THE TRAVELING SHOW—Part 3

This is the final installment in sharing what was to be my dream date with a doctor, a romantic set-up starting with me taking the ferry and him traveling by float plane, all for the sake of trying to find love at a point when both of us felt local prospects had dried up.

You can look at these three blog entries as Before, During and After. More specifically, I view them as The Hope, The Reality and The Despair. I blog this because I have a feeling many other chronic daters will relate.

And so, here we go, bring on the despair.

The first thing I did when I arrived home was send Roland an email, thanking him for flying over to meet me and apologizing for the fact I did not feel a connection.

It’s not easy to let a guy down. It’s worse knowing the time and expense invested on this occasion. As I pressed the Send button, I tried to channel positive thoughts for Roland, wondering how he’d take another rejection. Being single and in his fifties, he’d no doubt had his share of dead-end dates.

Of course, it didn’t take long to turn the focus on me. It feels awful to let another eligible man slip away. Most of us who are still in limbo, single and searching, have to draw on our resilience to rebound and look forward to another opportunity Somewhere Out There in Fievel-land.  I am not feeling resilient at the moment. After dozens upon dozens of mediocre first dates, hope fades.

Gone are the days when I feel each bad date takes me one step closer to finding the right guy. Instead, it seems like I am drifting farther and farther away. Dud dates are the norm.

Will mutual like/lust/love ever return? Will I have a chance to feel something like butterflies again? Will I have a chance to hug again and not want to let go?

Is it indeed possible that all the good ones really are taken?

What will it take to break the cycle of mismatch after mismatch? I wonder what joy people get out of a house full of cats. Do they all pounce on your head in the middle of the night or have I just had the misfortune of cat-sitting psycho kitties? How many cats will it take before my neighbors stage an intervention? I’m really not a cat person, but in the wake of another non-starter date, a kitty connection seems more likely than being a relationship with a man. I am sure I can Google how to clean a litter box.

I’ll feel better in a day or two. I can be resilient. I still have that “ha, ha, ha”, “he, he, he”, “LOL” guy who messaged me. There’s a good chance he’ll think I am funny. Maybe it’s best to go in with low expectations.