Charming, but single

I was snuggled in bed the other night when a text message from a high school buddy (My Prom Date, actually) invited me to come have a drink. He’s recently moved back to town and it seemed like a good idea and he was at a nearby bar and I figured what the hell. I slid back into my wrap dress from work that day – minus the camisole that made it work appropriate. In 10 minutes I was out of the house and heading to the bar for a Cosmo with Absolut and good company.

I found my friend and joined him in a slouchy leather couch and immediately saw a good friend’s ex-husband sitting across the way. He had to have seen me and my friend and it was made worse by the fact that both of us were in the wedding. The ex-groom unites with his ex bridesmaid and ex groomsman? Classic.

I procured a Cosmo and settled in to catch up with Prom Date, who is looking for a job and generally enjoying his first few days back in town. He’s sweet and when I was 16 I was so sure he liked me oh so much. (He didn’t.) But there’s no chemistry at all and we just get along really well and it is nice to have him back from New Orleans. (My grandmother still thinks we’re getting married.)

In the middle of out nice conversation, I noticed a group of people enter and gather nearby our couch. And one of them looked oh-so-familiar. It was The Crier, with his friends.

Of course he rushed over to say hello and gave me a big hug and a kiss on the cheek and started talking nonstop about how his divorce was final Monday and he was closing on his townhouse on Thursday and he’s been so busy and he misses talking to me. And then he invited me to join their group in the next room for a birthday celebration and I politely declined.

I settled back into the couch and Prom Date was like, “Who is that guy?” And before I could tell him the story, The Crier was dragging a friend over to meet me. I stood up and shook hands and smiled.

I sat down on the couch again, slightly annoyed because I really just wanted to drink my Cosmo with my pal and talk about stuff. And I finally got a chance to tell Prom Date about The Crier and seeing the movie. Prom Date interrupted me.

“Wasn’t that movie a comedy?”

“Yes, but that really isn’t the point.”

“Well, that guy OBVIOUSLY likes you.”

“Really? Still?”

“Yes, really. Obviously. Totally.”

I giggled uncomfortably and we continued our conversation.

Then, Prom Date giggled as a man walked by. I raised an eyebrow.

“That’s your friend,” he said.

“Who?”

“[The Blackberry].”

The Blackberry actually knows Prom Date and was there the first night we met. And after the messaging and finding me on MySpace and trying to get me to come out, The Blackberry never actually met me for a date and it kind of fizzled. And he sat at the bar near our couch and didn’t come over and say hello. He just drank a lone glass of red wine and played with his Blackberry.

“Are you going to go over there?”

“Um, no, he never asked me out. He e-mailed me and found me on MySpace and we chatted, but he never went as far as asking me out and he could come say hello now and I’m not running over there. Plus, I’m kind of dating someone. Not, like, exclusively or officially or anything. But, you know, we’re seeing each other.”

And then I told Prom Date about The Nurse and got all mushy and it was fun.

I ordered another Cosmo and snagged a cigarette from Prom Date. I lit it and took a drag. It tasted not as good as when I share them with The Nurse.

In walked The Crier, with another friend.

“[Charming], this is my college roommate. He’s the birthday boy.”

“Oh, Happy Birthday. Nice to meet you,” I said, standing up for the third time, regretting ever having smiled and waved and hugged him when he came inside. We talked for a few more minutes. I was starting to feel more than slightly uncomfortable with this attention. His friends seemed mildly confused as to why he was introducing me. We went on two dates. Hardly anything to write home about.

He left us alone and I rolled my eyes and settled back into the couch.

I tried to determine if The Blackberry had noticed me. There was no way that he hadn’t. Had he not recognized me? My hair was back, but surely he saw me with a mutual acquaintance.

We rambled on and I labored over my second Cosmo, just enjoying hanging out with Prom Date and not being at work and getting to relax and have a good time.

And then The Crier and company came in. They were leaving. So, of course, he had to come tell me goodbye. And talk to me. For the fourth time that night. (That’s TWO times for each date we went on!)

He gave me a hug and kept an arm around my waist, promised to check in with me (yay, right?), told me how great I looked and how glad he was to see me and how he missed talking to me and how happy he was to be divorced.

I smiled and nodded a lot. I waited for him to leave the bar and collapsed (in a very ladylike way) on the couch next to Prom Date.

