The years since FK have been full of those Single Girl cliches that you read about in magazines and relationship books. Traveling, having fun, cultivating friendships with women, being busy busy busy, so busy that I’m not supposed to even notice that I’ve not found The One.  Busy not looking for anyone (he always comes when you least expect it, or some other pandering bullshit), busy not having expectations, busy being fulfilled in my career, busy building a life. To say that the men I have met in those years have not managed to spark a morsel of  real interest would be an understatement.

The last dates I had were in the summer of 2008. I thought I had met a pretty cool guy. He worked at Home Depot. I LOVE Home Depot. I used to walk through the model kitchens and bathrooms in there.  We had a great first date at a cafe–Intermezzo is one of my favorite first date places. Conversation was good, so we decided to go to dinner at a nearby restaurant. He was great to talk to, told awesome stories about his time in the Army in Germany.  As he walked me to my car, he saw that I had a pair of windshield wipers in my backseat. I sheepishly admitted I just hadn’t made the time to switch out my wiper blades. He suggested we meet the next day for brunch and a walk thru the Park and he would switch them out for me.  I was excited. I kind of liked him.

We had a pretty cool 2nd date. We ate, then walked down to the park, sat on a bench in the sun and talked and fed the ducks. Laughed about our favorite movies and episodes of Family Guy. He never did switch out my wiper blades, but we had a long, full summer day together. After which he didn’t make further plans with me.

I was determined to not be daunted by that.  Meanwhile I am messaging GreenEyes like crazy. “What do you think? Does he like me? Will he ask me out again? Should I call him?” After getting a series of  ”Calm your ass down” messages from her, I relented. Go with the flow. I’m breezy!

On occaision,  he would call when he got off work, and we’d talk for a few minutes every night. Since he worked retail, his  schedule varied wildly but after a few weeks he made another date. YAY! We met at Outback t in the Perimeter, and then after lunch he invited me over to his place. I didn’t have any weird feelings about him, so I went. We ended up watching a couple of movies. He was all close and touchy feely  (hand holding and such) but didn’t try to kiss me and didn’t go for any heavy petting. Except for that, actually, he didn’t make any moves at all.

He seemed nice. I liked him. We got along, and he made me consider doing things I normally don’t do, like sit at a sports bar and watch football. There are few people I will do that with.

I invited him to my place for dinner. We watched a movie and ate. He sat all the way on the other end of the couch. Didn’t make one move. Conversation was still great, but I was already feeling the slide.  The slide to the Friend Zone.

One day we were talking and the language changed. The things he started saying,  and how he would say them, couched between ‘friend-like’ phrases. This was something I used to get on FK about, like calling me ‘buddy’. I hate being called buddy.  This guy would call me up and say, ‘Hey bud, what’s up?’ One day he decided to give me some advice on how to attract men.  It wouldn’t have been so bad if the advice didn’t start with  ”If things don’t work out with us, you should be more open to meeting new people, instead of sitting in the house all the time.”

While he was right, he pissed me off by offering the advice in the first place. If he wanted me to leave the house more often, why not invite me out? Why am I getting advice on how to attract someone besides him?  I gave up, right there. He was, to me, brushing me off, trying to pawn me off on someone else already. I stopped answering the phone when he called. Eventually he stopped calling.

This is what happens. I meet someone, it goes okay, and after a date or two, I become “the friend”.  Or we might have a few dates and the guy says,  ”I know you want to wait, but I can’t. It would be unfair of me to try to push you into doing something you don’t want to do– but we can be friends. “ Oh, thanks for playing, here’s a consolation prize! My friendship!

*flips the bird*

Dudes, I’m not trying to be your friend. I have male friends. That’s not what I was looking for with you. I can’t do the Friend Zone. I can’t be demoted from Someone Special to Someone You Know. My brain and my heart don’t work like that, and I know I shouldn’t be ‘that’ attached to people right off, but I have to really like someone to go out with him in the first place… it’s just not that easy for me.

This isn’t a traumatic, He Done Me Wrong song. I know that this is dating. This is what happens to millions of women who date. It’s a game of chance, it’s a game of numbers and it takes perseverance and a iron will to keep pushing through. Or maybe a lot of alcohol. Either way, I just wasn’t cut out for it. I felt rejected at every turn. When I asked men about why I end up there, in The Zone, I get a myriad of answers. Most of them involve sex- if I’m not giving it up, men are not interested.

I don’t understand, then, how some of my (admittedly thinner, cuter, more stylish and worldly) friends can go 4,6, 9 months of dating someone before they decide to take the step.  I feel like I offer a lot to men. I also feel like everything I offer is not enough if it doesn’t include sex on date two. Booohiiissssss.

I made the not very difficult decision to pull myself off of the market.  It was nerve wracking and my self esteem took a beating every day that I was out there. It’s hard work, being charming and open and trying to be the Right One, just in case He’s right around the corner.

I took down all my ads, stopped reading relationship books, stopped thinking about dating, talking about dating, wanting to date. I believed that I wasn’t what men were looking for. Some  said maybe my standards were too high. Maybe I was pushing them away, somewhere. I had no clue, all I knew was that what I was doing wasn’t working and I am hardly insane so I am not going to keep doing the same thing and expecting something different to happen. I didn’t like dating at all.  So I stopped doing it.

