Dating : Finger Guns Out For Rejection

I’ve briefly mentioned this story in a few of the many listicles I love putting out into this great wide web but have never actually told the thing in its entirety.

As I drink my coffee and contemplate life this morning, I know in my heart of hearts that this is the tale I must tell on this rainy morn. For it is these moments in life that wake us from a dead sleep, cold sweat layering our goose-pimpled body, revealing the people we really are at the core of our existence.

I’ve never been great at dating.

I am an awkward gal who falls in love easily and hopelessly. Turns out, this sort of obsessive compulsion to force love from any person who may show the slightest interest causes repulsion on their end.

Repulsion and the need to run away, very, very quickly.

I know this now. Now that it doesn’t matter anymore. Nowadays, if someone doesn’t love me back, I’m all like, “Whatevs dude, I love me more than anyone possibly could anyway.”

But back when I was an insecure 18-year-old, I thought that having a steady boyfriend was the magical ingredient to complete my life.

Spoiler — it’s not.

I had a couple of long-term relationships in my younger days, but they were unhealthy affairs that I prefer to keep locked up in the soles of my boots. There, they are secreted away, and I feel safe in the knowledge that they won’t wriggle their way back up into my heart.

So, for the most part, until I met my husband, I was a single lady. Always on the hunt for the person that would sweep me off my feet. I continuously fell short, however, and ended up landing on my ass — sprawled on the pavement in some comical slapstick situation.

My friends, too, assumed that I required a lover in my life. Maybe then, I’d calm down and stop being the hyperactive little weirdo that embarrassed them at parties. Perhaps if I were preoccupied with a partner, then I’d stop getting high in the company of strangers and spelling my name in cheerleader style fashion, with my arms proclaiming, “L-Y-N-D-Z-E-E-R-A-E what does that spell?! Lindsay Rae, the most boss name in the world!”

So my friends were constantly trying to set me up with people, and I hated it. Mostly because I didn’t like being told what to do (still don’t), but also because these forced dates put so much pressure on me, I could never bring myself to behave respectfully while on them.

This very affliction came down on me when I was on a date with a guy who was a friend of my roommates. He had glimpsed a pic of me on our refrigerator one day and told my roommates that he thought I was cute.

Well, having this little info-nugget in my back pocket provided me with the confidence to accept the date offer and go into the thing thinking I was Christina Aguilera in the Genie In A Bottle music video.

That’s an ancient reference, even for this story. I don’t know. I couldn’t think of anyone hotter than Christina Aguilera at the moment.

Greg (we’ll call him Greg, to be honest, I can’t remember his real name) picked me up from the house at 6 p.m., and we went to our local cowboy bar for drinks and appies.

The Open Range is a dark and suspicious place to bring a first date, in my opinion.

It’s not a bad bar by any means, but it’s usually the sort of haunt one goes to when they are feeling depressed and want to drown their sorrows in a beer or ten. Or, where one goes when they are zooming on shrooms and need a safe place to ride out the high. I have participated in both of these activities at The Open Range.

It was a strange choice for a first date, though.

Except as soon as we arrived, I realized why he had brought me there. All of his friends were sitting at a large table, drinking beers and watching the game that was on the enormous TV mounted to the ceiling in the corner of the room.

Greg did not ask me if I wanted to join them. He simply walked over and sat down, leaving me to find a chair and haul it over to squeeze in beside him.

Then came the silence.

Well, silence on my part, at least. For the next two hours, Greg and his friends bullshitted and ate while I sat in the corner of the table, mouse-like and mute. Anytime I did try to insert myself into their conversation, their blatant annoyance at the sound of my voice and, consequently, my very existence drove me back into my monkish vow of silence.

I know what you’re thinking. Why the hell did I stay? This is insane! Well, as mentioned earlier, I felt compelled to find a boyfriend, even if that boyfriend treated me like garbage and ignored me.

Super great learning experience.

Things did get better once we left the bar.

We drove around talking for a while. Sure, I thought he might take me out for a movie or a romantic stroll by the lake, but he was tired from work and didn’t want to spend any extra money. So instead, we did what almost every Central Albertan does when looking for a cheap extracurricular. We drove down gravel backroads and talked about life.

Now, this is what I’m talking about! He was opening up to me, telling me about his family and his dog. He revealed that he didn’t always want to be a welder and would like to go back to school to become a mechanic one day.

He wouldn’t stop talking! I was elated.

This, obviously, meant that he was falling in love with me and felt comfortable revealing all of these intimate info-pieces about himself.

He never did ask anything about my life, but that was fine! This was fiiiiine. There would be time for that later. Because now, at this point, while he rambled on, I was busy envisioning our lives together. Forever.

We would date.

Then one rainy Sunday afternoon, as I was snuggled under the cotton sheets of our shared bed, he’d gently wake me up by kissing my forehead and slipping an engagement ring upon my sausage-like finger. He’d likely get the thing stuck on the knuckle because he hadn’t sized it properly, but that was okay because he was the man of my dreams.

Even when fantasizing, I’m still a realist.

He’d say something like, “Lindsay, you are the most beautiful and funniest girl I have ever known, and I want to spend the rest of our lives together.” Of course, in this fantasy that was playing out IN FRONT of the dude I was fantasizing about, I said yes to his proposal, and we lived happily ever after.

The problem with daydreaming about a life that actually has no chance of ever happening is that if you allow yourself to get too wrapped up in the fantasy, then you start to believe that it actually has or will happen.

That’s why, when we finally pulled up to my house for him to drop me off, I tried to initiate a make-out sesh.

Despite being awkward and ill-timed in everything I did, guys usually still wanted to make out with me. I suspect this is because guys will make out with anything, and as it so happened, I, too, was willing to make out with anything. So we had that in common.

As we stood outside my home, and I leaned in romantically to kiss him, he pulled back sharply. His face contorted into a look of pure horror, and that’s when he pulled out the finger guns, shot them in my direction and said, “You are a cool girl, but, no thank you!”

To this day, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone move so fast to get back into a jacked-up truck and speed away down a cozy residential street.

I was left standing alone under a starlit sky, wondering where I had gone wrong.

He later told my roommates that I was a little too shy and quiet for him, so it just wasn’t a good match.

My kneejerk reaction was to say, “but I can be loud and outrageous. Just give me another chance!” However, I realized that chasing after people who want you to be something different than you are, or in this case, force you to be something completely different than you are, is simply a waste of your time.

So I strove on in my solitary life, living contentedly on my own until the day a sweet boy would happen upon me at a fast food joint and tell me that he had a crush on me.

(a story very loosely based on meeting my husband at a fried chicken factory.)