Today was not a particularly great day. Started off like a Monday and an innocent conversation set my insides off. Only after some therapeutic knitting and hopeful-making TV am I feeling less like an angry snot monger and more like a human being.
Sometimes I wonder if I come off as an angry person. I know I am not full of hate but I’m not someone people describe as happy. (Shudder. Actually, the idea of that makes me puke.) Generally, that’s all ok by me. After awhile you start to let all the things you aren’t fall away and you are just left with who you are. Hopefully, you like that version. I do. Always in flux but I do. More and more, even when there are days when the light seems a bit dimmer.
Still, there is a fine line between self confidence and arrogance. Every now and then I seep on through the other side. My ego gets a bit large. But life likes to balance things out and as high as I might get, I tend to fall flat on my face just as quick.
Mondays aren’t my favorite in general. My weekends for this year are winding down and the fucking holidays are growing ever closer. This weekend is the last of friend festivities aka weddings.
This has been the third one I’m attending and the fourth I was invited to this year. The best part of this one – I don’t have to fly. One subway ride and I’m there. 10 min flat. 15, if the trains are funky.
Alas, with every positive, something must balance it out.
First, there are the mixed feelings I have towards the matrimonial ceremony. Now, let me reiterate that my emotions towards weddings have nothing to do with the couple. Of course I’m happy for them and to share in their day. It’s just I’m not all that swept up in the “magic” of it. It’s all too planned. It’s all too big. It’s all too…TOO. There’s a weird part of it where I just find all the “ceremony” really embarrassing.
This could be due to the fact I am single with no love prospects on the horizon. This could also be that I’m currently down on the male sex and a bit on love itself (the various definitions people use at their convenience). It could also simply be I don’t really like weddings.
When I was younger, it was more of a novelty and exciting. Seeing your friend go through it or even be a part of it. And secretly, you think of what will happen on your day. But time passes and divorces happen and shit happens and the ceremony is still the ceremony but the marriage might not necessarily be the marriage anymore.
I want the marriage. Not the wedding. Even though (I cannot lie), I’d love to wear a pretty dress.
I might just be in a cynical state of mind. Truthfully, I’m considering missing the actual “I do’s” and sliding in for the food. It’s a weird thing. I can watch it and feel emotional and hope for the best for those two kids but…the only word I can think of is…meh.
To me, seeing the couple outside of this formal context is more compelling. More telling. And more romantic. This construct just makes me uncomfortable. That and I have a distinct distaste for dancing in formal dress. It makes me feel odd. I love to dance but not in a cocktail dress. It never feels right to me. It feels less free.
I am struggling with this idea of what my shitty thoughts of this are. Seems so very bah humbug but after attending these weddings, I just find they’re like the commercialization of Valentine’s Day. It just tends to make people who are single feel like shit and that just stinks. The concept of celebrating the couple’s entry to marriage is a lovely one but it gets marred by so many other things. And yes, I’m making this all about me and not the couple at hand. Duh. Truth – the couple should party on and why not?! Declare it in front of friends and family. Go on and enjoy your day. I just wish I enjoyed it too.
I wonder if I were coupled off or married, would I feel as uninterested in weddings? Can’t say. Maybe I’ll become bridezilla should my day arrive. But that’s neither here nor there. I didn’t always go meh on weddings. But enjoy them? Rarely. I count my brother’s amongst the few I recall…mostly because my sister-in-law made it extra memorable. But that’s another story. (And WHAT a story!)
As for the fuel to my Monday fire and wedding diatribe…found out I’ll be sitting at a table with someone I care not much for. The gist is this. We had a mild flirtation once upon a time but nothing came of it (no really, not even a kiss) yet unbeknownst to him, he became my mental poster boy for indecisive smug shitheads who aren’t as sincere as they appear. I’m being harsh cuz by all means. Most would find him agreeable (maybe). But I’ll say it. I’m embittered.
Funny thing is, I rarely, if ever, think of him. But the mention now and again makes my guts clench and I just want to punch something (preferably his doughy face). It’s a bit sad, maybe pathetic and possibly hateful but I have a REALLY fucking adverse reaction to him and I cannot quite explain why. My conclusion – it doesn’t matter why. He just sucks.
And naturally, he has a girlfriend. Why? They always get girlfriends. Meh.
Thing is, I’m not jealous. I’m not even attracted anymore. I’m just angry. Sometimes, we just fixate on someone cuz they symbolize something to us, even in its nebulous nature. Not that they actually are that thing. They just…are to us.
When I look at him, I look at a man who couldn’t make up his mind. Who made snap judgments about me (I know this is pot kettle black but my blog, my rules!) and was seemingly kind but really just dismissive. He is a symptom of the issue at hand. Toddle along until you FEEL like dealing. IT. JUST. PISSES. ME. OFF.
