Friends #10 & #11 - Heather & Dr. Evil

Dear Friends,

I need to catch you up on all that has happened over the last month since my last posting.  You may have thought I have given up on the idea of making 52 new friends this year.  That could not be farther from the truth.  But here’s what I have learned:  As I get deeper and deeper into this process, I find people are reluctant to sit down with me.  I’ve got a backlog six or seven deep of women who liked the idea enough to agree to sit down with me, but, for one reason or another, have not made the time to do it. 

Part of me has been in mourning over it because how sad is our society that people are so overtaxed that they don’t even have time to schedule in one hour to talk about themselves and meet a new friend.  Or maybe the idea of having someone write about them is too daunting?  Or maybe they just don’t want to be my friend and don’t know how to tell me?  Or maybe something else is holding them back?  I don’t know.  These are all guesses.  But it makes me feel bad. 

I feel like I’m disappointing all of you who have read this blog and given me encouragement.  I feel like I’ve disappointed myself on not achieving a goal.  And then it hit me… Without being formal, I have continued to make friends.  So you are now entering a series of blogs where I will talk about people that I didn’t realize I was getting to know.

We are going to start with my accidental friends…

About a month ago, one of my Facebook friends messaged me and asked me to lunch.  I said yes…because I’m always about the yes, but as the designated time drew near, I started to realize that I couldn’t remember how Heather and I had met.  We’ve been Facebook friends for at least seven years.  We’ve shot messages back and forth over the social network.  I know we are both part of the sorority alumnae association…and that’s just about it. 

And then I got nervous…because I didn’t know what she was going to want from me.

We had apparently met when our sorority was re-colonizing at ASU.  In order for that to happen, they needed alumnae help and I had volunteered.  I remember it because it was the one time I actually wore my wedding ring.  I’m the child of farm people who physically work hard enough that wearing a wedding ring may mean that a finger gets caught in a piece of machinery or lost in a pile of ick.  So wearing a wedding ring was never important when I was married except in situations, like that night, when I was going to run into a lot of people I didn’t know who might question why I wasn’t wearing a ring. 

That’s it.  That’s all I remember.

At lunch, Heather and I talked a lot about my work and my dating life.  I’m a nervous chatterer.  I’m pretty sure I talked too much and listened too little.  But Heather was patient.  She recently stepped down as an alumnae chapter advisor for our sorority after having served a lot of years.  I think she may have a hole in her life that she’s struggling to fill.  She heard I was looking to make more friends and well, that’s how I got to know Heather a lot better than I did.  And as it turns out, she’s pretty darn cool.

But soon boredom took over in my spare time and I, again, began peeping into the online dating scene through the profile I created with nothing on it.  I had just about come to the conclusion that I wasn’t missing anything when I suddenly got a message.  It only said, “Hi”, but the sender happened to be extremely good looking.  If he’d been ugly, I probably wouldn’t have responded.  Instead, I messaged back.

“What are you doing messaging a girl with no photo?  I could be a five hundred pound wart hog.  You don’t know!  You are a good looking dude.  I’m sure you will have plenty of gorgeous women messaging you if they haven’t already.”

But that seemed to intrigue him even more.

So again, I pushed back.  “Listen, I’m not really looking to date right now.  I’m broken.  I’m sure you will find someone who is a better fit.”

Not even that deterred him. 

And too his credit, he was a good enough salesman that he talked me into a date.  I had to do a mad dash to get to the restaurant on time because at work they announced, with only a day’s notice, that we were having a pot luck lunch the next day.  I’d whipped together a couple of pies that were cooling on my stove as I walked up to the quaint little restaurant he’d picked out.  It was a lovely little house someone had converted and we sat in what was essentially the front yard, under a large shade tree strung with twinkle lights.  He picked out some wine.  We had deep, intellectual conversation.  He told me all about his smart twenty-four-year-old daughter that he raised on his own.  She wants to go to law school, go into politics and change the world…and he couldn’t be more proud.

For one brief moment, as he talked about his cat, I couldn’t help but look at his bald head, his shiny eyes and think of Dr. Evil from the Austin Power’s movies.  Thus, he will always be known to me as Dr. Evil.  We took a walk after dinner.  He kissed me lightly before we parted ways.

And the next morning, I woke up with explosive diarrhea.

I think it may have been the wine.  But being unsure of the origination of such a disaster, I determined I could not take those two pies I made into work.  They were now sick pies, possibly contaminated with germilogical foreign bodies.

Dr. Evil never called me again.

And I spent the next week gorging myself on those two pies I didn’t have the heart to throw away.

Oh well.  I wasn’t supposed to be dating anyway.