On the first day of the New Year, I kept waking up, eyes still closed, as I felt the lingering headache, and elected to do my best to descend into slumber again until the hangover fell away. When I finally gave up, I opened my eyes, reached for my phone, and checked my bank account on the off-chance that I actually got my stimulus check.
I’ll be damned. Somehow, I got it, and just in the nick of time. Now I won’t be struggling financially all week.
I should have been happier, but I was still sick over the circumstances the day prior — and I suppose credit should also be given to the alcohol consumption it inspired upon arriving home.
All week was like that — feeling like a piece of shit, that is. I didn’t drink for two days, and slowed down thereafter. I stopped watching porn for a few days, too. I thought to myself, as I have considered so many times before, that maybe I should just resign myself to sexless singlehood for the remainder of my days. At this age it has become obvious that I simply don’t know how to navigate this space. I could hurt someone else emotionally. In a frightening addition to that, even the smallest fuckups are emotionally devastating to me and potentially catastrophic to my life.
At work, Gillian has seemed fine, and had finally stopped teasing me, as would be expected. I sensed no discomfort from her around me, which makes me feel better, but I still get the sense that she thinks I’m angry at her and that this, and only this, is what truly bothers her. I’m so fucking confused. I sense her looking towards me sometimes, then confirm it in peripheral vision, and the vibe I get suggests doesn’t understand why I’m keeping my distance and avoiding eye contact. I still politely say hello as I used to and lend help when its requested, as I do with everyone, but I’m extremely cautious with her. I never even want to approximate that feeling I felt from her ever again. How can she not get it?
Ultimately, it took me eleven days to look at what I wrote on New Years Eve, edit it slightly, and post it, all the while still terrified that people who read it might think me an asshole. I still don’t know what I think about it myself.
Then there is Mary, the new girl, the one who seemed so strangely pleased to see me from the first day I met her. All throughout the week we’d make eye contact, mutually smile, and then wave to each other. On Thursday, a week after that horrible last day if 2020, I was doing fryers and decided to help them out by putting away a tray of food in the cabinet. She was nearby, and she turned to me.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure,” I say.
“Do you want to go out sometime?”
Wait, what?
“Fuck yeah,” is how I responded. Immediately she did that thing with her arm that people do, extending it and then bending it, drawing your fist towards her body in accompishment and She sort of whispered “yes!” She was surprisingly happy. I was entirely blown away — not only by her question, but her response to my response to it.
As she was leaving later on in the shift, she stopped by me and wrote her number on a little sheet of paper, but told me her phone probably wouldn’t be on until Saturday. We began texting Sunday and we’ve been texting ever since. The texts mostly involve her asking me questions, trying to get to know me, and with her telling me about herself.
She’s 47, five years older than me, which is in itself interesting. Originally from Minnestota, she’s been here in Ohio for the last eight years or so. Parents are deceased and she has six living siblings, one deceased. That’s a big fucking family. She was married for a decade, had five kids (again: big fucking family), and has been divorced for eighteen years. She decided to go back to school to be a veterinarian and shares my love for animals, the forest, and bodies of water. She seems introverted, likes to smoke cigarettes and reefer, and is allegedly a homebody — all which she shares with me. She currently lives within walking distance of work, where she lives with her brother, who is my age, and her youngest daughter.
We’re meeting up at her place tomorrow at six.
How quickly my tune changes. Back now, exploring this space I can’t navigate, though careful not to get my hopes up, as was the case with Kara. Terrified at the prospect of making a move, given the rare act that happened recently with a girl I’m not even attracted to. Trying to relax myself, telling myself that this is not a test I have to pass: just get to know her, see what happens. She seems cool, and you need this. You need to get out there. You need to give this a chance — without expectations. Without feeling pressure. Without worrying about everything.
Without being a pessimist, but still: without setting yourself up for a potential letdown.
Chronicles of a Madman. 