LOGGED OUT

It’s official. I’m off the dating apps. I overfished Plenty of Fish and any arrows sent from OK Cupid were misfires.

If all goes well, I have only two or three months left in Vancouver. I am committed to hitting a reset button for life with a big move. My life is not a romantic comedy. (Gosh, it seems devoid of both romance and comedy these days!) I don’t want some man in a grocery store asking how to tell if a mango is ripe. (Really, does that ever happen?) I can manage just fine if I’m caught in the rain without an umbrella. And I do not want to meet some hot, sensitive guy as I load boxes into my Mini Cooper. Dating is over.

Until I reach Toronto. Then, if a charming man wants to help me unload my car, how could I refuse?

A SCREWDRIVER’S A DRINK, ISN’T IT?

“Incompetent ninny.”

That’s what Mr. Bentley used to call me. It wasn’t like he was singling me out. That’s what he called everyone in his junior high woodworking room whenever they effed up. But I effed up a lot. I was the supremely incompetent, the ultimate ninny. It was the first time in my life that I didn’t think a British accent was charming. I cowered. I stared at my shoelaces. There is absolutely no doubt that he knew the effect he was having on me. Mr. Bentley managed to cement my sense that I was impossibly, certifiably un-handy.

To this day, I shudder whenever I pull out my toolbox, something I got by default when my ex couldn’t be bothered to take all his things with him. Mostly it’s full of duct tape, painter’s tape, a dried up permanent marker and various small tools that I call “thingies”. I’ve fulfilled the expectation that I am useless.

The toolbox is out now. I set it on the kitchen counter a week ago, a place where I could not avoid seeing it. But placing it there was enough for one day. I retreated to the gym and then scrolled through my Twitter feed before finally trying to get my Netflix to work again. (The old unplug and plug in again trick worked. Whew. That’s all I’ve got in my repertoire.)

I’ve spent the rest of the week maneuvering around the toolbox while staring at the one remaining floating shelf that I couldn’t figure out how to take down—something my realtor insisted I do before my condo goes on the market next month. I could have attended to another assigned task, sanding down my bathroom walls after what turned out to be my worst ever paint job but, well, that just didn’t look like fun. I’d tried to smooth the surfaces with regular painting sandpaper spongy thingies, but the bumps remained. I bought coarser sandpaper. Still no effect.

“Incompetent ninny.”

Yeah. I hear ya.

I went for coffee. This time it wasn’t an avoidance technique; I had a strategy. It is extraordinarily difficult for me to ask for help with anything so I invited a friend and shared one woe: the floating shelves. He offered to help—his tools, his time. Bless him. He came over two days later with his own toolbox—no tape, no markers, just all real tools—and peeked under the shelf at the screws whose grooves I’d nearly destroyed from poking them unsuccessfully with wrong-sized screwdriver attachments.

“I figured it would be IKEA,” he said. “It just needs an Allen key.” He pulled out a little bendy bar and I realized I had two of them at the bottom of my own toolbox.

“Oh.” Call me stupid.

He proceeded to extract one screw and then paused before ducking under to work on the next. “Damn arthritis,” he said. And call me shameful, too. I took over and managed to get the remaining screws out, a simple five-minute task I could have and should have done all by myself if I’d had any practical sense on matters like this.

My shame was, of course, fleeting. Since he was already here, I showed him my abysmal bathroom paint job. “I’ve got a power sander I could lend you.” Notably, this time he didn’t offer to do the work. Me with a power tool? My only power tool is a Dust Buster. Two of ‘em, both busted. (Apparently, I can accumulate some mighty tough dust.) Fear rose within. Did I really need all ten fingers? He left with the offer still dangling.

I spent two more days staring at my bathroom walls, pondering. I tried the hand-sanding thing again, same (non) result. Finally, I texted. “When can I come pick up your sander?” My comfort zone was somewhere far behind me, way beyond any rear-view mirror. In the lobby of his building, he pointed to where I’d have to insert the sandpaper. He looked at my blank face and then demonstrated. Thank god, because I had a totally different idea in my head from just watching his pointing fingers. “The rough side of the sandpaper faces out, right?” He laughed but I had to ask. One person’s obvious is my helpless conundrum.

