Can anyone relate to this sort of thing?
I have a pretty weird view of girls in terms of attraction. It's like an on-off switch that's almost always off. I'd estimate that 999 out of 1000 girls I've met have made absolutely no impression on me. I meet them, act friendly toward them, and then forget about them, even if they show interest in me. Physical and mental attraction stays at an unwavering zilch.
Yesterday my family and I went to a birthday party for my grandfather at his house. My uncle's friend, a woman who works as a caterer for parties, was there, preparing the food. There was a lot of it to cook, and she had her two daughters there to help her. One was older and looked around 22, while the other looked to be my age or a little younger, maybe 17 or 18.
That other 1 out of 1000 keeps coming back at random times to throw me off balance. The younger daughter of the caterer was one of these. I immediately noticed how attractive she was. Then I noticed how she moved like a dancer while preparing the food, and that was it for me – I was gone.
I didn't go to the party thinking, “Oh man, I really hope there are some hot, thrice-removed cousins there,” or any of that crap. In fact, I rarely go anywhere in the hopes of meeting girls. Finding a soulmate just isn't very high on my to-do list, and my odd natural indifference toward the vast majority of girls makes this whole relationship scene easy to ignore. But suddenly I found myself sneaking glances at this girl every chance I could get and idly considering ways of starting a conversation or something. Anything.
The rational fellow in my head was saying, “What is the matter with you? She's working, for Pete's sake, and you're thinking of sauntering up to her and trying to lay your pitiful flirtation skills on her, with about fifty bajillion relatives standing around? Boy howdy, you're nuts.”
Then there was some other dude up there in the gray matter saying, “What if that guy's wrong? I mean, yeah, sure, it'll be bad if you fail... but what if you don't? You're going to cut off the possibility that you could look at her for the rest of your life instead of the rest of this party just because you're too scared of embarrassing yourself? How many times is this going to happen? I swear, if you try to sneak your way out of this, I'm going to make damn sure you never forget about it for as long as you live, even if I have to dropkick your medulla oblongata every morning.”
Well, I did nothing. It was probably for the best, both for her and for me, but I still felt physically sick for a while afterward, and that had nothing to do with the food. On the ride back, I turned on the radio and thought, “No way, the radio station can not be so horrible as to play this song at this very moment.” The Rolling Stones - Wild Horses. If you know the lyrics, you'll get the bitter irony.
I'm not lonely, and I didn't feel lonely after I left. I haven't felt any sense of “incompleteness” in being single since I turned fifteen. But every once in a while (years apart, sometimes), whenever I start thinking I've got everything together, I get blindsided by some girl, and feel like I would kill to see more of her. It locks me in a huge internal conflict that I always end up losing, and I feel paralyzing guilt afterwards. What sucks is that it's not the first time this has happened, as my irrational brain-voice enjoys reminding me. This whole situation seems ridiculous to me – I feel so defeated and worthless, and I was perfectly fine just two days ago.
06 Nov 2005, 5:06 pm
