Theoretical question. If you were a guy (or if you are a guy, I have a few of those on my flist *hugs my manly friends*) and a woman called you up and invited you to a dinner and a movie, emphasizing as she did so, that it was a date (I believe my exact words were “I’m getting a group together to go out to dinner and to see the new movie Stardust, and I’d like you to be my date”), would you wear a teeshirt and khaki shorts and not shave for 2 days?
Now, I may have been spoiled by my friendship with Chris, who keeps Banana Republic singlehandedly in business, but uh, really, I thought it was more than just Miss Manners preaching to put a little bit of effort into an evening out. Granted, he was post call, I do make allowances, but still.
So there you have my first impression of the evening: not impressed at all.
Okay, I’m being a bit unfair and setting the evening up as a total failure. Which it wasn’t. We had a good time at the restaurant and the food was good (Indian. The Chicken Tandoori was very dry but improved with some of the sauces. The Chicken Tikka Masala was much better, although I have had better. Bombay House for you Utah people. ). I tried very hard not to talk just about medicine (which since it is my life was very hard) and we found a lot of stuff in common and time quickly passed; we actually had to race to the movie. The movie, Stardust, was fabulous and we were both rolling in laughter. And I looked beautiful (for a human). I did. I don’t think very positively about myself very often, but I don’t think I can look better than that.
Jared apparently raved about the evening to his roommates. Both of them came up to me (one practically leapt across the foyer to talk to me, which I found a wee bit amusing as we’ve had very little to talk about before this) and asked me how our date was, which I thought was promising. And better yet, they actually used the word “date,” so I was somewhat reassured that the message had gotten across.
But he barely talked to me today. Well. I guess that says it all.
I told myself that I wasn’t going to have any expectations. And I did manage to squelch most of them. But there’s still that romantic bit that refuses to give up that had hoped, so hoped that maybe, just maybe he would the guy who would find me interesting enough, attractive enough to push for one more date to get to know me better. And that part of me is undeniably hurt tonight.
Geez, I’m crying now.
This isn’t about Jared. I really barely know him, and now I know just a few more small talk things about him. He likes much of the same types of movies as me, has 5 younger brothers and sisters, grew up in Idaho and is, at least when it comes to health care, a Republican (which made me shudder. While I am a moderate, I’m a flaming liberal with my ideas about health care reform). That’s it. But I had hoped for a chance to learn more.
I know, I know the old saying that love comes when you are least expecting it. To stop looking and it will find you. And all I see is years that I’ve been alone, where I haven’t been looking and it hasn’t come, and a future that doesn’t appear to be changing.
I’ve always stocked my unattractiveness to the fact that I’m overweight. Medically, at this point, I’m at least 30 pounds overweight. That’s not getting me to a skinny weight, that’s just to the high end of a healthy weight. I’ve told myself since high school, since junior high that one of the many reasons that I didn’t have the dates or even a dance was because I was fat. I found my high school yearbook and I was astonished. I broke down in tears looking at those pictures. I wasn’t fat back then. I was average and I was beautiful. So if I am successful about losing the weight, which I am working so hard to do, it’s really not going to change anything. Because I’ll still be me.
I don’t know what to do better. I don’t know how to make myself more “dateable”. I’m trying so hard to have faith, to believe in God’s plan for me, that He is watching out for me, but being surrounded by blissfully happy couples, and not even getting a chance, I’m struggling.
I know that when compared to the challenges that others have to go through, of poverty, illness, abuse, abandonment, true obesity, hunger, death, etc, this is pretty minute. I know. I meet people every day who face more suffering and trials that I’ve ever had to see in my protected life, and they do so, with the grace and strength that I hope someday to possess. I feel little and selfish and ridiculous that I’m in tears because some boy didn’t live up to the fantasies that I had imposed, which makes me feel even worse about everything.
In a few days, I’ll laugh at myself again, and go on living the life, and will try to ignore those stabs of loneliness and longing and be back to my normal self. For now, I’m allowing myself a little bit of moping and tears.
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In other news, the sore throat and earaches are completely gone today. And I’ve started the process of moving my blog over to wordpress to make a family acceptable version that will at least keep them updated in what I’m doing in my life. It seemed like the best compromise, because I really need to keep one place where I can vent and not have to filter. The nicest thing about wordpress? You can edit your comments! It’s a beautiful thing.