Years ago I eavesdropped on a conversation that a guy had with a girl. He mentioned that he was looking for the woman that made him do the relationship work. And then in the next sentence, said something about knowing that he could walk into a place, pick a woman, be nice to her and know that he was going home with her that night.  And that he would, because he could. All the commentary about what he wants doesn’t match what happens when his feet start walking and his nether region starts talking.

I’m so tired of lip service. I’m so tired of relationship books that tell me what to say, how to act, what to change, who to be in order to attract a man, without doing the same for our counterpart. I freely admit that I am a complicated, sometimes nutjob of a person.  Newsflash: Men are not the easiest to deal with either!

I hesitate to type this, like it’s an impossibility (sometimes I feel like it is), but I want to date. I want to return to dating, that is. I miss feeling attractive and desirable– those feelings, though fleeting, were nice when I felt them. I want to meet someone that likes me for me, that is interested in more than what I can do for him in an intimate setting, who ‘gets’ me.  I want to say ‘we’ and ‘us’  again. I only had one chance at that, with FK. It was nice.

I am really embarrassed to admit that I want to date, I want to return to my quest for The One. In fact I have held this post for awhile, simply because that sentence is there. If it was just whining and lamenting about dating, it would have been up on Tuesday.  It could be because after years of searching for it, it has eluded me, so I have insisted that I don’t want it. I don’t need it. It’s not for me. I don’t think it’ll happen for me. I don’t think I’m made that way. I don’t think men want me. I’m not the kind of girl that men are looking for. All of those phrases have left my mouth at one time or another and at the time I believe I truly meant them.

I don’t think I mean them anymore. If I do, I am tired of meaning it.

It makes me sickly nervous to even think about going on a date. I’m not the best dater anyway, but on top of that it’s been forever since I went out with someone. What will he think of me? Where would I even meet him, since the pool of viable online daters has severely dried up, here?  A quick romp through my usual haunts reveals men who’ve been there since 2005! And I know, for sure, that I am not physically ready to get back out there. I want to look and feel my best and be confident in myself. I’m decidedly not there.

Sometimes I look in the mirror and I don’t see bright eyes and a cute nose and full lips and (when I actually DO my hair) great hair and a rockin’ rack and a curvy shape. I still see that awkward, bucktoothed, blind as a bat, unfortunate looking creature that I was in my teens. It’s a picture I am trying hard to erase but even after I close my eyes against the image in the mirror, it stays in my mind’s eye. It is the picture of me inside my head, when I see myself. It is the picture of me that I think everyone sees. It’s that ‘assuming the worst that people could think about me’ and believing that and basing my whole experience on that assumption.

I don’t know how to block that image and those thoughts. I wonder do they ever go away? If I lose 100 lbs, will I still feel like a fat girl? If I got contacts and a weave, would I still feel like the ugly duckling?

If I decide to get back out there, muster up some strength and confidence and put my best foot forward and just keep pushing and keep going for it, could I still never find HIM? Could I still end up alone?

The scary part of asking those questions is that the answer could still be yes.

The other day I found something I thought I had destroyed a long time ago.

Actually. Back up. That is a lie. I went looking for it. I knew all along I still had a copy and where I could find it. I didn’t destroy it, when I found it again, either.

I hardly ever watched Sex& The City because I didn’t have HBO, but then TBS started running it and I would watch it if my remote found it during my constant quest for weird stuff  to watch (documentary whore, I tell you). Recall the episode in which Carrie is dumped via Post It Note: “I’m sorry. I can’t.” I totally, totally have been there. Except it wasn’t a post it. He at least had the courtesy to type and send an email.

All of this past rehash is stirring up old memories. As I take myself on a journey from my past to my present, sometimes I feel a longing to see old things again. I was typing up the previous chapter and thinking about the chapter ahead and remembering beginnings and endings. The letter popped up in my mind. I actually dug for it, found it, and read it.

And then I read it again. I was angry again. I didn’t understand again. And five years later, I still don’t know that I could have done anything to avoid getting that breakup email. The Dear Jane letter.

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Post 2! Thanks for reading and commenting. Again, if you’d like to comment but you’d rather not do so in public, please feel free to email me at curvyjones[at]diaryofcurvyjones or mocahgirl[at]gmail.

At the top of this post on the right hand side you’ll see  a directory of sorts. All posts in this series will be tied together. You can view other posts in this series by clicking on the link in the directory.

This is a long entry, I apologize. I was going to cut it but decided to let it be. It’ll be here if you get tired of reading and want to come back later! ;)

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The Easy Stuff:

This is post 1 of a series of posts, simply so that people don’t have to read a thesis on my life– and neither do I, when I read back. There’s a bit of “about me” stuff floating around the Diary already but I have provided some background for better understanding. If I don’t know where I’ve come from, I won’t be able to guage where I am or where I am going.

Edit: My mom sent me an email tonight to tell me that my dad is in town. Until the 10th. >insert blank stare here< I decided to go ahead and post this so that I can appropriately freak out tomorrow and people will have more of an idea of why I am freaking out.

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