It was seventy-seven degrees and mostly sunny, today, in my beautiful college town. I got out of my last class at noon, and sat around for half an hour doing nothing before feeling this intense sense of Why Am I Here?

So I left. I stopped at the drug store and grabbed a bottle of water, then at the bookstore for a new book to read. My employee discount makes paper novels worth buying, sometimes, in a time pinch with a dead Kindle, and anyway I was replacing a book I'd lost so I could read it a few more times.

Then, I started walking. The funny thing about walking in my town is that, often, you'll get wrapped up in where you're going and not think about where you are. But then, on days like today--which don't come often, by the way--suddenly I can see everything again: the tall palm tress bursting out of the sidewalks, the packed-in historic buildings, the old streets, the sky... After not so terribly long, I found myself at the park by the ocean, and settled in a tree branch to read. The wind rocked me as I read, and occasionally I would look up at the ocean and bask in what I had access to. Living here is a privilege I too often forget I have.

After a long read, I started feeling hungry. I'd remembered passing one of my favorite cozy restaurants, on the way, and how the craving for fresh bread had hit me like a sack of rocks.

So I stopped in, on my way back.

This was my first experience eating alone.

The staff was pleasant, placing me at a table and generally leaving me alone while I read. The only things I had to say to the waitress were my order, and then my request for a check. One of the employees stopped by to ask me about the book I was reading, and what it was about, which was challenging, because it was a Vonnegut novel, and his novels are about everything and nothing, really. I settled on telling him that it was a novel about human choice. Fate, luck, happenstance.

He liked that answer.

He liked that answer so much that, after I'd paid and left, he came running after me with a handwritten note--written on the back of an order receipt--introducing himself and complimenting me. At the bottom, he drew a Vonnegut asterisk.

I smiled the whole walk home. Strangers are wonderful, and so is eating alone.

Unfortunately, I had to think.

I've been wondering a lot why my love life is so shoddy and temporally-limited, and this kind of...added to my ponderment, because I started thinking about idealism versus reality. I think that I see dating as such a weak structure for learning about someone because it's always been an idealist venture. It's hard to form into coherent thoughts, but I have it all in my head, so I'll try to be systematic:

Let's say you start as friends. These two friends see each other in a variety of situations, in the context of real life: studying, watching movies with people, doing the ugly laugh, maybe sometimes crying...you see these people, and you get to know every part of them in a relaxed atmosphere, and then those feelings start to develop, and that's how you get to maybe dating, but mostly a relationship. Friends tend to come as they are because there is no politeness, really, in friendship--you're there to challenge the other person, and that's part of the reason why they picked you.

Then, okay, otherwise, you start as strangers. Strangers, who like something in each other, something that catches attention. The first thought after meeting this person, for some reason, isn't, "I would like to be friends with this person," it's "I would like to date this person," and that brings me to kind of a problematic area.

To me, it feels like it's skipping a step. I've heard others talk about the same thing--how it doesn't really feel real, going through the motions of dating, without ever really breaking the ice. How are you going to break it, anyway? Over dinner? Out for ice cream? No, it's going to be way later, when both of you have started getting invested and doing couple activities, like staying in and watching movies (not that it's always a couple thing), and by then, anything you find out that really, really breaks the deal is found out a bit too late.

(You know I dated a homophobic individual for several weeks before finding out? By then, I was starting to really like this guy. It was an emotionally-elaborate ordeal.)

I've said it so many times before that it makes me ill, because I say it, but I never seem to change the behavior: I hate dating. I would love to go sit out in the grass on a warm, sunny day, and just talk for hours. I would love to bring our own sandwiches and our own drinks and just enjoy each other's company without the overbearing pretense. I hate the awkward pause after a waiter asks if the checks are together or separate. I hate having people immediately say "Together," and pay for me. I like paying for other people, sometimes, but it would be fine, all the same, to me, if we never paid for each other, outside of a relationship (and even then, just whenever we wanted, no expectations).

Relationships--especially marriage--should be like getting to spend tons of time with your best friend, but with sexytimes. That doesn't come from dating, for me. It comes from genuinely seeing that person, rather than a foggy idea of a person.

Dates with strangers...right now most of my dates are with friends. Or with girls that I plan on being friends with/see a lot. It's definitely a good place. I dunno if you can just start asking random friends on dates though...it's sort of part of the culture with me.
» middaymoon on 2013-11-06 11:26:59

And eating alone is a blast, on occasion.
» middaymoon on 2013-11-06 11:47:06

You seem to have all these exciting stories about how the er... potential for romance starts in your life. Such things have never really happened to me. I also haven't had problems with dating though, so maybe I'm better off. -Shrug- Maybe it just comes with the territory of not really being attracted to people unless I know them better. Can't you just hang out with people until you decide if you'd like to get more serious or just remain friends (or possibly not even that, and just drift apart)?
» randomjunk on 2013-11-07 12:02:47

Yeah, this is why I have a problem with the pace of most relationships these days. You could make out with someone before discovering that they were a total jerk or a neo-nazi or something, and everyone would say "You MADE out with THAT GUY?" because anyone that ever been in the same class with the guy or worked with him or served him lunch one time would already know way more about him than you did because they see him in context and without a filter. That's why I like to know people for like 6 months before we start dating. But if a guy is interested it is hard to hold him off that long.
» Zanzibar on 2013-11-07 09:34:58

While my personal experiences are rather limited, I have found it can be hard to be friends with a guy sometimes because you just want to hang out, or stay in and watch a movie, or just go walking some place, but he shies away from those comfortable kind of activities because, seemingly, it's too date-y or something.
(This, really, is about a specific person in my life, but we'll just pretend it's a generalization that could be applied to anyone.)
I just want to tell him sometimes, "Chill out! I just want to be *friends* with you. I don't always want to go OUT. Let's just watch a movie that doesn't cost ten dollars."

oi.
» invisible on 2013-11-16 01:59:22

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