Today marks one year since I was so violently shunned and forcibly made single. That may be a little melodramatic... maybe... but whatever modality I apply to the situation that was is irrelevant, because today I can say I am happy. This is momentous, but is not the point of this entry. Because, actually, despite being happy, the year is just about halfway through and I’m feeling something like buyer’s remorse. Have I been spending my time wisely? Am I purchasing worthwhile experiences?
I want to date. But specifically, and this is the key point I make when praying each night to that great compassionate being out there somewhere, I want to go on horrible, awkward dates.
I want to have to feign labour, as in mumble “Sorry, bout to have a baby” and rise hastily from my seat, throwing a fifty dollar note at the delinquent’s face as my swollen belly and I dash out the door, because obviously I’m an independent woman and I will pay my own way, mister. I want to challenge my sensibilities and be affronted by modern chauvinists and felonious racists, if only so I can slap them sideways and shave off their eyebrows. I want to have to call a friend in the bathroom and complain squeakily, my voice breaking from all the teenage hormones that have painfully resurfaced during the blitz of stilted conversation starters that have in fact failed to start a conversation. I want to have pasta sauce on my chin and realise only much later, after it has dried and formed a filthy crust. I want this to occur especially in the event that I am taken by the charming gentleman sitting opposite me, so that I can cry why and formulate some ridiculous ploy to rectify the crisis. And I want, of course, for the ploy to fail.
I know this is romantic. Not in the way of candles and city lights reflected fancifully across the river’s surface, but romantic in the way that television shows and movies make even the most horrible and awkward of dates seem appealing. Not only are they comic, and something to gush about afterwards with tittering friends, but they are what life is supposed to be like. It’s experience. And it’s experience that you must have if you are to know the ebb and flow that is love. It is only after a series of these horrible, awkward dates that you will know what it is, who it is, you are looking for. It is only after x many Mister or Missus Wrongs that you will have developed the capacity not only to love, but also to be loved. Whether this is because you lower your expectations, develop more patience, or because you are suddenly struck by the brevity of life and just want to get on with it, I don’t know... I’m just speculating here, and only vaguely so. In any case, horrible, awkward dates are on my ‘to do’ list.
So then, I turn to this blog now for some shameless self-advertising. But first, mostly to entertain you and secondly to properly credit the source from which I take inspiration, I mention my recent habit of looking at the ‘personals’ section in the London Review of Books. While I do not engage in this with even the slightest intention of finding someone to “connect” with (the real value – amusement – that I find in this activity will be self-evident if I post just a few of these here, which I will do, in just a moment), it did help me, as I pondered my current situation, to think what I could do about it. But before we get to my little experiment in self-advocacy, allow yourself to laugh:
I have let my lonely rage suckle angrily upon my teat too long. Self-published poet and experimental proctologist. M, 61.
I’d sooner indulge my dangerous hi-fibre diet obsession than contribute yet another churlish whimsy to this column. Yet I am alone, and need to smell a lady’s head. Man, 54.
My wife says I’m too big, and so she has a lover. She says I should too. Sex is important, but cultural empathy and (dare I say it?) love, are more so. Possible female equivalents, 50-75.
Gravy is my biggest weakness. M, 34.
And now, although not as brief, witty or as evocative as the above eloquent bites, here is my plea.
Hello sweet, fallible you. Explore this blog, gauge roughly who I am, and contact me if you think that we most probably, in all likelihood, will not, as they say, hit it off. If you think that you might provoke in me feelings of revulsion and abhorrence, not only towards you but towards the human race at large, please be in touch. I will settle also for something a little less extreme. If you can induce in me the urge to vomit, for instance, if your utterances will make me wince, or if you will cause me to lie, cheat and steal in order to get away from you, then you should please notify me of your splendid existence. But, if, on the other hand, you think that I could very potentially, in all likelihood, love, cherish and adore you, please do stay tuned to this blog and I’ll let you know when the apple is about to drop from the tree. You will then be most welcome to place your basket squarely beneath the branch and catch me as I fall.
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