Speaking of Romance...

...this is probably the LEAST romantic way to let a girl know that you've had fun but you're not interested in anything further, in any sense of the word:

"Well. Hummm. See, the thing is, out of all the options I have going on right now, you're not even on the menu..."

NOT ON THE MENU.

Ouch. Okay. True, true enough. But not particularly sensitive, or even vaguely polite for that matter. Rather along the lines of hopping out of the car of someone you've known for six years and have been sleeping with for the past six months, after a night when she's um, given you a LOT of latitude...and then given you a ride home at 6 in the morning and saying, "Well, I don't know when I'll see you again I hope you're okay with that. Woo. Well, it's been interesting..." Slam. Which is another true story.

Different clown, same story.

Maybe guys think that if they behave like ruthless jerks that we girls will understand that it really IS them and not us and be happy and relieved to get their sorry skinny asses our of our cars. However, I don't think it works that way. I think girls will usually obsess for months about how they could inspire such callousness, about how worthless they really must be, how it MUST be us and not them cause we've known them to be senstive creatures in the past about other things; about how much harder we could have tried in order to earn at least a respectful brush off.

At least that's what I do.

Not On The Menu.
Which forces the question, "Well what the hell restaurant did you THINK you were eating at all this time?" Not an irrational question. After all, it's not like we didn't have anything in common. We had the same taste in most everything; movies, plays, books, music, even home decor. He was intellectually challenging; playful at times; sullen and morose and inscrubable at others; I guess I liked him. And I don't like a lot of people that much, it seemed like an honest inquiry. And deserved at least a polite response.

This may seem like a digression, but bear with me;
I've become hooked on the TV series Six Feet Under. Steve and Ken here in Vancouver have been renting the second season on DVD and I've become thoroughly addicted. And there was a minor character who showed up for a couple of episodes; a youngish guy in his late twenties dying of rather awful pancreatic cancer. He was bitter and emotionally disconnected and kind of vicious. And I was IMMEDIATELY attracted to him. "THAT'S my boyfriend," I said, ironically, to Steve and Ken. After all, it's perfect - it would never work out, cause for one he's DYING, and for another he's unable to form any real emotonal connection with another human being. He's deeply wounded, in a physical but more importantly, in a SPIRITUAL way, and that kind of pain awakes in me a kind of unbounded compassion that somehow translates itself into sexual terms.

I know, it's WHACKED. And I'm hoping that by identifying the pitfall, I can learn to avoid it.

Here's another metaphor: it's like buying shoes. I never buy myself a pair of good shoes from someplace nice like Gravity Pope, because they're so darn EXPENSIVE and I don't know how long I'll LIKE them for and that much money is a big commitment; it's a commitment to liking that pair of shoes for a long time. I also think deep down that I don't DESERVE such a great pair of shoes. I think that instead I should be sensible and buy something less extravagant. So I'm attracted to the cheap trendy shoes: you know, you don't have to worry about making a big investment, and if they only last for a couple of weeks or months it's no big deal, right? But then, if you really like them, it's frustrating when they fall apart. I get all like, "But I paid SEVEN DOLLARS for these and dammit I expect them to last FOREVER." But they don't, and besides, they wind up being excruciatingly PAINFUL - they're BAD for you, for your feet, and so really, it's not much of an investment at all. You can get something you like, but you PAY for it one way or another, you know? So from now on, I'm only buying good shoes, if you know what I mean.

And the Clown, as soon as he set foot in Edmonton - stepping out of MY car dammit, after the free lift I gave him - started frequenting a lot of other eateries, if you know what I mean...

And me? I'm doing some window shoe shopping. I'm just looking though. I probably won't even try anything on for a while. After all, I'm looking for a good pair - an expensive pair - and I'll only buy when I can really afford it.

N.