“It’s extremely noisy,” he warned me. Gosh darn, too late to do the work on a Sunday evening. I’d have to wait until the next morning. Or afternoon. Sometimes procrastination is part of one’s survival instinct. Some people delay skydiving, I put off power sanding. (Make no mistake: I ain’t ever jumping out of a plane.)

The next day, as the afternoon hours were ticking away, I finally put on some Van Halen and plugged in the power sander. I was all butched up. But, really, who was I kidding? After YouTube segued into another Van Halen song, it switched to Belinda Carlisle’s “Heaven Is a Place on Earth”. Ten songs later and I was listening to Wilson Phillips. Peter Cetera and Irene Cara were on deck. Dang YouTube knows me all to well.

To be honest, I’m not sure I did the job right. I am fairly certain I held the right side of the machine to the wall. Smooth? Dunno. It looks all scuffed up. I won’t know until I repaint next week. (Yeah, another delay. I need time for my testosterone levels to subside.) For now, there are a couple of mini victories. For one, the noisy machine silenced Mr. Bentley’s voice inside my head, taunting me again. Even more importantly I completed the job without filing down a single fingernail...or finger. And maybe now I can raise one of those digits to old Mr. B.

NO TIME FOR ROMANCE

We all know someone who persistently proclaims, “I’m not looking for anyone. I’m happy being single.” And yet, after a glass of wine, that same person is bemoaning the fact there aren’t any decent guys out there to date.

That’s me on a good day. Usually I skip the opening declaration of denial and launch right into a whine before the wine. Nobody on the dating sites. Lame messages if anything (“how r u”). Zero returned eye contact in any venue. If you’ve read my blog at all, you’ve seen the posts, so often a slight spin on the same old pity party.

Sorry about all that.

My formative (non) dating years were spent watching and rhapsodizing over Meg Ryan movies. (I really miss her.) And just when I’d finally gotten past repeated plays of Eric Carmen’s “All by Myself”, Celine Dion went and remade the friggin’ song. When audiences turned their backs on romantic comedies, Mindy Kaling masterfully paid homage to them with “The Mindy Project”.

There’s always been something to stoke my everlasting aching for a love of a lifetime. Even now, the only series I’m regularly watching on Netflix is an Australian import called “Offspring” that I’ve heard absolutely no one talk about. It seems that main character Nina Proudman’s anxieties and fumbling and bumbling over dating are solely for my benefit. (The show has seven seasons and, as I am apparently the only human on the planet who lacks the binge watching gene, I’m now tortoise-ing my way through season two. Plenty more bonding fodder to come.)

But last night, as I drove into the suburbs on my way to my first Swedish language class in hopes that I’ll one day have a larger vocabulary than this guy, I realized that I was feeling less burdened, less edgy even. No, it had nothing to do with a little something that happened last week. (Pshaw! I don’t think I’ll ever know what people are talking about when it comes to endorphins.) It’s just that I can truthfully say for only the second time in my adult life that, yes indeed, I have no interest in a relationship for the moment and, by golly, that “moment” is going to last at least three to six months.

The first time I felt this way was back in 2004, after I’d ended a seven-year relationship and had to wait many months for housing renovations to be complete before we could finally sell the house. Once a SOLD sign appeared on the front lawn, I fled to rural British Columbia to be free at last.

Single and free.

I wanted desperately to find myself again. I wanted to go back to doing things that interested me and me alone. I’d like to think I had at least a year before the pining started anew and an oldies ditty by The Osmonds started dancing about in my head. (Yep. The “Geek for Life” sticker belongs smack on the back of my black pleather jacket.) In reality, my sabbatical might have only been a few months. What I’m clearer on is how refreshing it was to completely step away from all thing pertaining to romance. There was a strong sense of self-satisfaction and a near giddiness, the kind I only thought came with, er...love.

