Exit Fantasy

This morning, and I have no idea how this happened, my boss and I are having our daily morning meeting and we end up talking about my love life. Or the lack thereof, as the case remains. We have this meeting every morning at ten o'clock to review what's going on for the day and what I have lined up. After ten minutes of business talk, he routinely goes into shrink mode. He's a fifty year old Jewish man. So he's got a daughter my age and immediately we've slipped into the father/daughter fondly-antagonistic thing. He's so cool, and I don't think I've ever said that about a boss (except for Michael who was 30, adorable, gay, crazy about me, and would let me get hammered on my lunch break). Anyway, my relationship with my current boss is a little less tawdry.

This morning when we're done discussing grants and proposals, I don't remember how it started up, but we suddenly were talking about my love life. I think he was talking about his wife, and then said "did I tell you how we met?"" and it was a clever and engaging story, especially since they both knew two weeks into it that they'd spend the rest of their lives with each other. And they have.

I haven't been in a relationship in two years. Of any kind. Not even a casual hook-up, not a spring fling, not a one.

We're talking about meeting people. Or more specifically, about me meeting people. And how recently it's become clear to me that somewhere along the line I've stopped getting on the Potential Girlfriend line-up and I've been permamently shelved on the Just Friends list. Furthermore, because of my gentle and understanding nature, I fall into the Sensitive Female Friend who can listen objectively (sometimes with teeth silently gnashing) about his current state of affairs with whatever bimbo of the week is drawing his attention instead of me.

The problem is there's such a fine line with verbiage. There's Hanging Out, and then there's Going Out. Both of which are worlds away from Going to Dinner or even Getting a Drink. When one is afraid of rejection, one can always fall back on the innocuous Getting Coffee.

My social interactions are focused so much on group activities -- going to shows, bars, parties, running around the city, etc. See, my boss' whole platform was that when he was young, boys and girls just didn't Hang Out. The boy asked for her number, called the girl up and took the girl Out to Dinner. He paid, he drove her home, and he never kissed her on the first date. If that's what a date is, I've never been on one.

I'm not someone who needs another person to define me, or even entertain me. I have friends who need to be in relationships constantly, even if that means settling for someone they don't completely click with. I'm alone by default, until I find someone that I totally want to spend time with. And I have an amazing group of friends I wouldn't trade for the world. I love them all, and not out of convenience, and not because they just happen to be around. Some of them I've known for a decade or more, and I've put many of them through absolute terror. Some of them are girls, some of them are guys. But my boss is saying in his era, a woman didn't have guy friends. So when a guy approaches you, you know what it's for, and you can say yay or nay. I have never seen a well-drawn line at any point recently.

I'm telling my boss all of this -- the Protection in Numbers mentality, the Getting Coffee issue, the Meeting Up Before a Show thing, all of which reeks of cowardice to me.

There's something liberating in hearing, "I like you. I want to take you Out to Dinner."

The whole paying issue never has sit well with me though. It makes me highly uncomfortable to have someone else pay for me. Though there was one night I remember that was hysterical fun -- Shannon and I were at a party and met this guy Joel who was loaded, and he loved us (Shannon especially) and took us out on the town one night. We were all dressed up, and went to these snotzy bars and drank martinis, took cabs everywhere. He lit our cigarettes. Took our coats. I felt like I was in an episode of Sex in the City. It helped that he was Tall and Handsome, although he bore an unsettling resemblance to Greg Dulli from the Afghan Whigs. But that's another story. He must have been 35 years old or something. I don't remember. I do remember though that he was very into Shannon, and telling me this, and then cornering me in the bathroom and trying to make out with me.

What is up with these people?

My boss says, "So how do you meet people?

Yeah. Exactly.

I met this guy briefly at a temp job over the summer and he was too nervous to deal with me so I asked him if he wanted to Hang Out and I gave him my number. He called me two days later and we did hang out a couple of times. We got along famously until I put him into the Just Friends bin and he shoved me into the Whore class and well that just didn't work out in the end.

What's weird is that my last ex, with whom I spent two and a half years, started seeing someone else two weeks after we broke up. I was appalled, but I shouldn't have been surprised -- when we originally hooked up the bed was still warm from his last relationship. He's one of those people who can't stand to be alone. Terrified of himself.

I was talking to Victoria on Sunday and we were talking about the Zen state of getting okay without The Thing to the point where it doesn't matter if you want The Thing or not, and then you get The Thing just by the very nature of the universe. And Shea tells me, "Be desireless." Which I misinterpreted at one point -- I was like, "Oh -- if I'm desireless, I'll get what I want." That worked for a week. And later he explained that really being desireless means that you don't care whether you get what you want or not. Freakin Buddhist.

In further consultation, my boss is saying, "Well, why don't you take initiative then?" And I try to explain to him how that's been received in the past. I tend to be pretty forthright, and it hasn't worked well for me. "I like you. I want to see you again. Soon." I'm either met with silence or that disintrest that comes from lack of chase. I don't know.

Ruby, who is in a relationship, has this particularly perfect Friend she has told me about for a while, and I of course want to meet him -- he's drop-dead adorable, writes, can talk music for hours on end (and does), just in general falls into my definition of Boy Perfect. We Hang Out and enjoy each other's company and I drop him home and he says, "Well I'll probably see you again since I've been hanging out with Ruby et. al." Yeah. So I tell Ruby I hadn't even considered the fact that we would eventually Go Out because I'm not the Girl Who Gets the Boy. I never have been . And I don't know if it's the fact that I have a passionate love of unavailable boys -- those who can't be with me either because of geography, current relationship, or mental illness.

At one point I was bitter about it, but then I just see it with such a sense of humor at the ridiculousness of it. Shannon and I at one point were going to write a screenplay about the ridiculousness of our love lives, because at one point they were just fucking so ridiculous you wouldn't believe (I made a mix tape for this guy and the first song was "Closer" by Nine Inch Nails, you know, "I want to fuck you like an animal…" and he was like, oh nice, thanks I liked it) -- she wanted to call it "Exit Fantasy, Enter Irony."

I tell my boss all of this. It's turning out to be a strange conversation. But I can tell he empathizes. He tells me I'm young, which I'm quite aware of. I'm not exactly banging on Heaven's door and I sure as all hell am not planning on having any kids in the next decade.

I don't know what to do with all of this. It's a weird conversation to have with your boss.