Chapter 130: Dating and Baking have a whole lot in common (separate blog to follow)

I really like Sundays, but Sundays usually make me pensive, thinking about what I need to do to change my life, or wallowing in my own filthy misery. They can be great, because I will realize things that I need to do to improve myself, but they also end up leaving me feeling incredibly lonely. I don’t blame Sundays, I know it’s not the day, and I can’t really blame the ward, though being surrounded by singles, some pairing up and others eternally wandering alone like the Incredible Hulk can just get disheartening at times.
As many of you, okay, all unless you accidentally came across this blog today, know that I like B2. But lately I have begun my De-B2-inize program. Pretty much this is me backing off, some would call it quitting; others might call it seeing the light. Either way it kind of sucks. I’m trying not to wallow, and not to feel sorry for myself and today in church I even chanted, “Hope, hope, hope,” over and over again until I felt better. I mostly just ended up feeling like the little engine that could. But for me the truth is, having hope is like trying to catch a greased pig. I’m not saying it’s like that for everyone, just for me. Friday night we went on a ghost tour around the city and I took a picture of a building that I just think is beautiful, I told my friend, “If I ever get married I want to take my bridal portraits taken there.” I throw out a lot of ‘ifs’ when it comes to me getting married. My friend said, “Have hope!” They even mentioned having hope in the dating “conversation” last Sunday. Hope is an easier said than done thing for me. I’m trying to, but it seems that at the end of every social event I’m drained of it.
For example, church went well today, yes, I thought a lot about things I need to do in my life, what I could eliminate or should eliminate to enhance my time on earth. Even relief society went well and I’m trying not to be such a negative person. After church I was roaming the halls and I saw New Friend…needs a name…Cheery, because he is. So I approached Cheery who has come with B2 to Institute twice and I wrote a little about him last week. We were speaking in the hallway for a view minutes when an 18 year old walked by, I know her, so I said ‘hello’ as she was passing and he asked who she was and I felt instantly like a buddy, I didn’t ask to be a buddy, I had yet to do anything to suggest that I wanted to be a buddy and even though I know he was just trying to get to know more people my heart dropped. Maybe my time has passed, maybe I let my chance pass by when I was 19 and went down to Utah to see all the Olympic stuff and there was that one guy who seemed to really like me, but I was scared and he moved too fast for my taste. I let that one go, and sometimes I wonder if that was my one true chance. Deep down I know there are more chances, but it seems that the world is changing, and as these men wise up and realize that they do want to get married and they marry younger women there are those of us from the older generation that are abandoned to single-tude. I didn’t mean to go off on that, so Cheery is talking to this fresh high school graduate and Romania walks up and starts talking to me, I call him Romania because that’s where he was born. He’s mentally handicap and talks standing too close to me, but otherwise harmless. But Cheery finishes his conversation with the girl, turns to me (he is behind Romania’s back) gives me a goofy thumbs up and walks off. I don’t know if the thumbs up was because he finds he’s in love with the girl I, as the buddy, introduced him to, or if he is a sadist and wanted me to know how much he was going to enjoy leaving me there. Maybe my real problem with guys doesn’t lie with me; it’s in them, the cowards who can’t save a girl from an awkward conversation. Kind of ticks me off now that I’m thinking about it.
So there I am, all alone and Romania is talking to me about something and I only catch a word or two here or there, a few people pass by, none that help me, and then N.T.R. walks up and starts talking to me and for a moment I can’t decide if I am relieved or not. Then I decide to go with ‘no’ because they were both talking at the same time and it was driving me crazy and then N.T.R. says, “I hear you’re single and looking,” and I just began to shake my head and realize that I hate my life. Then Romania starts to say, “She works she’s too busy, you have to let her make the decisions,” and I realized that maybe I could handle them together, one making me uncomfortable, the other standing up for me and telling the guy ‘no’ so I don’t have to. Then N.T.R. left, Romania’s brother came to get him (but gave up and also abandoned me) and I got Romania to move towards the door his brother left through. While we were standing there Desperate (named so because he’s asked out every single one of my friends and I think he did it in a week) tried to enter the conversation and I thought, “three is enough,” I don’t need to go to church with the triple threat, it was like walking down a gauntlet, why is it like that!? Finally I told Romania he’d better not make his brother wait any longer and left the building. The thing that most bothered me was everyone kept looking at my chest today. I checked my outfit in the mirror, no black bra showing, no cleavage, nothing, why did they keep looking at my chest. I swear, less people look at my chest when I’m wearing a graphic tee than when I was talking to people for half an hour at the church building. I’ve never had to resist the urge so much to say, “My eyes are up here.” Never felt so dirty in my life.
I get to my parents house and they have the missionaries over for dinner and this lady from their ward. She’s a nice lady, I’ve never had a problem with her, but as I am walking around the table getting my food (we had buffet style) she asks me how the single’s ward is going, I tell her they are entertaining. Then she asked me about Rocket (can’t think if I’ve ever given him a name in here, but he’s Chill’s friend from church) she asks me if I have ever met Rocket and I tell her ‘yes’ I work with his sister with our callings. The missionaries (three of them) are all sitting in the room, with nothing else to listen to but our conversation. She says, “Well, he’s a cutie why don’t you go for him?” and I had to think fast on an answer other than, “He’s never asked”. So I come up with, “he’s too young,” and smiled politely and she says, “Too young!” as though being 25 and single means that there is no such thing as a boy too young for me. I hate talking about being single, why do people always bring it up. As though I’m not painfully aware that no one wants to be with me. They talk about it like I choose to be single, because being alone is what I really in my life.
Then I’m upset because like I said in the beginning to de-B2-inize. I didn’t speak to him at all today. I hate this, not him or anything, but liking someone. My mom asked me today whatever happened with B2 and I told her that he’s just that way with everyone, he’s just friendly and I let myself read too much into it, and pretty much I should slit my wrist in bath of hot water. I left out the slitting of the wrist for my mom’s sake.
After the missionaries left my sister says, “We want to hook you up with A&W.” She actually called him that too, so I figure that shall be christened his Brutally Honest name, it’s because his tie looked like A&W. He’s one of the missionaries; he’s going home in six weeks. I did the usual, making a joke about how I love root beer. But later I went up to my mom’s room and told her if she wanted to I would be okay with that. She got a big smile on her face and I told her it would never happen anyway, but what do I have to lose, but then I added to not do it in front of me that would be too embarrassing.
Seems like I’ve reached the point where I’m willing to let people set me up.