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if you're not on one side, you're on the other
I met a guy the other night, a perfectly nice, perfectly lovely guy who I had only the most platonic interest in but somehow ended up in a situation where he asked me to an indie rock show and I had to say no thank you. This is not a big deal in other people's worlds, but I am an awkward person who can make any situation an excruciating exercise in nervous pauses, misplaced expectations, and wrong things said. I've turned perfectly lovely dates into knots of confusion that sabotaged burgeoning relationships or nights of fun, all with an overly self-conscious thought or an ill-timed joke. And this is for people I liked. Knowing how to politely decline a well-meaning invite is a skill I haven't learned; I'm too busy feeling like a jerk for not wanting to go, feeling badly for the guy who has to open himself up for rejection, and feeling like the karma of it will catch up to me when the tables turn and once again my crush doesn't look my way either. It's all an awful merry-go-round of chase or be chased, and I'd rather just sit and watch the landscape whip by.
I hate that I have to deal with this yet again, because I am awful at it and terrified of hurting someone with my awkwardness. A bull in a china shop; Godzilla in Tokyo. I wonder why they even want to date me in the first place; it seems obvious that we are not a match. That it would be yet another stilted dinner of small talk and polite interest and each person lobbing out subjects, praying that something finds purchase and you'll find a topic you can both get excited about enough to justify the time and effort spent so far with someone you thought was cute or kind or just there, someone you hoped you'd find a connection with. And I can tell you before the bread hits the table that there is nothing there, no connection, beyond singleness and a few shared records.
I didn't know how to deal with it, so I wrote to Meg. "I just want to be able to say 'Oh, I'm sorry. I have a boyfriend who makes my stomach go in knots every time he smiles and laughs at all my jokes before I get to the punchline because he knows it will be good and who holds my hand so we can leap into the void together and that is why I can't go to your indie rock night on Wednesday.'"
I want to say it, and I want it to be the truth.