Purposely Single?

What used to be, "What is Wrong with Me?"

I have never been a "Dating Machine".  In college, I think I managed three dates.  Not even one date a year.  I attributed this to one reason:  I was fat and ugly.  I believed that because during the first half of my senior year in high school, I was subjected to my ex boyfriend (who had dumped me for my best friend the year before) and his best friend waiting for me at the top of the stairs by my locker to greet me every morning with, "Good morning!  You're especially ugly and fat today."  When they would see me in the halls, they would make comments like, "Fat-ass."

I believed them because I was a bigger girl.  I was a humongous size 9!!!  A size which would make be blissful these days.  But, among the girls in my school, that did make me a cow.  It was the late 80s -- eating disorders were prevalent and access to fast food was extremely limited in our small town.  Low self-esteem was the obvious result.

Over the years, my confidence in myself improved, but the number of dates increased only slightly.  So I couldn't blame it on being fat -- there had to be something wrong with me.  Then RLF came to live with me and we would go out together and I would get upset when she would get hit on at a bar and I would not.  I didn't blame any guys who hit on her because she is quite lovely -- I blamed her for not "toning it down" around her "plain" aunt.

She would get frustrated, "Uhm!  That guy was hitting on you.  You just wouldn't talk with him!"

What?  The problem, she explained, wasn't that I was fat, had a bad personality, or whatever I determined was the issue that week.  The problem was that I just had no clue when a man was showing interest.  In fact, it was as if the man needed to behave as a cave man and clobber me over the head so I would get the point -- and the guys that went to that level aren't the ones you want to date.  In fact, Mr. Man had been flirting with me for six years before he finally asked one evening, "Can I do something I've always wanted to do?"  Puzzled, I asked, "What's that?"  I know I was thinking the he must want to go sky diving or something.  That was when he responded, "Kiss you."  Oh.

That brings me to last night.  I am out of town and staying in a hotel where I log a lot of nights.  I decided to head down to the bar to get dinner (and some purple cosmos).  With a couple of drinks in me, I became a little more chatty and had a few conversations with a couple of guys at the bar and then Josh sat down.  Josh is visiting from a much warmer climate and the start of the conversation was easy as the temperatures here are currently sub zero.  We chatted about a lot of things:  how cute Bubby is (and he did seem genuinely interested in the photos on my phone), what it's like to surf (he does, I don't), where he grew up, why in the world he would be a San Francisco 49ers fan...  Probably most fascinating to me is how one gets a medical marijuana prescription in his home state and that there are actually delivery services for such things.

I was really enjoying myself, but was soon ready for bed (one would have thought I would have gotten to bed early after the Honey Boo Boo debacle, but I didn't learn my lesson and spent way too much time watching Amish Mafia the next night) as the combo of sleep deprivation and vodka hit me.  He asked me if I wanted to go have a smoke before I went upstairs.  "Sure."  We went out on the patio and then it slowly began to dawn on me and the previous hour of conversation replayed in my head ....

"Oh my god!  He's interested in a little slap and tickle..."  I don't think he was thinking any sort of romantic encounter -- nonetheless, I was interesting and attractive enough for a little messing around (he was, mind you, sober).

I sucked down my cigarette and bid him good night before hustling back to my room.

Here's the thing...  My lack of interest had nothing to do with:

1.  Mr. Man (no, there isn't trouble in Paradise)

2.  His lack of personality or physical attractiveness -- he was very smart, funny, and even attractive

3.  My exhaustion

4.  My morals

Those would be the four main reasons an otherwise single girl would pass up a night of "strange", wouldn't they?  None of that even crossed my mind.  I didn't want it and I didn't need it.

Why?  Because I was (and still am this morning) happy with myself.  I felt no need to have that "boost".  Because I didn't even realize that he was flirting with me until afterward, it wasn't that I'd gotten that boost from the saucy interaction -- I just enjoyed the interaction.

As I crawled into bed, it made me think that maybe there's been nothing wrong with me all of these years.  Indeed, lack of confidence in my younger years did have an impact -- but maybe my inability to ever figure out when a man was making a pass had more to do with the fact that enjoying the moment was what brought me happiness and not focusing on the future.  Have I sabotaged myself?  I don't think so.  I just think that, deep down, I always knew what I wanted and needed -- despite what external influences around told me that I needed and wanted.

The other part?  For a nano second, I felt guilty that Mr. Man didn't play into my decision to beat a hasty exit.  Then I realized that's kind of the way I want that to be, too: that I'm led by an internal compass and not social expectations -- and my internal compass is spot on.