...of charm and strange: the blog

Since becoming a single man, I find that the world around me has suddenly become infested with happy couples who are sickeningly in love and prancing around my field of vision like the demonic pink elephants in Dumbo.

I know there hasn't actually been an increase in the number of couples, but you can see how I would be super aware of them right now. They seem to be everywhere I look: on the bus, in my classes, walking down the street, you name it. I'm such a stereotype of The Bitter Dumpee. Every time I see a happy couple on the street, the only thing that prevents me from saying loudly, "YOU KNOW IT'LL NEVER LAST, RIGHT?" is the fact that the very sight of them makes me throw up my mouth, rendering me unable to speak.

A little while ago, I was in the U-District by myself, enjoying a nice pho lunch, when I found I could no longer concentrate on my textbook over the distracting conversation going on two tables down. Actually, I'm using the word "conversation" loosely, because it was just this guy doing all the talking. It looked like he was on a date. He was in the lengthy process of telling a girl his life story, in a voice and manner that strongly suggested that he had been practicing this monologue in his head for years. He had only been waiting for someone who actually cared to listen to it.

Surprisingly, his date was not a troll, but a pretty girl who appeared to be listening intently with an intent half-smile on her face, laughing occasionally and sometimes finishing the guy's sentences, but only after there was like one word left and it was incredibly obvious what that last word was going to be. This happens on first dates a lot. It makes people feel like they have a "connection."

So I sat there rudely spying on them and I thought, Wow, I feel so sorry for her right now. Then I realized, Holy shit, she's not pretending to like him -- she actually finds him interesting!

It was true. She wasn't faking it -- she was listening for real, and giving him That Look. You know what look I'm talking about. She was positively delighted with his heavily rehearsed tales of how he knew ever since he was a child that he was a faster learner than the other kids. She was really into him. Naturally, I was disgusted. I continued to watch them like a National Geographic documentarian hiding in the bushes taking notes on the bizarre mating habits of some wild animal.

Then something interesting happened. For a moment, the thick walls of cynicism I had been building around my heart ever since Luke and I split up weakened, then came down completely. For a moment, I found myself deeply moved by this ordinary, harmlessly pretentious nerd-man whose date I was spying on. For a moment, all I could feel was the sweetness of that possibility for all of us to find that special person who thinks we're the most interesting person around, who will listen to our boring stories and genuinely laugh in all the right places, who will think we're delightful and perfect not in spite of, but because of all the things that make us weird. I felt that, and for a moment I didn't feel quite so lonely and hopeless. Love is possible for all of us, and I won't always feel this alone, I thought.

And then I came to my senses and resumed wanting to bitch slap the guy and drown him in his soup while his little girlfriend watched helplessly.