Eventually (part 1)

After a couple months, I feel recovered enough to put myself out there, to start going on dates.  I join a couple of online dating sites.  I let acquaintances set me up on blind dates.  But every single in-person meet-up, no matter what led to it, starts with the same statement on my part.  "Just so you know, I can be kind-of an ass."

The reactions I get to that are a lot more telling than the statement itself.  I've gotten responses all the way from "Yeah, can't we all" to "Sure is a nice ass."  That latter one ended pretty quickly - didn't even get to the point of ordering dinner.  What seems most universal, though, is the deflection.  Guys don't want to hear that self-deprecation on a first date, even if they pretend they do.  Maybe the jerks take it to heart, think of ways they can use this to gain power over me later, should I ever give them the chance.  The one time I was surprised by the reaction I got, despite it being the reaction I had originally expected when I started all of this, was then the guy looked directly at me and asked, without any judgement I could discern, "What do you mean by that?"

And after so many dates where no one seemed to care, no one even asked what I meant by that statement, I launched into my whole tragic tale.  Well, to call it tragic would be a bit melodramatic, but I told him about how I was a jerk to this boy in high school, only to have the boy try to be my friend and eventually my boyfriend, only to tell me he had been playing me the whole time.  "All because I was kind-of an ass back in high school," I finished up.  "So I just wanted you to know that's who I was, but I'm trying to be better."

"Uh..."  The guy across from me just looked at me for a moment, and I looked back down, nervously averting eye contact.  "You know that guy was the ass, right?"

I looked back up at him, a bit surprised, even though I, yet again, should not have been.  "I mean, yeah," I admitted, "but I deserved it, don't you think?"

The guy sitting across from me now raised an eye brow.  "Is this some sort of test or something?" he asked.

"No, I don't think so," I was genuinely unclear about what was happening now.  I had never gotten so deep into this before.

"Well then, I'll be honest.  That dude should have forgiven you when you first went for coffee and you both should have moved on.  You were not even a fraction as cruel as he was.  You were a high schooler.  High schoolers have a tendency to be asses.  But even after all those years, you felt bad, and you tried to make it right, and you gave him enough of a benefit of the doubt that you let yourself fall in love.  And he, he just, he crushed all of that.  Trying to assert dominance or some such bullshit?  You didn't deserve that.  No one deserves that kind of treatment when they've already made themselves feel bad about what they did, when they're already sorry."

I just sat there stunned until he was done with his rant.  "That's just, that's... I guess I didn't think of it that way," I said.

There was silence for a moment and then he said, much softer than before, "Would you like to do this another time?"

It took me another moment to realize he meant the date.  I felt a bit disappointed by that.  I was still reeling from his reaction to my statement, and to my story, but I didn't necessarily want this to end yet.  But he wasn't saying good-bye.  He was just saying, "See you later."  I wasn't sure what I wanted to say, so I said, "I don't know."

"I mean, if you don't want to meet up again, that's okay, too," he replied.

"Oh, no that's not what I meant," I was quick to chime in.  "I just, I kinda wanted to continue this now?"

"Oh."  He smiled softly.  "Well, if you'll forgive my outburst then, maybe we can start over."

I laughed.  "Of course I can," I said.  "But I don't think you said anything to be sorry for.  If anything, you made me feel better."

"Good," he said.  And he sounded so genuine.  "I'm glad."  Then he reached his hand across the table to shake mine.  "I'm Alex," he said.

I laughed again.  "Tara," I said as I took his hand briefly.

He smiled as he let go and returned his hands to the menu.  "My pleasure," he said.  "Now what do you suppose is good here."


Alex and I went out several more times after that.  He was nice and smart and funny.  He let me rant about things and just listened.  We had similar tastes in music, and very different tastes in movies, but it was nice.  And over time, I felt myself falling again.  Dangerously close to love, or to what I thought was love, and I couldn't help but think to back to the previous disaster, how it all had been a lie.  And Alex knew all about that because I had told him.  Was he with me now because he was doing the same thing to me or because he felt sorry for me?  In my moments of doubt and weakness, I felt it could only be one or the other.  There was no in between.

But I did really like him.  And things were going well, even if it was a lie.  And I was having fun with him, even if it was a lie.  So I let it remain as it was, afraid to say how I really felt because last time I had done that, it all came crashing down.

Eventually, Alex picked up on the fact that something was wrong.