STOOD UP...AND NOT JUST ONCE...

Recently I got an invitation to join a group going out to a famous restaurant nearby. I responded, but got no response to my RSVP. I didn't think much it at first, but after a few days went by, it occurred to me that maybe I should at least have gotten a message that said: "Sorry, we're full." So I sent another message, and still got no response. Another several days, and more silence. On the day of lunch, I called first the restaurant, and then a couple of people the staff said were comng, just to see if anyone knew whether I was expected -- I didn't want to seem pushy, but in a very small restaurant you also don't want to be suddenly one guest short, either.

Hard to call.

Well, I said it was no big deal. No harm done. Just don't want anyone to be caught short... And then I began to have doubts: some of the guys who dreamed up the lunch were people I had met before moving here -- could I have offended one of them somehow? You never know, especially, if you will pardon my French, with some gay men. This began to seem more serious. Had I burned my bridges even before arriving in town? And how could I find out? It's not really a question you can ask anyone. So I did some deep breathing, and decided to just bide my time and be ready to bow and scrape if necessary...

Around the same time, one of my college friends had suggested I apply for a job with his outfit -- figuratively, not literally, in the mailroom. But I was really trying to find something that paid more than office temp work, not less, so I said "no." And only afterwards did I think: Uh-oh. Had I done it again? I have already mentioned an interview I muffed because I couldn't explain why they should hire someone with a resumé that had nothing to do with what they were doing. Two strikes. The half-time work I had began to look better every day. So far, so good, if I don't mess up on the job...

And the very loose alumni group from my high school sent around an e-mail list, and I noticed that there were several of us in the "not quite as close to Boston as we would like" category. I proposed [what else?] driving up the Vermont/New Hampshire border as far as made sense in a day, in time to [a] see some leaves, and [b] miss the tourists. That means: not Columbus Day weekend, which is like a mass migration in the southern half of the states, and fairly heavy all the way up. If all the SUVs suddenly stopped working on arrival, suburban Boston and New York would be empty the following week... so, the last weekend in September. Bad enough.

A bunch of people checked in, and after juggling days that would work for various people, and spending a fair amount of time trying to get a carpool to work -- how many cars did we really need to drive up, after all? -- I finally had what I thought was a reasonable number of people to meet for lunch at a spot close but not too close to the tourist track. I left early to get there early, and I thought I had pulled it off this time. I was front and center at the door of the lunch place and had had even had time to chat up the waitstaff by the appointed time -- something of a miracle, considering all that had been going on that morning -- and waited for half an hour more. By that time I could see that it was going to be a table for one. So I asked for one, and spent more than I would have normally, but I could see that I had not made any new friends here, either.

So, I began to wonder what was going on. I didn't really feel like I could call people and say, "Why weren't you there?" because I didn't want to sound like [ahem] "some gay men," and besides, who knows what confluence of circumstances would keep four separate people supposedly driving in two different cars from making a date? Did they know something I didn't? Well, I decided to let it go. Again.

Then, the latest of my small humiliations on the internet. I had contacted a guy who lived too far away for casual acquaintance, I suppose, because his was one of the five million profiles some bit of software has decided really had my name on it. And I liked his down-to-earth approach. So I was pleasantly surprised when he replied -- not by any means a frequent occurrence. And either tickled or tantalized that he said that we would see about friendship after we had talked, and included his phone number. But he added the ambiguous message: "possibly we could talk." Should I call, or not? Well, I saw that he had listed boldness as a quality he liked, so I did what I would otherwise not have done, and called.

Small comedy of errors: of course his phone answering machine does not list him by his on-line profile name, so I had no idea whether I had dialed the right number, or whether he had sent me the right number, even if I was dialing it right, which I usually don't -- aside from my own phone number, there is no group of four digits in the world in which I will not initially reverse the inner two... So I left a message ambiguous enough, I thought, not to get either of us in trouble if it were indeed a wrong number, and sent him an e-mail saying I had called. Here I was, in possession of somebody's phone number and real name, but none the wiser for all that.

And the next thing I know, I get an e-mail back saying that it [friendship?] wasn't going to work out. So the questions are, in no order of importance: was it that I called? was it my message -- was I too bold? not bold enough? was it the sound of my voice? was it that I didn't leave my full name as he had -- if that was his phone? but then, I didn't know whose phone I was leaving the message on, really, so how could I have? and whatever happened to wanting to talk? a phone message was enough to tell him the "chemistry" was wrong? I have to tell you, I am beginning to hate that word. Every dismissive e-mail uses it; I guess it's a polite way of saying "go away." And "go away" would definitely be worse...

To use the Jaded Bear's expression, I had been well and truly dumped. Well, as the professor would tell you, turn-about is fair play, so I guess I can't complain. But the series of events does rather make me wonder what's going on... It's like the actor's nightmare: you go onstage for someone else at the last minute with your script in hand only to find out that no one else is saying anything you can find in the script... It does make me wonder what I am doing, if it in in fact it is anything I am doing, that seems to queer the chemistry in so many situations these days. I mean, I know I'm not socially adept, but I'm not sure I've ever been through a series of mysteries like this one.

Or do the ones in the past just pale over time?

[Just for the fun of it, I asked the White Pages for the address of the "Bill" I had gotten off the phone machine: Bill and Sally, at an address that makes sense with the number, though of course that doesn't prove anything...
Is someone playing with fire? It's not me this time.]

Always a bridesmaid, never a bride.
Well, not at this rate.
Hang in there.