“What did I do to deserve to have this guy that I don’t even like fall all over me like that? I mean, really. Who did I piss off?”

He just laughed.

We finished our drinks and decided that it was probably better to sleep than for me to have a third Cosmo. As I headed out, I put my shoulders back, smiled and walked past the bar where The Blackberry was, wondering if he’d check me out.

He did.

Sunday morning, er, early afternoon, after being up much, much too late with The Nurse on Saturday night, we finally managed to pry ourselves from sleep, only to hear the rain coming down hard against the window in my room.

A rainy Sunday. The best kind.

He suggested that we watch a movie and we decided on “Rent,” which amused me, since most guys I’ve dated would rather die than watch a musical. We propped up against the pillows and watched and I tried not to sing along too much, seeing as I know all of the songs from the movie version.

I love “Rent.” It is one of those movies that I imagine will always make me cry, like “Steel Magnolias” when Sally Field is in the cemetery and she starts screaming, “I could run from here to Texas and back. But my daughter can’t! She NEVER COULD.” Or when Maggie reads that ee cummings poem in “In Her Shoes.” Or when Carrie and Aidan break up at Charlotte’s wedding in Season Three of “Sex and the City.”

I’m girlie girl and a sucker for a good tear-jerkin’ plotline and when Angel dies in “Rent” and Maureen gets to the part about them being the lucky ones and then Collins sings the reprise of “I’ll Cover You,” well, I turn into a tear factory.

I am aware of this on Sunday morning and I’m trying to keep it all in check, but of course I feel the tears coming on. And I’m trying not to sniffle, because I feel like it is a bit too early in my nonrelationship for blatant displays of emotion and that I’ve recently dumped a guy for crying during a movie – although that was arguably different. I tried to slyly wipe my eye.

The Nurse noticed and stretched out an arm around me.

“Come here,” he said, and he pulled me into the crook of his body and my head rested on his chest. And I tried not to cry too hard for poor Angel and the Rent family, which of course, is impossible as Collins booms in his deep voice the song that just months before spoke to his and Angel’s blossoming love.

It felt nice, like I could stay bundled up in his arms all day. Like something a couple would do. Like what I’ ve been wanting. Like maybe I’ve been overreacting to the things he does that annoy me, like his tendency to not plan in advance.

After the movie, we decided to eat lunch and then he headed back to my bed. It was still raining and I was feeling like putting the afternoon to good use, so I crawled on top of him and tried to take away the remote.

“Oh! Rambo is on!” he said, glimpsing around my head.

“What?” I leaned in closer to him.

“Rambo.”

I stared at him blankly and attempted to wrangle the remote from his grasp.

“You can’t honestly want to watch ‘Rambo’ right now,” I said, pressing his wrist against the pillows and heading for his neck.

“Hey, seriously, ‘Rambo’ is on,” he said, and in one swift motion he grabbed me by the hips and set me beside him on the bed.

At that moment, I hated and Sylvester Stallone and Brian Dennehy and Green Berets and the Vietnam War and trees and Rocky (just for good measure) and testosterone and boxing and guns and helicopters and dirt and rocks and remote controls and anything and everything even loosely associated with “Rambo” for ruining my perfect Rainy Sunday. I fumed silently and eventually took a nap, telling The Nurse grumpily to “wake me up when Rambo dies.” And he laughed, because apparently, Rambo survives to make a sequel. (But not because anyone asked me for my opinion as to what should happen to him.)

As I drifted back to sleep next to The Nurse, who was enthralled with the movie, I started to get a feeling in my stomach – if he’s stealing the remote and passing on afternoon lovin‘, then maybe we are becoming a couple.

Two purely fashion-related reasons:

1. Seersucker suits
2. White bucs.

All spring and summer long.

Updated: By request, the seersucker suit and white bucs:

I know I’ve been online dating, which is really just dating en masse. But really, I just wanted to go out with some guys until I found a nice one to actually date. I never wanted to be with several men at once. I’m a terrible juggler and really disorganized.

And maybe I won’t be dating a lot of people at once. Maybe The Nurse will call me up tomorrow and announce that he wants to just date me. Maybe he’ll never call again.

Either way, I just winked at five boys and e-mailed another five.

