It's Gotta Be Me, Right?
My friend Marvalyn told me not to write this post.
My friend Joe told me not to write this post.
My friend Bill told me not to write this post.
My friend Tina told me not to write this post.
So why did I decide to write this post?
Maybe this fable will help:
A scorpion asks a frog for a ride across a river. The frog fears being stung, but the scorpion argues, “Then we’d both drown.”
The frog agrees. Halfway across, the scorpion stings him anyway.
“Why?” asks the dying frog.
“I couldn’t help myself,” replies the scorpion. “It’s my nature.”
Actually, this doesn’t help. Now I don’t know if I’m the scorpion…
...or the frog in this situation.
There is a pattern to my last few years of dating. That pattern is that any relationship I enter, I exit (or am escorted out) quickly.
I’m not pointing any fingers (or stingers) at anyone in particular. It’s about my natural ability to like women who are already in a relationship. It’s also about my almost supernatural ability to like women who don’t want to be in a relationship with me.
My friends try to be supportive and tell me that I dodge a bullet each time a would-be relationship fails.
If that were true, I’d be Neo from The Matrix dodging bullets fired by Agent Jones.
I’m not Neo, and there are no bullets to dodge.
Well, maybe one or two.
Let me step back for a second and say something I never in my life thought I’d say.
I am not a ladies’ man.
My friends are laughing just because I felt the need to clarify that.
I met these women in the course of everyday life. In the park, through people I knew, a friend of a friend of a friend.
On only two occasions did I boldly go where old Al never would have gone.
Recently, I met a woman. We talked, exchanged numbers, and did what people do when they find a connection.
We went out a few times and enjoyed each other’s company. I don’t travel, she does. We talked about places we could go together.
This is the place where I owe Marvalyn, Joe, Bill, and Tina an apology. I should have listened to you. I’ve written and deleted the next part of the story several times.
It remains deleted.
Bottom line, the relationship did not work out.
I wrote a version where she was right (she wasn’t) and I was wrong (I wasn’t).
I wrote a version where she was wrong (she wasn’t) and I was right (I wasn’t).
Eventually, I came to a realization. When I asked the question up top, “It’s Gotta Be Me, Right?” my intended answer was going to be “Yes.”
Now my answer is “No.”
And it wasn’t the woman I met, either.
You know what it was?
It was life.
Yup.
That’s how it works.
