A girlfriend of mine has been trying to set me up on a date for several months. Elated by the match she recently found with her dude, she wants to spread the wealth. I shy away from set ups of any kind because I find the pressure unbearable. I don’t do that well under normal dating circumstances where you at least already know the person is somewhat interested. To be put in a situation requiring flirting, small talk, and hilarity ON TOP of having to figure out if there’s even a spark… it makes me feel like vomiting. But this friend of mine – she’s good. She appealed to my vanity and began her pitch with, “Erin, I thought of you the other night because you’re so smart and great and funny…” I’m such a sucker for myself, it’s sad. I love the sound of my own name, I love gazing at my profile pic on face book, I love going through old yearbooks and seeing what people said about me. If I could date myself, I probably would. Instead, though, I have to live with myself. Forever. It’s like I’m roommates with a crazy, narcissistic, hypochondriac who’s never, ever moving out. I’m living with who you’d get if you crossed a Kathy comic with Al Bundy. I’m never ready for swimsuit season and I generally have one hand wedged down my pants.
My friend, once she’s buttered me up, goes on to tell me she’s already shown my picture to this guy and he’s interested. Before I’ve even agreed to anything? Right, because she knows now it will be harder for me to refuse. She guides me online to his face book page (God, I hate technology at times like this) where I see that he’s really good looking in that I-could-have-been-a-model-if-I-wasn’t-brilliant kind of way. Immediately I decide he is too good for me (pretty guys never fall for the Whitehead) and not good enough for me (clearly he’s too well-adjusted to understand the damaged yet hilarious depths of the Whitehead). I apply this formula to almost everything in life; I expect to be rejected and when I am it’s because I’m too good for who or what rejected me. Amazingly, I have not hit my peak in any areas of life. I mean, I really hope I haven’t.
I agree to meet this guy who my friend tells me is smart, kind, handsome – and funny, her boyfriend chimes in. Good, this is a group project now. As often happens, though, schedules don’t work out, people get busy, and the set up never happens. I am more relieved than anything. I realize that some people are at that point in life where everything has come together, they’re happy, and the only thing left to do is find that person with whom they’re going to buy plants and books, paint bright colors in the living room, take fun trips, have babies, laugh about aging, retire, and die. It sounds fantastic but I’m just not there yet. Far from everything coming together I feel like I’m regressing. I just took a job substitute teaching, something I swore I’d never go back to. I live off credit cards, I play the lottery, I stay up until 3 AM googling keywords like, “depression,” “writing jobs,” and “time travel.” After I saw Inception I became obsessed with the idea that none of this is real and that the only solution to get back to my actual life was… well, if you’ve seen it you know where I’m headed. The point being, these are not first date topics. These are topics to avoid unless you want to come off as a dark, neurotic loser.
So when I found out that he’ll be coming to a party I will also be attending this weekend, I balked. The last time I went on a date and tried to avoid the above topics I ended up starting conversations like, “Remember in high school when you would stay on the phone so long at night you’d both go in and out of sleep?” And he’d go, “Yeah?” And I’d say, “Um, that’s all.” Kill. Me. Now. The prospect of trying to shape myself into something upbeat and appealing just sounds exhausting. But here’s where you figure in. Yes, you, you ungrateful readers – all three of you. I need something to report back on so I’M GOING, okay? I’m not promising this will lead to a date but it will at least lead to an anecdote in the dating life of the Whitehead. And that’s really what it’s all about. If I do find a way to get back to my actual life, this whole nightmare sequence is going to make a great story on a first date in that world.
Photo via snappy chappy
