There was nothing spectacularly different about
tonight when I went downstairs for dinner. I’m almost always alone whenever I
go for meals, and honestly, I prefer it that way – especially when I have a
book to read, and a desperate need to get out from the confines of my room. I’m
not a big one for conversation. I mean, I have conversations in my head, sure, very vivid, even
argumentative ones between Me and Myself, but when it comes to talking to
someone else – maybe not.
Halfway through my ayam penyet and rice, and a
particularly pungent dose of tomato sambal, it occurred to me that in twelve
days, I turn 43, and that it’d been a long time since I’d been to dinner with a
man I was comfortable with. And by ‘man’, I mean, ‘single, available straight
male who wanted to have conversation with me over dinner.’
In case anyone thinks that’s not only incredibly,
stupidly, impossibly specific, let me just note that I don’t need nor want it
to be a date, in that traditional sense of the word. I am well aware that my
credit rating in the dating department is in the negatives, and that men don’t
find me attractive or interesting. I’m the woman that all the
married-or-paired-up friends skip over when they try to match make some
attractive, suitable male with one of the available single women they know,
because we aaaaaall know that the men would ask them why they’re being set up
with such a dog.
Dinner, and conversation with a man who wants to be there, because he asked.
Suddenly that sounds like a very tall order. My friends would probably put it
on the scale of Coke and Pepsi doing a merger and coming up with some
outlandishly pink, bubblegum soda product.
I’ve a personality like a porcupine. In fact,
sometimes I think I channel a porcupine on a Spirit Animal level – my hair’s
always spiky and short and has an attitude of its own, I like clean lines and
sharp angles, and because I’ve been trying to drop some weight and tone up, I’m
at least some part lines and other parts sharp angles as well.
That’s all well and good, but porcupines aren’t easy
on the eyes, and they’re not big on conversation either (whoever heard a
talking porcupine?) I
have Opinions that rattle and clunk along in iron shoes and rusty chains. I try
to stay quiet and to soften the words that come out of my mouth, but oftentimes
they make their presence felt like a rain of assassin needles – small, stabby,
out of nowhere. I couldn’t name a man alive who’d want to hold a conversation
with any of that, nor would I expect it – not even the easy-going, phlegmatic
boys of the gaming world that I’ve gotten to know so well.
Twelve days into turning 43, and I’ve realized that
what I really want is a quiet, low-key evening of good conversation, and being
with a man who wants that enough to
ask for it. Not that I have anything against spending time with the rest of my
friends – who, bless them, have put up with my existence for more years than
they should have, and who have done their level best to love and care for a
very unattractive, fairly hopeless spinster who probably should’ve been drowned
at birth to rid the world of the blight of her existence.
But I’m being selfish here and stating what I want, not what’s going to be best for
everyone around me (that would be my absence, which usually makes for a sigh of relief, because then no one has to deal with the Wallflower from Hell.)
To quote a dear friend, “…on a scale of 1-10, [that]
is ‘e’.”
Or maybe that should be negative something something
something.
What I want, versus the reality: rather than hope for
it like some silly goose who doesn’t know when something’s so laughably stupid
it’s impossible, I might just invest in a good bottle of cider, retreat to my
room, and curl up with that, chocolate, and a good book. Or Jeremy Brett’s
Sherlock Holmes.
That, at least, is doable. Unlike men.
