Leave Me Alone, I Hate You

I’m not much for competition. I avoid it. And if I can’t manage to avoid it altogether, then I pretty much opt for preemptive surrender. I hear that starter pistol fire, and I’m already graciously shaking my opponent’s hand.

Congrats, buddy. You win. Good game, though. Nice hustle.

Ok, so I don't have the eye of the tiger, but this approach does allow me to avoid all the messy disappointment that stems from wondering “what if today is my day?!” It’s not. Trust me on this.

And if I do happen to stumble into an occasional victory, well, hot damn. Surprise City, and I’m the mayor.

I have always had an especially deep aversion to competition in the old romance department. Nothing like the humiliation of having “PLEASE LIKE ME!” tattooed all over your face.

(I’m telling you, I would never make it on that tv show “The Bachelor.” And not just because I’m already married and prone to violent outbursts of profanity and find the entire concept of the show vomit-inducing…)

Feeling like you’re competing for someone’s attention is hard to avoid in real life. Even if you’re trolling for dates on one of those “meet a prisoner” websites -- sooner or later, we all find ourselves in the unfortunate situation of liking the same person (or prisoner) as someone else. I just pretty much always assumed that every time I found myself in that sort of situation, I would lose.

In fact, my whole life, I purposefully sought out men who were a little off the radar, to avoid just that feeling.

Like that guy who ran into someone he knew from psychic school while we were on our first date. Hey, it beats clown college, and he’s all mine.

(sigh) Isn’t it almost romantic?

I eventually discovered that there is a mystifying social phenomenon that renders my (otherwise brilliant) strategy totally useless.

Turns out, no matter how obscure, socially awkward or “outside the box” your choice for romance may be, the very fact that you dare to like someone at all immediately ups their “hot ticket” value exponentially.

Your possible interest in him or her (I find this to be a gender-neutral problem) seems to somehow create a perfect storm of newfound attention in the previously calm waters of your latest crush. It’s like the rest of the world just discovered your favorite band, and now you can’t get tickets to the show.

Cue humiliating “PLEASE LIKE ME!” face tattoo and saddle up for a bumpy ride.

And so, like it or not, the competition begins. And it begins early.

11-2-1985

About three weeks ago, I developed the biggest crush on this boy in my class named Bobby Orson. The only problem with that is that Cecily had a crush on him at the same time. So at Hadley’s football party last weekend he was kind of acting like he liked me. Then I found out he asked Cecily to sit by him on the bus on the trip the band is taking today. Well, let me tell you, was I ever disappointed!! So I tried just blowing it off but that didn’t work. I’m still flipped over the guy, and I can’t help wondering what he’s doing with Cecily right now. Probably nothing knowing goodie-two-shoes Cecily! But what bugs me is that for a while he liked me, and then he thought I was mad at him so he liked Cecily.

But no one likes Cecily for long once they get to know her!!

That last bit was straight up unsportsmanlike conduct. My apologies.

What is obvious to me in retrospect is that IF Bobby did indeed have feelings for me they couldn’t have been deep. Certainly not The Notebook deep, if he merely “thought I was mad at him” and that was enough to drive him into the arms of a goodie-two-shoes who may or may not let him feel her up on a band trip. (my money was clearly on “may not” from the tone of this diary entry, sorry Bobb old boy…)

Regardless, I was left “still flipped” and “ever disappointed.”

In the years that passed since Hadley’s fateful football party of 1985, I found myself in the Cecily predicament many times.

Nothing epic, mind you. It was all just a series of mini-defeats.

Stupid stuff like, you innocently ask your co-worker, “Hey, do you think that guy in accounting is cute?”

"Who?" she asks.

And the next thing you know they’re full on macking at the office Christmas party. So yah, she thinks he’s cute.

And she obviously didn’t pick up on the fact that SO DID YOU.

Anyway, enough of these things happen, you start feeling tagged for doom. The consummate loser. Until even the possibility of a possibility seems improbable. You know what I mean.

And then...

12-6-1985

I just got back from the first boys basketball game of the season. It was so much fun! Maybe that’s because the guy I have a crush on right now is on J.V. – so I can cheer for him! (by the way, I got over Bobb, he was too immature. Not that I am some great mature person, but he’s really bad! Now we’re just friends.) Anyway, where was I, oh yeah, Chris (that’s the guy I have a crush on) is in the 10^th grade. I will never have a chance with him…

Ah, ever the optimist.

I don't know, not to try to sound like "some great mature person," but if you think about it, maybe all these defeats are nothing but a series of dodged bullets. The defeated live to fight another day. Or cheer or whatever you’re into at the time.

Until it stops being such a fight anymore.

And I guess that Cecily did not ruin the romance of my life after all.

She did try though.

Stupid Cecily.