My head was spinning as I said good night. All I wanted was to be home, safe in my bed alone. "No, I'm fine, really. I'll call you tomorrow," I said to my best girlfriend, Sette and her date Chris forcing a smile. "You guys have fun, thank you for ..." My voice trailed off as I got lost in the crowd at Hannah's in Summerlin.
How did this happen to me? What was wrong with me? If it weren't for bad man luck, I'd have no luck at all.
The familiar sting of tears bit at my eyes as I finally found the door, wallowing in self-pity the entire way. I'd spent so long getting ready, I'd even straightened hair my hair. I mean, crud, I didn't even want to go out in the first place but Sette and Chris, the guy she'd been seeing on occasion urged me to. "You have to meet Jack, he's great," said Chris. "He'll love you! And if all else fails, how bad would it be to have another great friend?" It made sense as he said the words, so I decided to go against the grain and accept the blind date.
Blind dates suck! They suck-suck-suckity-suck! First you have to contend with the fact that there's a possibility that the only thing you and Mr. Maybe will have in common is the fact that you're both single, then there's the aftermath when you're forced to look at the friend that fixed you up and ask, "Is this really how little you think of me?" There is no winning in a blind date situation.
And, yet no matter how well I know these facts, at the mere mention of his best friend I was all over the idea. What the hell, right? Sette and Chris got along great, who was to say Jack and I wouldn't be a good match? What did I have to lose?
So there I was, all dressed up and playing the third wheel on my best friends date as I waited for my blind date to show up. The longer we waited, the weirder it got. Chris kept calling him, at first he'd say he was just running late, but then he stopped answering his phone and finally he just turned it off altogether. "He must have gotten busy," said Chris trying to make things better. "So busy he couldn't call?" asked Sette feeling my pain. "It had better be worse than that or I'll kill him," she's said, "I swear I'll kill him if he isn't already dead."
I kept smiling and saying things like, "Oh, it's alright, I'm sure there's a perfect explanation." Yeah, like he suddenly came to his senses and decided he'd rather eat bile than be fixed up with the likes of middle-aged, single mother me. Isn't it amazing that no matter how fantastic you feel when you leave the house, all it takes is one little prick to burst your bubble? That night, Jack was the little prick.
I wasn't about to lose my composure in front of his best friend or mine. I was determined to keep smiling until I was safe in my car where I could blast Air Supply's "I'm all out of love, I'm so lost without you ..." and have myself a spectacular mope because all men are selfish, self-serving bastards. That was the plan anyway, that is until I reached for the door and He stepped into my life. He took one look at me and light up like the fourth of July. It was written all over his face, he couldn't believe his dumb luck at running in to me that night.
His name is Bill and he is 6-foot-2 with boyish good looks and a skillion-dollar smile. I'd seen him around all of my favorite neighborhood hot-spots for the past two years and every time we'd run into each other, he was nothing short of wonderful to me. Although we'd never been out on a date, we'd had lots of nice conversations. He was easy to talk to, had a good sense of humor and really nice friends. But none of that mattered at that moment. Poor Bill was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He never stood a chance.
In an instant, I had suddenly transformed from Sonja, sweet, sassy relationship columnist who wears her heart on her sleeve, always ready to offer hope to the lovelorn; into bitter, bitch-faced Sonja, ready to make someone pay for all the dating wrongdoing I'd had to endure in this godforsaken city. I was done trying so hard to find my perfect match, finished being my most charming and delightful self in the hopes that someone would fall deeply and forever in love with me. I wanted to dish out what I'd been taking for years, wanted to treat men with the same cold hearted cruelty that they so readily dispersed. Poor, sweet Bill was about to fall prey to my wrath.
"Sonja," he said. "Where are you off to in such a hurry?"
The old me was still standing there sad, disappointed and ready to cry but somehow the new me managed to prevail as I looked up at Bill I didn't see him for who he was I saw him as what he represented: Same asshole, different shoe size.
"Who me?" I asked in a sultry tone, transformation complete. "I'm going nowhere fast, Bill. Wanna come?"
Sonja is a writer who covers the ins and outs of relationships. Or is it the ups and downs?