I didn’t give up on relationships immediately after visiting Toronto in August and deciding that I would make the move come the spring of 2020. In truth, I wasn’t terribly excited about it. I was simply being pragmatic. Things weren’t working in Vancouver; twenty-five years is long enough to give a city a shot. Being bound to Canada and knowing that I need to live in a large city, Toronto was basically the default option. (Je suis désolé, Montréal. If only my French were better.) With the move still months away, I told myself to remain open to something coming my way in Vancouver.

Indeed, I looked at my dating profiles again. I updated photos. I did online searches each month. I took prolonged pauses, carefully reading profiles before ultimately deleting rare messages so succinct they were tantamount to a beer belch. “Hey.” “Nice profile.” Wassup?” (I’ve gone ahead and inserted capitals and punctuation just to keep my brain in check.)

There was a moment in November when I thought those romantic comedy writers in the sky—Is that you, Nora Ephron?!—were actually throwing me a bone. I’d exchanged a couple of messages with Peter, a relative newcomer to Vancouver (from Toronto), and we agreed to meet on the seawall, by what I referred as The Happy Statues. I could use a good omen, after all. The installation is actually called “A-maze-ing Laughter” by Yue Minjun and, as I arrived early, I read the accompanying message etched in stone: “May this sculpture inspire laughter, playfulness and joy in all who experience it.” Yes, please. Let that vibe rub off on me. I was relaxed and smiling before the date even began. As I turned away from the sculptures, there was Peter with a broad smile and gorgeous blue eyes, his arms outstretched for a warm opening hug.

“Shit,” I thought. “This could change everything.”

For the next four hours, we walked and talked and then sat and talked back at his place. To be sure, he talked far more than I did. He seemed to be a blurter, sharing all sorts of things that are no-nos in the First Date handbook. At first, I attributed it to nervousness, then I figured that was just his way. As I finally walked home after declining his offer to whip up a vegan dinner, I realized his oversharing had exposed a lot of red flags but, more than anything, I was amused. I sat up late that night, sitting in my darkened living room, staring out at the Vancouver skyline, the lights having an extra twinkle as if to say, “Not so fast.” Maybe my life would actually play out like all those romantic comedies, Mr. Right appearing in the eleventh hour. Yes, I decided. I’d be open to it.

Alas, over two more long dates, Peter verbalized more and more red flags. It began to feel not like a romantic comedy but one of those “Candid Camera” gag shows. Watch the unsuspecting listener squirm with each outrageous statement. After the third date, I was again up late in my living room. I couldn’t put aside our fundamental differences, not just in terms of politics but regarding morals and ethics. How quickly I’d gone from smitten and amused to disappointed—repulsed even. I didn’t want to date this guy. I didn’t even want to offer the “Let’s be friends” tag while ending things. If this was My Life as a Romantic Comedy, I was seeing what happens after the final credits roll. Boom!

If that was the eleventh hour, this now feels like the twenty-third hour. I’m in no mood for anything to mess with my plan to move on. I fly to Toronto next week to explore various neighborhoods to see where I may want to focus on finding an apartment after my condo sells. I have a growing To Do list for winding down and wrapping up my Vancouver days. Even if I should face plant while running on the seawall and Ryan Reynolds’ doppelgänger comes to my rescue, I’ll simple accept his hand as an assist to get up, thank him and then brush myself off, turning away from that glorious smile and limping in the other direction. Wrong time, wrong place.

I parted with the final wisps of hope for some sort of Vancouver-based relationship during my three-week solo road trip across the western United States in December. In many ways it turned out to be a tortuous farewell to three decades of living on the West Coast (adding in my five years in Los Angeles). Lots of hopes, dreams and relationships that failed or fizzled. Too much time with nothing but the car radio and the local station of the moment playing Maroon 5’s taunting “Memories” yet again. Right up until

the penultimate day, I was filled with woe. At long last, I thrust my free hand forward toward the windshield and shouted, “Move on!” The past had been agonizingly processed, a virtual memory box of sorts, plenty dinged up and dented.

Life is on hold for now. Perhaps this is a welcome breather. The future starts in six months. When July comes around and I say that I’ve had no dates this year, there won’t be a trace of sadness. I’ll be able to say, in my lame Pee-Wee Herman voice, “I meant to do that.” Maybe Pee-Wee comedies should have been my cinematic fare all along.