Dating, a tragicomedy- Chapter One

  

Sorry lovely flapper,  you can vote, and you can get a divorce, but it is going to be miserable.

 13 months ago, M. moved out. It was gradual but it was tough. We knew we wanted to work together and be adults about it. Sane sensitive adults, that is. And I think we have both agreed that while there is inevitable trauma in divorce, if parents behave and the kids don't see their parents hating on each other, the kids will be just fine. That is what we have heard and are banking on anyway. 

   Several months after M. moved out, and by moved out I mean he slept somewhere else but still cooked dinner, got his kids on the bus and was around almost as much as before, he and I were still sad. Yes, sad is the word. Sad is the right word if you mean crying yourself to sleep a few times a week, wiping tears in the bathroom at work, choking while getting the mail, sobbing in between night classes at the local university, while sitting in your dark car, listening to the Cure over your dinner of a thermos of lukewarm soup. Sad is the right word if sad means telling all your girlfriends that any day now you were going to chop off your locks take a vow of celibacy, and become a Buddhist nun.
Well, eventually even the best of girlfriends and sisters need to say buck up.

 In my case it went something like like this...

   Laura G.- "Your eyes are puffy. You look wan. Did I just say wan? And yet, despite your wanness you are quite a catch. Have I told you how lovely your cheekbones are today? You should try online dating."
 
   Me- As I pass Laura the Sauvignon and the bowl of raw cookie dough." Hell no, I don't want another man, I want a dog. And you have amazing hair. How do you do it?"
 
   Laura G.- "Snap out of it Kell, you can't have a dog in your apt. You can come over to my place, we'll sip some white wine and we'll put cute pictures of you up and come up with a profile and it will be fun!"

   Me- [horrified look]

                     For some reason I must illustrate this horrified look as a librarian. How cute is my mani?

 
   Laura G.- "You don't actually have to date anyone. But it will make you feel good about yourself to remember how cute you are."
 
   Me- [horrified look]


A few weeks later I did create a profile. I deleted it the next day. Then one night, as I folded laundry in front of hbo, I created one again. A simple one with a tasteful picture of myself. I closed my lap top, went back to the living room to fold laundry. A half hour later I tiptoed back to my bedroom, opened up my laptop and scurried back to the fat chair in the living room to check on my profile. To my horror, someone, A MAN, was trying to instant message me, at that very moment. I literally snapped it shut, ran back to my room,  tossed my laptop on my bed, closed the door, and resumed folding laundry. I felt violated. And not just a little bit neurotic.
The next day I erased that profile as well.

Eventually I created another one, and slogged through poorly written messages from men my age to 30 years older than me, looking for love, or well, sometimes other things too, but mostly love. It felt like a depressing cycle of rejection. To be honest, I was doing most of the rejecting but it still did not feel good. I was about to quit the online dating thing, again.

Then, a curious thing happened. I got a message. From an overeducated man. I tend to go for that type, maybe I should stop, but I'll discuss that later. The comment was silly. We had something in common. Something dorky in common. And he made a joke of it.  He was cute in a nerdy way. With dark glasses and curly hair.  We wrote back and forth for awhile and eventually he asked me to go for coffee.


To be continued...