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"This is Sad Eyes. I lost my phone, and I don't have your number, so ..."
That's all of her voicemail greeting that I need to hear before hanging up.
I sit in place in the lobby of the skating rink, letting the reality of the situation sink in for a moment.
Then, a chill of indignation runs over me.
I've been stood up.
It's a rite of passage, I guess. I'm 29 years old, and I finally get to feel what it's like to be one of the schlubbier characters in a John Hughes movie. It's almost funny, almost gratifying.
But right now, I've got to figure out how I'm going to spend the rest of my afternoon.
My utilitarian side speaks first: "Get a refund. Get an early start on your weekend chores. Go shopping. Maybe hit a bookstore for a couple hours."
But my PUA side, luckily, wins out.
"Do what you came here to do."
I go to the cashier and hand over one of my tickets. Just one.
A few minutes later, I'm strapped up in skates and on the ice. The rink is packed -- it's the only one open in the city during summer -- and the Zamboni doesn't come out often, so the ice is choppy as all hell. But I appreciate the challenge, and I manage to stay on my feet from beginning to end.
Three days later, I'm at work, washing my hands in the restroom. A call comes, and it's her name on the caller ID.
"Hello?" I answer, no cheer in my voice. What I really mean to say is, "What do you want?"
"... Hel -- lo?" is her delayed, timid, drawn-out response.
"Yes?" I'm listening.
"I'm so sorry about this past weekend!" she starts. She tells me again about how she lost her phone, and I can sense that in her world of womanly virtues, she believes that exonerates her from breaking an obligation.
"Sad Eyes ... it was your phone, not your prosthetic leg," I'm thinking. But I hold my tongue. She's not enlightened enough to hear something like that.
"It's already forgotten. I don't get angry about stuff like that," is what I say. And it's true, I don't. A man can do no better than his best when he's looking to accomplish a goal. Beyond that, he has to surrender to fate. And sometimes fate includes the frailties of others.
I continue: "In fact, I thought about it, and it's actually funny! See, I'm 29 years old, and that was the first time I had ever been stood up. You know what that means? Fifty, sixty years from now, when my grandkids ask me, 'Grandpa, did you ever get stood up?', now I'll have a story to tell! I just have one question: Do you mind if I use your real name?"
She picks up from there: "Who knows? You might have to say, "Well, your grandma ...'"
Geez. The power of a good future projection.
I neg her accordingly -- no woman wins my affections that easily -- and we end up talking for a long while. We explore the outer reaches of the C phase.
She eventually says, pleadingly, "I'll make it up to you, I promise!"
After she left me hanging at the skating rink, I was fully prepared to never hear from her again. (And I certainly wasn't ever going to call her again myself.) But I was also prepared for a development like this.
"You want to make it up to me? OK, here's a way," I start, with a mix of sarcasm and relish.
"We can try to go out again, but on two conditions. One, YOU have to make the plan."
She moans in agony on the other end.
"You've never had to do that before, have you?" I ask. I can't help but smile.
"Two, you have to go because you really want to meet. Not because you feel sorry for me or because you want to feel like a good person."
She accepts. Not surprisingly, she comes up with the most creatively bankrupt date idea known to man: dinner and a movie. And even that, I have to help her plan.
The date goes nowhere, in large part because the logistics are terrible. I don't pick or preview the restaurant, so we don't get a corner booth. And sitting on the steps in a sold-out movie theater, passively letting a piece of talking, flashing celluloid entertain her (and me) for two hours? Forget about it. We never meet again.
But that's all beside the point. I stuck to my principles through the whole ordeal, so I'm not losing any sleep about it all these months later.
If the same thing happened today, I wouldn't do anything differently.
NJ
Last edited by Night Job on 11 Mar 2008, 06:55, edited 3 times in total.
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