Dinner With Sarah

I ate dinner with Sarah last night. Not a date, just dinner. Around Halloween I had written her an e-mail describing my new-couch-buying and old-couch-shedding experiences (detailed on this blog a couple of posts down). She wrote back thanking me for the amusing e-mail and added "there's a movie or two i wanna catch at the imax theater. i keep thinking we could meet there one night to catch a movie, and then if we're hungry, just eat at one of the places there."

Why would she do this? I've finally gotten it straight in my head. I've given up hope. Why give me glimmer enough to make me bust my melon against that wall again? Credit me for wising up. Some. I replied that I would love to meet for a movie but "I had begun to feel like I was pestering you and that's not me. So I'll let you take the lead on this." And that was that. I was not going to ask to see her again.

True to my word, in the few e-mails I've traded with her since then I had made no mention of getting together. Then Friday night she calls me. "Are you free for dinner tomorrow night?" In fact I was.

I know we're just friends and it wasn't not a date but why did I feel awful all day Saturday. Why did I worry about what to wear? (I did decide to go with jeans and a simple polo shirt and that she'd have to endure me as I was.)

And why did she have to look so drop dead gorgeous?

After we got seated at the restaurant I told her so. She joked that she had even showered for the occasion -- with soap! She wore heels. And a top with a plunging neckline that rather nicely showcased her cleavage, which is ample enough without a push-up assist. Last time we arranged a dinner meeting, she wore sweats. Granted, that was a much more casual place but she picked the restaurant this time. She could have chosen a sweats-are-appropriate kind of place.

Our conversation was the usual. More trading monologues rather than real discussion about things. I talked more about myself than usual. I've had a lot going on (accounting, in part, for the absence of updates on this blog) so I had a lot to share.

We did talk at length about the breakup of her last long-term relationship. The guy was a mama's boy whose mama apparently resented the competition for his attention. Paging Dr. Freud! How do these screw-ups keep getting so many of the great girls? Can you tell me that? Listen, I have my issues too but nothing like some of the guys I hear about.

The breakup devastated her at the time but she eventually realized how good it was to get free of the guy. And that she wasn't the rude and selfish phony that the guy's parents had the gall to tell her she was. The problem was them not her. Much of this she realized while she was still feeling the sting of being dumped. How can something so right feel so awful? People in those situations wonder.

I wondered the same thing about my crush on Sarah. The girl has a lot going for her, as I have studiously detailed. But she's not perfect. She is a perfectionist, however, and she always has to be right. She's so wrapped up in her career and some of her outside-of-work interests that getting a date in edgewise would be tough. And, make no mistake, I wouldn't rise to the top of her priority list. No guy will.

So I sat there -- and sat in my car driving home -- and sat on my couch after I got there -- knowing that Sarah is not right for me. Why do I want something so much that's so wrong? Maybe I like banging my head against the wall. I'm a dog chasing a car without the first clue what in the world I'll do with it once I catch it. Maybe there's safety in going after something I know I can't get.

Whatever. I'm cool with it. I am. I've let go.

But why did she have to look so freaking good?