Yesterday I went to a Meet-up Group in an attempt to make new friends and get out of the house. As I approach the group, I’m greeted by a man who pulls out a chair for me next to him. In appreciation at the warm gesture, I smile and reach out a hand to introduce myself.
“We’ve met before.” He says laconically. I must confess to some concerns about my memory lately, so feeling disconcerted, I study him for a moment. Try as I might, I’m getting nothing.
“I’m sorry…” I begin tentatively, hoping to get more information.
“We went out on a Match.com date.” He says, with a slightly amused, smug expression.
I stare at him in what I knew was an unacceptable state of non-recognition for several more seconds…brain scanning memory banks for nondescript, smug, arrogant single date encounters…Aha!
“Right.” I say confidently (as though I hadn’t completely and totally forgotten ever meeting him). “We went to —.” (Naming the Thai restaurant we visited.)
With sudden total clarity, I remembered my date with him: He was a pretentious, arrogant, number-dropping, dismissive to the server dinner companion with whom I had the rare experience of finding nothing redeeming about the evening except for the food. Typically, even my bad dates are so comically bad they make for a good story. Or, although not interested in a second date, I still manage to have a decent evening. Usually there is at the least an experience of having some common ground to cling to during conversation. This was a date where nothing dramatic happened, but I didn’t have a good time and really didn’t like him. He was boring and there was zero chemistry on any level, but that was it.
What bothers me is that I didn’t recognize him at all. Nothing. Nada. Zip. My brain finally did what it was supposed to with a lot of prompting, but otherwise I would have gone through the entire Meet-up with no clue I’d spent an hour and a half with this man just a couple of years ago. I began to frantically catalog all of my dates, to see if there were any additional ominous gaps. Then I realized how ridiculous that was, because how can you remember something you’ve forgotten, but don’t realize you’ve forgotten?
Is forgetting a date even remotely normal? Does it mean I’m dating too much? Do I need to start taking Ginkgo Biloba? One person told me it was a very “guy” thing to do. A friend who goes out of his way for shock value called me a “slut” when I relayed the story. That’s a pretty big stretch; if I’d slept with him and couldn’t remember him, I’d be a lot more worried. It’s entirely possible I’m overthinking this, but I do wonder if it says something about my dating habits.
We head into the movie we’re all there to see and I choose to sit in a different aisle than him , winding up with two guys who seemed close to my age. We make small talk before the movie and commentary during, then decide to go grab a bite to eat afterwards. One of the guys has jackass potential (his critique of the movie was that the actress—portraying a woman in deep space trying to survive—didn’t wear enough makeup or try hard enough to be attractive). The other guy seemed interesting and got my number at the end of the meal; it’s possible he could be fun to grab a drink or go to a concert with. Interestingly enough, the other guy sent me a long email the next day “extending the hand of friendship”.
While I don’t think either of them would be matches for me as partners, maybe I focus too much on the long-term. I’m lonely and I really need some friends and people I can call to go hang out sometimes. I’m trying to not slap a Band-Aid on my most recent dating adventure and the deepened depression it’s prompted. It would be really easy to just find someone else to date, in the hopes that THIS person would make me feel better…fix me…lift me up out of the depression. While I’m not going to make any more grand proclamations about not dating, I am trying to breathe through this and not jump for the quick fix.
So, I think I’ll continue to attend various Meet-up groups, hoping to make new friends of both genders. At the very least, having more people in my circle should be a good thing. Loneliness does not help depression, nor does not having a good support system.
Hopefully I will remember all of my new friends!
