Jun 21, 2010

Happy Hour





A waitress in a cocktail dress sets a steaming pepperoni pizza
in front of three women, two are wearing sneakers and sweatpants, and the third is touting a dainty black dress with three inch nude heels. Retelling escapes from the workday, they’re clinking glasses; watching the rain through the large glass windows. Twenty-something and thirty-something’s are perched flirtatiously, the restaurant is crowded with that desired chaos; suits and sundresses are recovering from a hectic workweek…. The three think they're alone....

Until a familiar button down waltzes by..... Watching this man carefully, they expect him to join the group of routy guys shouting at the TV, but he walks past the men, snaking through the mess of people, he makes his way to a blond women. She is wearing straw sandals and not much makeup.

And before I can turn to my friend, my own heart sinks… but before she can force a smile, she closes her eyes for a brief moment. I reach for her hand, but she recoils; her entire body is in a freeze frame, because a nightmare just came true. She stares at the scene unfolding, straight from a 90210 episode with awe…. Almost as if she had been waiting for the moment it would all unravel… for the moment she could prove it was all wrong.

The man who walked by the three of us, the man whose eyes are locked with a complete stranger is the same man who was whispering sweet nothings not but 72 hours before. To her. In his bed. His back is turned toward us; he has no clue that we’ve has spotted him. The blond woman’s body is leaning toward him, she tilts her head back in laughter, and her recently conditioned locks sway in perfect feminity. And I’m pretty sure all three of us are going to vomit.

Why? I could go on and on, rehashing stories similar to this with vivid detail, the untold and still secret stories that could rip apart colorfully designed futures packed full of diapers and engagement rings. And yes, do I like the fact that men and women go around crushing each other’s hearts without second thought? Heavens No… but I’m no idiot to matters of the heart. And for once I ask myself… why can’t we just go around the world and be honest with each other… about our intentions, our objectives, agendas, whatever motivates us in life… but it hit me last week, before we can be honest with each other, we must overcome the challenge of being honest with ourselves. Often I see people with baggage – oh all sorts, designer, second hand, some light and others’ in desperate need of therapy running all over town into the arms of somebody new every night. They justify this romping with the hope of locating, “the one”. With great confusion and utter despair they believe unearthing the ying to their yang will solve all their problems. But it isn’t two halves that make a perfect pair… people need to be whole before they can give half of themselves (and their baggage) to anyone else.

But oh, it is so much easier said then done… to saunter into a first date with blown dry hair and a sexy grin and a few witty lines? Then, it’s easy to imagine perfection. Whenever a student walks into a class - they all have A’s, but we’re tested. Then arrives the trials and tribulations – accept or deny, pick up the phone or hit ignore, and finally arrives the “vulnerable”. The discovering of the messy vehicle, whistling in the shower, an addiction to ice cream. Oh.. The months that you tiptoe into the bathroom and tinkle quietly because God forbid he find out you’re human.

Let me tell you… there is nothing worse than standing at Nordstrom, in front of a full-length mirror, the kind with bright overhead lights, completely naked… why? It exposed every detail, flaw, scar or scratch…. And isn’t it so much more fun to dress in body-friendly threads? So often, I think that I’d prefer to hide under the covers, but wouldn’t it be sooo liberating to be completely accepted? Ass and all?

And not that my dear friend failed to accept…. we all knew a nasty secret…. She did something far worse… far more fatal than not risking it all for what appears to have lasting potential…. She knew, deep down that he wasn’t right to begin with – sure he was about 90% okay…. He was attractive, successful, considerate, and funny… but he was missing that 10% critical ingredient, the ache. That ache when you want someone so much that you don’t want anyone else.

She always left one eye open for another male specimen.. Could it have worked out? Maybe… Should she have left him alone without barraging him with interrogating questions? Should there have inherently been more trust? Or rather, was the 10% missing the breach of trust to begin with? When we know something is wrong, or more importantly not right, do we go out of our way to locate the 10% in no man’s land… do we try to conjure it up? So we bridge the missing ache with babies and prenumps?

I don’t have any answers…. Only a suggestion. This is coming from a woman who is a hopeless pragmatic and a diehard romantic…. Wrapped up in a commitment phobe’s frame of mind. Try to ditch the to do lists and resumes prerequisites and be honest with yourself. And most often you’ll realize that this next date, the next dinner, the next whatever isn’t’ going to suddenly mold into amazing… the rule of holes, stop digging. People need to give up when they want to be in something so badly… and it simply, won’t fit.

But then there are the times that you push it away… too afraid that maybe; there isn’t a real reason to fake it. And maybe sometimes if you’re honest with yourself, and honest with the other person, after you’ve endured the ice cream and the messy vehicles, the late night banter and the confusing details of our pasts that really make no difference at all, You realize that you’re not fighting for something to suddenly happen, waiting for the moment to trip across them at a bar, flirting with someone else, and make you feel like dirt… you’re not spending months making that 10% “right”…

You realize that you’ve been waiting to make sure that that 10% was never wrong after all.

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