Maybe it was my arrogance. Or my naiveté at the time. Thinking that perhaps I did one wrong move and that ended the possibility. The sad part with him was it did feel like it was ONE wrong move and suddenly nope. The sun shines then it goes cloudy. And the bizarre vacillation and the backhanded complements. The feeling I could never shake that he was always surveying my moves and seeing if it would fit. It all felt so calculated and so disgustingly transparent.
This story isn’t uncommon. This wasn’t even one that hurt that badly. It’s just the one that haunts me enough now and again that I have to sit at a fucking table with him. And yes, I know this is all massive over thinking but THIS IS HOW I DO PEOPLE!
We weren’t a good match. It came at a time when I was a lot more uncertain and grabbing at straws cuz I didn’t know who was worth pursuing and who wasn’t. The beautiful part about history and hindsight is you realize the men that did make the cut were the ones you really needed to be with. The rest were just telemarketers.
A man my friend was seeing once asked him why he was still single (eyeroll), especially since he was such a swell fella. Sigh. What can a person possibly say to that? My friend never answered and the man took it to believe my friend preferred being alone to the alternative. Double sigh. How very convenient for your story, Mr. Super Smitten but Way Too Presumptuous.
Thing is…that’s just how my friend felt about this man. My friend didn’t so much not want to have a relationship as to not have a relationship with HIM. Boom. That hurts.
I feel for both sides. It’s fucking rough. I recall the awkwardness of being wanted at a level you couldn’t reciprocate (I would always just walk away to spare as many feelings as I could – who wants to hurt someone on purpose?). But I recall the rejection just as strongly if not more so. Anyone who’s delved into the relationship arena knows one side as well as the other. If you only know one side, I hope it’s the one that hurts less. But let’s face it, ONLY one of those sides hurts. The other one just has passing notions.
That’s what is so hard to reconcile sometimes. It isn’t that these people aren’t nice or good in their own rite. It’s the feeling of rejection that they’re not right for you. It sucks when it’s lopsided. It sucks when you’ve turned down enough men and when you actually want to try, it’s with someone who doesn’t feel the same. Or that they don’t feel the same way for the same amount of time.
Rejection sucks. It can cause bitterness, irrationality and a desire to justify every non-action in your search for some real answer/reason for this pain. Sometimes it humiliates us cuz we attempted something and got it slammed in our faces. We want to save ourselves the hurt. But we can’t. It’s part of the game. It’s part of the rewards. And perhaps in hindsight, those rejections will turn out to be wins rather than losses. The lost battles but not the lost war.
(Sigh. The optimist rears her ugly head.)
Perhaps that’s what the wedding table guest is to me. A personification of someone who rejected me. Not even in a horrible way. Not even in an outwardly humiliating way. It was simply the fact that I could see the inner workings of his male mind while he was sizing me up for date-ability. And THAT just felt belittling.
Maybe it’s karma. Surely I’ve done the same in some respects. To a suitor? Doubtful. Hard to read is my MO. But warm, kind and a delightful date I usually am.
It’s the loss of control. Of not being the one who got to reject him. Of even having that temporary feeling of being less than. Of him being decisive but not in a way that was in my favor. Rejection. Blows.
The dumb thing is surely, he didn’t think much of this stuff at all. First off, he’s a guy and guy brains only want to work so hard. Plus nothing ever panned out. But I guess that’s why I rarely think of him either.
Is it horrible to hold him as the poster boy for my pain and so-called suffering? Nah. He doesn’t know it. And at the end of the day, neither one of us really cares.
I’m just a bitter Betty (at the moment) and he’s the focus of my evil eye. Do I see the idiocy of bitching about someone who give less than two fucks about me when I’ve written a goddamn blog post about it? Yes. But venting is necessary and it’s not so much the man as the idea of what the man represents. I’m working things out here…I’m working things out. And as much as I’m bitching, I know this wedding guest really isn’t an/the issue. It ain’t THAT serious y’all.
Still, I’ll admit, I do wish him bad mojo when his name comes up. Just because I’m human and NOT a walking bottle of sunshine. I don’t wish him death. Or destruction. But maybe all his clothes shrink in the wash or he gets a big zit on his nose. I’m not all that magnanimous all the time. Besides, he never won my heart and I tend to be kinder to those who broke it than to those who perused and found me wanting. Contradictory? Yep. But it’s easier to “hate” someone you didn’t really care about than someone you really did.
Fuck it.
I’ll be at the wedding this weekend. In my pretty purple party dress. And he can go fuck himself. Cuz bitches, wedding fan or not, I’m gonna look and be FABULOUS.
bornoutofbourbon 