PRESSING PAUSE

I’m a rejection warrior. How many coffee dates have I gone on that ended with, “Nice to meet you,” “Let’s do this again,” and then nothing? 

 

He got hit by a bus. 

 

Abducted and dumped in the Amazonian jungle.

 

Boyfriend announced their open relationship wasn’t working for him.

 

Shit happens. Maybe Matt Bomer messaged him. Not everything is about me. 

 

But, sigh, sometimes it is. That crooked tooth I have. Maybe it was the flowery Converse shoes. Did I blurt I was a vegetarian? 

 

Okay, so a guy passed. And another. And a hundred others. Have I passed two hundred yet? The numbers get even more depressing when the thought pops in my head that My Guy is one in a million. How can I even schedule 999,800 more coffee dates? That crooked tooth of mine—and all its companions—will be woefully yellow by then. Mr. Million might pass, too.

 

My rejections aren’t limited to dating. I have this crazy dream I will get a book published. A New York Timesbestseller. Oprah rhapsodizes about it. Reese features it as a book club pick. Giller Prize. Booker. Pulitzer. Movie deal. I write the screenplay. Spielberg and the studio say, “Love it! Don’t change a thing.” And the Oscar goes to…

 

Dream big, right?

 

I’ve sent query letters to countless agents and editors. The response has been unanimous: No. 

 

Generally speaking, all this rejection has strengthened me. I’m adept at shrugging off a bad date. I’m quick to update my submissions spreadsheet and move on after the latest form rejection for my manuscript. Even when a date seems to sparkle or an agent reads like a perfect match, I limit wallowing when they “pull a Lucy,” yanking the elusive football away, cementing my Charlie Brown status: ever hopeful, ever duped. 

 

Rejected again. There will be (many) more instances to come. Life is meant to humiliate. Or, wait…I think it’s supposed to keep us humble. I’ve just exceeded expectations. 

 

Rejection ace. It’s listed as a skill on my LinkedIn profile.

 

But my skill weakened when a first date led to another and another and warped into a two-year relationship. It ended. I had a closure call. I’ve waited for the guy to come to his senses and beg me to have him back with some irresistible speech like Billy Crystal’s in When Harry Met Sally or whatever Ben Affleck said to JLo. 

 

Hasn’t happened. Won’t happen. Apparently, the guy’s still doing his happy dance. Fitter than ever with a marathon like that.

 

REJECTED.

 

No mistake.

 

All righty then. I know the drill. Shake, shrug, play Adele, summon my inner Wile E. Coyote, resurrected after umpteen catastrophes involving falling anvils and mistimed dynamite explosions.  

 

I moved on. I got on four dating profiles. I fled to Venice Beach. I bought new shirts. (Maybe too many.) 

 

And then I had a coffee date. 

 

“Nice to meet you.”

 

“Let’s do this again.”

 

We actually meant it! We showed up again. And again. Four dates in eight days.

 

On paper, I could check all the boxes. Every. Single. One. 

 

Mr. Million, is that you?

 

He invited me for a homemade dinner. Makes everything from scratch, all of it vegetarian. I messaged him: “Hey. Can we have a FaceTime?”

 

I put my foot on the brakes. Didn’t end it per se. Officially, I pressed pause. 

 

Five days earlier, he’d asked, “Is it too soon?”

 

I answered honestly: “I don’t know.” 

 

It’s become a cliché that the person you date after being dumped is Transition Guy. He provides a much-needed dose of affirmation, he helps you see the value of shaving and showering again, he proves that the text-message function on your iPhone still works. These are very good things. But he can’t actually become something more, right? Not even with all those checked boxes.

 

I told myself I didn’t need a Transition Guy. I would bypass that and proceed to the next relationship. Something significant. Something with so much potential. After all, I had never wanted OUT of a relationship. My entire being had been invested. 

 

Alas, this was not a case of pulling a simple switcheroo. Like second Steven Carrington on Dynasty. Or second Fallon on Dynasty. I may have even preferred Sammy Hagar to David Lee Roth in Van Halen. But it says something that I’m having to dig up Van Halen. 

 

It was a belated answer but, yes, I’d realized it was indeed too soon. As nice as New Guy was and as wonderful as it felt to be wanted, I couldn’t jump into this new something. “If we proceed with this right now,” I said, “it won’t last. I will mess it up and I don’t want to do that. I like you. I want there to be a chance. I need a month.”  

 

Lovely man that he is, he didn’t mark anything in his calendar. A month-ish. 

 

It upsets me that getting dumped has caused residual damage. I want to be past it. I want to set that two-year commitment aside. Shove it in a drawer, block it, conduct some little ceremony involving screaming in the woods or tossing items in a dumpster or boiling water in a pot, a stand-in for a cauldron, and making up hocus-pocus jargon as I toss items in. No eyes of newts or live crickets. Horrors! My first vision is oatmeal. 

 

Witches would reject me, too.  

 

A budding relationship now would be mired in unfair comparisons, sabotaged by lingering questions about my unworthiness and muted by inability to process what I did wrong and the depression I feel lurking, eager to step right up and consume me.

 

Will a month make a difference? A month-ish? Despite a résumé chock full of rejection and commendable resilience, I can’t seem to draw from all that experience. 

 

Not yet, dammit.