Am I being silly and passive aggressive by looking for guys to go out with instead of just asking The Nurse what the hell is wrong with him? Maybe.

So why am I doing it?

Because he thinks I’m dating other men anyway.

Because if he can go out with multiple women, then I can go out with multiple men.

Because I don’t want to wake up in two months and realize that I’m being strung along by a guy who is never going to only date one woman.

Because I deserve a guy who only wants to date me.

Because I want to have someone to kiss on New Year’s this year.

Because I’m scared I’m falling for him.

Because I’ll need someone to keep me warm in a few months.

Because these boots were made for walking.

Because I would be a fabulous girlfriend.

Because there are so many love songs to dance to.

Because I don’t need a reason.

Because I’m too fun to stay at home alone.

Because this woman waits for no man.

Because I forgot how much fun it was to hold hands.

Because my ovaries want me to.

Because I have a little black dress that’s begging to be worn.

Because I can.

So, I told my parents that I was seeing The Nurse. It wasn’t because I have any idea where this relationship is going after almost a month of dating. It was mostly because I couldn’t come to a family dinner because I was going out with him. And partially because they act as if I am a lost cause – a spinster, a permanent singleton, a future hermit shut in cat lady.

I wanted them to know that I am not totally hopeless. That I do interact with guys and that men like me and that – gasp! – I do sometimes have a date on a Saturday night and I can’t come to dinner. That I am hot stuff! So far from Spinsterhood! So! Far!

Their reaction left a little to be desired.

“A date?” My Mother repeated loudly into the phone in that tone that you’d use if someone, say, announced that they were joining the circus or something. “Where did you meet this date?”

In the background, I could hear shuffling and noise like a herd of people running to the phone. And my Father echoed her sentiments, “[Charming] has a date?”

It was only mildy humiliating.

And the humiliation only got worse the next day when I visited them for lunch.

I barely made it into the door and my Father came over to me. As I took a seat at the kitchen table, he put on arm on my shoulder and said, quite patronizingly, “Don’t worry, I don’t think meeting someone on Match.com is weird. I know they all think using a Web site to find a date is weird, but I don’t.” He motioned to my Mother and my Brother, who were anxiously awaiting the details of my dating life so that they could pick it apart.

You would have thought they’d never spoken to a single woman in her mid-20s before, which is odd, since I am their daughter. Like this “Online Dating” thing was something I made up for all of the other Trekkies and Star Wars fans.

“You’ve been out with several of these guys?” Mother asked nervously, like I was letting rapists and serial killers into my home. “You, like, let them drive you places?”

Mom expressed concern for my safety. I felt as if she was judging me for turning to personal ads and I knew that she’d probably told my aunts about this and was considering how she’d tell my grandmother and that soon my chatty, judgmental Catholic family would be buzzing about my dating life and how I met a man on the “Internets,” with that hushed tone of voice that Southern Catholic women save for the really juicy gossip, like when the couple down the street gets divorced because he was sleeping with his secretary or when So-and-So’s kid doesn’t get into Fancy Catholic Private School because she is a behavior problem. And that if I did stop seeing The Nurse, they’d want to know if I’d still be on Match.com.

I answered the basic questions – where he is from, what he does, what he looks like, why I liked him.

“Is he nice?” Mom asked.

“No, Mom, he’s a total jerk and I hate spending time with him,” I sniped.

“What didn’t you tell us about him sooner?”

“Because it’s a casual thing. We’re just dating and I didn’t want it to be this BIG THING.”

My Brother, who at 24 has a live-in girlfriend he’s been dating since he was 18, was less kind in his questions.

“So, is this guy, like, damaged goods?” he asked from across the table.

I almost choked on the air I breathed in.

“Damaged goods? Like, how?”

“Well, he’s 30 and he doesn’t have a woman.”

“I’m 26 and I don’t have a man, does that make ME damaged goods?” I crossed my legs and folded my arms across my chest and gave him the Oldest Child Staredown, just daring him to answer.

He changed the subject.

“So, when do we get to meet this guy?” he asked. “I gotta meet this guy.”

I threw my hands up in the air.

“This is exactly why I didn’t tell you I was kind of casually seeing someone,” I said.

“Why?” asked my mom.

“Because of this questioning! And wanting to meet him! This is like the Spanish Inquisition,” I said. “Only, without the killing me after questioning.”