I think this happened in 2014. Yes, it had to be 2014.
I was back on OK Cupid but i was also very… well, i don’t know if “anxious” is the right word but… how about “apprehensive”? I was still raw and wounded from my breakup with my previous girlfriend – yes, the white trash one whose aspirations were to become a swinger and be gang banged because that’s just what broken white trash does apparently.
Oh, i have a friend and former lover who used to do sex work. She made a very astute observation about women that are gang banged – that they can do whatever they want but there are two things they do not get to do. They can’t say, “no!” and they don’t get to say “stop!” Well, they can but neither are going to happen, especially when the guys fucking her are strangers. She’s been a sex worker and she didn’t do gang bangs for this exact reason.
Let me get back on track.
I am still raw and wounded then but i’m also recovering and starting to feel the first signs of my confidence returning. And while on OK Cupid a few months prior, i had a brief interaction with a woman that fizzled out, although if you were to ask me why, i couldn’t tell you for the life of me because it was a long time ago.
But somehow we messaged each other again and this time it felt more promising. I vaguely recall that i explained where i was in my life at that time and there was something that i said to her that elicited a, “You’re very perceptive, Shelly,” from her. And i suppose it was that that convinced her to go on a date with me.
She told me her name was Angie. I don’t know if that was her real name or not but that’s the name she went by. She was a professor with a newly earned doctorate. Her dissertation and research was over a very specific part of women’s anatomy and i remember she described her research as being qualitative over quantitative. I don’t remember where we had dinner but afterwards we went to a patisserie on Division or Powell (these are major roads in Portland that every Portlander knows well).
And it could not have been a worse place for me to be. It was jammed packed and from the moment i stepped inside, it was overwhelming in the sheer number of people having animated and loud conversations.
I remember standing behind her in the queue, her back to me. I was filled with this urge to rest my hand on it.
You see, i had already fallen for her. She was attractive and smart and i suspected she was kind of interested in me. But i stayed my hand because… well, i’ll have to explain something about some men like me at the end of this story.
The first problem was my allergies were hammering me very hard that night and my sinus’ were sealed shut. If you’re one of those lucky people that have no idea what allergies are like, imagine trying to breathe through your nose but someone has jammed two tampons into it so deep that you can’t pull them out. It’s an internal pressure and discomfort that prevents any breathing through your nostrils. It makes speaking more difficult and kills off any sense of taste.
And as bad as that was, like i said, this place was PACKED. I cannot filter stimuli in an environment like that. I can’t stop listening to chunks of other people’s conversations, i can’t stop registering movement, i can’t gather my thoughts and worst of all, i can’t process what other people are saying to me.
That’s just the world people like me live in who can be overstimulated by their environment.
Think of it as trying to listen to something someone you like is telling you but there’s someone near you that’s putting gravel in a blender, there’s a table with someone laughing and slapping their hand on the table at irregular intervals and then there’s someone with a toddler that’s screaming at the top of their lungs just for the fucksies.
THAT is the world i live in. I’m better at recognizing when the environment is going to work against me like this but i really liked her and didn’t want to ruin the evening.
I remember we eventually left. In my then 2004 Hyundai Santa Fe, i drove her back to her apartment (i may have driven back to her car; i don’t remember). I was sooooo sleepy. See, even though i was healing from the breakup, i was still having difficulty sleeping and i remember that particular night, i’d probably slept maybe 8 hours over the previous 2 or 3 nights.
And because i was sleepy and because i was a little bit nervous, i remember she told me to take a left. I lifted my hand and made the “L” shape with it, which was probably a mistake. I don’t think she was impressed but in my defense, i can’t visualize most things and when i’m sleepy or otherwise fatigued, it’s not uncommon for me to look at my hands to figure out which is right and which is left.
Don’t get me wrong; i most certainly know my left from right but try doing quick recollections when you’ve had 8 hours of borderline shitty sleep over the course of three days and see how you fare. Add to that someone next to you who you’re falling for and very much want to get to know.
I remember getting out and opening her door. I stood next to the door, my right arm hooked over it and resting on top. I can’t say with 100% certainty, but i think she may have invited me in. And if she did, i said, “no thank you.”
Why? Because i was dangerously close to falling asleep. The thought of getting home (which was in the boonies of Oregon City off of South End Road) was weighing on me. And there was the reality that i have to sleep with a BiPAP – and if i don’t, i will snore in a way that will cause the neighbors to pound on the walls. And believe me, that is not hyperbole.
And so i said goodnight without hugging nor kissing her.
Let me segue into something some of you, especially women, may not know about some men. See, there are guys like me that, if they’re 95% sure that a woman is into them, they’re not going to make any advance on them. No attempt at a hug and absolutely no attempt to kiss.
Why?
Because if there’s a 5% chance that i’m going to be rejected by someone, that’s too great of a risk to be rejected and/or friendzoned.
A few days later, i messaged Dr. Angie. I don’t remember what i said but her response was short and terse:
“I don’t need any more friends.”
It was a gut punch but i also never responded. See- i had to leave Portland. It was like a caged beast in me that chewed and clawed at me every single day. And at the time, her words hurt me but my drive to find a job and get out of Portland consumed me. And i knew that if i WERE able to see her again, well, i’m going to be really honest here – i should have responded. I should have messaged her and said:
I’m sorry that you feel that way, Dr. Angie. It wouldn’t have taken much for me to fall in love with you.
But i never did.
In the coming months, i would land a job in Seattle. I relocated to Lynwood and for a while, had that fresh, bright optimism that one has when they’ve struck out on their own in a new city. Unfortunately that job didn’t work out. Some of that was my responsibility because i was still processing and grieving over my ex and some of it was because the person i reported to at that job was an utter twat. And within a half year, i would lose that job AND come to the realization that i really fucking hated King and Snohomish county. That’s an entirely different discussion for another time but if you like Seattle, Redmond, Bothel, etc… great. For me, cities and i are not a good fit and Seattle was the last straw i had for living near and working in one.
I am 60 years old now as of last Saturday. I haven’t had a girlfriend since before that breakup in 2014. I’ve dated a little bit here and there but honestly i haven’t really tried since before the pandemic. And i suppose that deserves an explanation all of its own which i may or may not get around to writing about but that one night – that i didn’t even try to demonstrate that i really liked her, that she dismissed me with all of the grace of a scalpel and that i didn’t even bother to tell her that i could have easily have fallen in love with her…
It haunts me. Twelve or so years later and at least once a week, it haunts me.
I can’t predict what would have happened. Maybe nothing, maybe everything. I will say that while there are many aspects of being alone and single that i like, i wonder what my life would be like had there been someone to love and support in her career. Someone to tease and make laugh, someone to hold, to touch, taste and smell – someone to spend my years with and watch as our hair turned to white.
And i don’t know that Dr. Angie would have been that one but… well, as i said, here i am twelve years later and i think of her at least once a week and wonder, “what if i had…”
But yaknow what? Maybe she could have done a little better herself. And while i doubt she even remembers me, maybe, just maybe she wondered the same.