Well-said.

Tonight I finally wrote the e-mail to Sunday-night Man that I've thought about writing for the last week.  When after a seemingly awesome date on Dec. 17, after an e-mail a few days later to say thanks for it, and after a text a few days after that to ask about his holiday weekend plans, he had failed to do that thing which he said he would as he kissed me goodbye, which was to talk to me later.

"So hey:

I thought it was kind of a good date. I was under the impression we might get together again.

But then it's been obviously quiet on your end. So I'm wondering if I was mistaken.

Mind commenting either way? That'd be cool."

Wonder if he does mind. I'm working on staying levelheaded about either what he responds with or how I might respond if he chooses not to.   It's a learned skill I'm quite good at.  Still, when I've invested a couple months of emotional energy in a scent grown cold, I can't be entirely sure I won't get pissy about it despite all intentions to the contrary.

(It's something about that two months of emotional energy irresponsibly doled out.)

I got a good laugh today, though, while sitting on the toilet.  My current bathroom reading (which, admit it, we all have) is Amy Cohen's The Late Bloomer's Revolution: a 2007 memoir about a Single in the (New York) City writer, about her family, about a facial rash, and a lot about her dating maze.  Kind of like the book I'd write if this blog were a book and I actually had a book deal.

Which means it is worth quoting.  In some form the following paragraphs have appeared on this blog many, many times.  In fact the second is so spot-on that I wondered if it were something I did type but just forgot to push print after finishing.

Thanks, Amy, for writing this instead of reading Proust.

"Although I seldom heard it discussed, I had noticed in my thirties a certain divide between women and their single, childless friends.  We cared about one another and were still close, but often without even realizing it, we seemed regularly to make assumptions about one another...  My single friends and I complained that many of our friends with children thought we had nothing but free time, never understanding how difficult it is to organize your life when you always have to keep it flexible...

"It wasn't that I had so much free time; it was just that unlike my married friends with children I had very little to show for it.  In fact, if I added up all the time I spent setting up the first date, choosing what to wear, meeting for drinks or dinner or coffee or brunch, coming home not sure I was into him, but wanting him to call anyway, getting the call, anticipating the second date, choosing what to wear again, going on the second date, deciding I kind of liked him, going on a third date, deciding I really liked him, going out a few more times, fantasizing about our bike trip to Italy, getting more serious, feeling happy to be alive, wondering if things were getting weird or whether it was just my imagination, obsessing over why things didn't work out, chastising myself for not trusting my instincts in the first place, losing a week or four to mild then extreme depression, slowly feeling better, vowing to forge ahead and not get jaded, starting the whole process all over again, I could have gotten my M.D.  Read all of Proust. And written an opera.  In German.  Twice.  That's what I wanted to say when these women asked me what it was like to have so much free time."

-- The Late Bloomer's Revolution (Amy Cohen), pp. 157-159