Post for the Dumped

As I've said before, I hate dating. Hate it. I like men, don't get me wrong-- I love their smell, the broadness of their shoulders, the deepness of their voices-- but I hate the batting of the eyelashes, the being witty on command, the luring of a guy. Actually, I take that back. With the right person, I love all that. The part of dating I hate is the rejection.
While getting dumped sucks, doing the dumping sucks even harder. The only time in my life I ever dumped someone was about a year and a half ago. I met the guy online, and we had a few dates. I was mostly overwhelmed by the idea of being in a relationship, so I kept the guy around a lot longer than I should have. He was smitten with me, but I found him a bit dull. When we went to Borders, he and his friends ran for the automobile magazine section while I was left to wander the fiction and literature racks alone.
"Uh-oh," said the guy's friend, "are you a reader? Because Guy, he is not."
I don't read War and Peace or Moby Dick for kicks, but I try to keep current on what's being published. I read chick lit, I read contemporary fiction with the occasional classic thrown in for my own enrichment. After the 2003 ALCS when Guy was walking me home and he said "I should buy a Yankees hat, since they're obviously the better team" I knew he was history. Since he lived in New Hampshire, I called him to tell him I didn't want to see him anymore, and that he was "boring." Yikes.
I thought I would enjoy getting my karmic revenge on all the guys who ever dumped me (Steve in seventh grade who laughed outright, Ben in eighth grade who at least had the balls to explain why, etc) but it sucked. I felt like I was making a judgment on this guy who really liked me, chubby gut, little boobs and all. I was judging him, but I wasn't trying to be harsh. I just wasn't into him.
Fast forward to this past weekend. Kristen invited me to her friend Molly's house for an '80s party. I didn't have my '80s gear ready, but I wore what I now call my "power shirt" (I've worn it to two parties, got numbers at both) a new pair of jeans, my tall brown boots and some new funky sunglasses I got at H&M. I looked good. So we show up, and I'm immediately being chatted up by a guy named Mike. Mike's got sunglasses that are very similar to my own on, with a black t-shirt and jeans. He's about my height, with black hair. Not bad looking, and I was happy to get hit on. So I talked with him about my love for J.Lo, being broke and hating the Fraggles. As the evening wore on, I knew, even through my PBR haze, that I wasn't interested in dating him. Maybe it's shallow, but I want a certain feeling when I meet a guy I'd like to date. I want him to make me slightly nervous, be slightly hard to figure out, to make my heart jump up a little. It's not strictly an appearance issue, because God knows I love the dorks who aren't conventionally handsome. It's a soul/personality/pheromone issue. So when I was getting ready to leave, Mike asked for my number.
I knew I shouldn't have given it to him, but I have little guile when it comes to flat-out rejecting someone. I could have given him a fake, but that seemed like a weak way out. I thought maybe, when the fog of cheap beer lifted, I'd be willing to try again. I gave him my number, and he leaned in to kiss me. As many of you know (and some of you have been the beneficiaries of) when I've had a few beers, I'm like one-woman kissing booth at a county fair. I'll smooch just about anyone that I have any pang of desire for. I like kissing, miss the steady diet of kissing a relationship brings, so usually I'm up for a smooch. But I turned my head away and walked out the door.
Of course, Mike called on Monday. I saw the strange number and let the call go to voicemail. I should have just picked up and gotten it over with, because I spent all day Monday agonizing over what to do when he called and then spent all day Tuesday agonizing over whether I should call him back or just ignore him. Since I met him through a friend of a friend of a friend, I figured the odds are good that I would see him again at another function and the odds of an alcohol-fueled, slurred, "that's the bitch who never called me" were good, so I decided to have some nuts and call him back to flat-out reject him.
I had prayed to many Gods that I'd get his voicemail, but he picked up on the third ring.
"Hey, Mike, it's Amy, how are you?" I said, getting the "I'm sorry to tell you this, but..." voice that a vet uses to tell a kid his hamster died.
"Fine, how are you?" He replied, his voice happy to hear from me but confused by the tone of my voice.
"I wanted to call you back and tell you that I'm flattered you called, but I'm just not interested." My voice was weak, and one of my slip-on shoes fell off as I walked. I felt like the biggest bitch in the world.
There was silence, and I could almost hear him thinking Then why did you give me your number? I hoped he didn't ask, because none of the reasons I could verbalize would be nice or satisfy him.
I couldn't stand the silence on the other end of the line. "It's mostly because I just got out of something, and I'd just rather be on my lonesome for a while..." On my lonesome? I thought. What the fuck is that shit? A one-month dating relationship? Are you kidding?
"Oh. Well, okay. Thanks for calling me back," Mike said, and I closed the phone before he could say anything else.
I walked through the Common on the way to meet my roommate, and I thought about dating. I've taken to walking through the park on my way home lately, even though it's the complete opposite direction of where I need to go. I like watching the business people stride along, chatting into their headsets, meandering with their significant others, listening to the cool homeless guy recite the weather forecast to passers-by. Yesterday was an especially nice day in the park-- it was warm, and more people walked around, their coats unbuttoned, enjoying the lukewarm sunshine. Kids flew kites with their nannies and dogs caught frisbees.
As I watched the men pass by me, I studied them. Were they single? Some of them were cute, with button down shirts and dress pants. Some of them were probably Emerson students. I thought about the strangeness of dating, which I always do when something ends. What if I just let a guy go who would have worshipped me, treated me well, understood the fact that sometimes I'm not always fun, that sometimes I am down and mopey and misanthropic? I remember seeing a comedianne on Comedy Central once who was lamenting the dating scene in her thirties, mimicking picking through the ex-boyfriends of her twenties like used Kleenex. "He was too nice? Too nice? What was I thinking?" The odds of even getting started with a guy are staggering. There are the guys I'm not attracted to, so they're out of my pool. There are the guys who are married. There are the guys who are gay. There are the guys with girlfriends ("you can always change that," my grandmother assures me). There are the cocky, Ascote-wearing pricks I meet at bars. There are the ones who aren't attracted to me. I know that dating isn't mathematic, but if you think about the number of variables in the equation to find the "perfect guy" it's sobering and scary. But as I stood and waited for my roommate, I took out my book and stood in a patch of sunlight, and I realized that somehow it'll all work out.