that was good.

There's a quietly amusing epilogue to the David story. Leaving JHA (the humanities building) one day, I saw him ahead of me heading toward the arts building where I was going. I either walked faster or knew better shortcuts because by the time I got to the big faculty parking lot outside Arts, I was ahead of him. I noticed a particular car for two reasons: it was a cherry red Scirocco (a favorite model) and it had a ticket on its windshield--of course: it was parked in a faculty lot but bore a sticker for a student lot. On the backseat I saw a military jacket with his surname across the breast. It was his car! and he'd gotten a ticket! Tee hee. Teach him to blow me off.

Thus ends my dating history. Except for MRC later that spring. He and I had noticed each other in HBL a few times, made a lot of eye contact. One night there was a fire drill or bomb scare or whatever and PLT and I left Homer for the Student Union. There we saw MRC and his companion and got to talking, and PLT was really amused to see the male interest I generated. PLT and I acted about as close and intimate and companionable as we indeed were, and, as MRC would tell me later, he was disappointed because he thought PLT was, and I quote, "your fella." MRC and I saw each other through April. We had little in common besides physical attraction, but I was glad of a study partner. He looked like Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead, a resemblance I didn't see until RDC, with whom I started to go out four months later, pointed it out. However, I don't find Bobby Weir attractive. That would be scary, wouldn't it?

RDC had more in common with MRC than I did--they both flyfished, MRC compulsively, like almost every day, even if in no more promising a spot than the little stream behind his apartment. And I'm glad they met, because otherwise RDC wouldn't've asked, casually chattily small-talking when they ran into each other one day the next winter, what MRC was up to, and then MRC wouldn't've said he was seeing the Cowboy Junkies at Toad's Place that night, and then I wouldn't've sung along with Margo to "Sun Comes Up, It's Tuesday Morning" about ten feet away from her, and she wouldn't've given me that sexy grin she has. And that would have been a tragedy indeed.