Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Second Time Around

My voice carries. So much so that people tell me not to yell, and I have to make them understand that my boisterous volume is my standard tone. Along with missing the demure gene, I didn’t develop an ability to be cripplingly embarrassed. I also am one of the maybe five Jewish girls in Manhattan from Alabama. My hair also grows outward as opposed to lengthening, which is a rarity in New York where most Jewish girls apply extreme heat to their curls. All this to say, if a boy doesn’t remember my amazing non-award-winning-but-my-family-says-spectacular personality, the above should help ring a bell.

I have been called forgettable twice in my life, and only once was a drunken mistake…by my father (one too many complimentary margaritas at the hotel happy hour after depositions went well in Arizona...) The other time happened in the middle of this story:

Rahul (I’m using his real name. To H-E-Double Hockey Sticks with anonymity in this great big world anymore!) had it almost all, the part missing of course was actually wanting to like me back. Ever looked someone in the face and seen the Indian male version of yourself? This probably only happens one or two times in life, but it was as if I was enjoying my personality for the evening. It also didn’t hurt that I could check the boxes of smart (Princeton Grad) and cares about social justice (spent a year in India volunteering).

That evening in August of 2013, I called my best friend from home to tell her I had met my match and wished on every star in the sky that he would contact me. When he did, I was in such shock that a boy like him could like a girl like me (not fishing for compliments; every girl has thought this before…stop making that pity face at your screen.) It didn’t take long for us to plan a second date. It also didn’t take long for him to make like a hay stack and “bale” on that date. When I reached out for alternate plans, I was met with “the sound of silence.”

FAST FORWARD to March 2015

I received a message on the same dating site I had originally met Rahul on. To my surprise, it was a message from brown sugar himself. After politely shaming him for his fade away as well as forgetting me, we decided on a do-over.

Let’s take a timeout: My profile, in both cases, described me as an Alabama-Football-Loving-Southern-Jewish Girl. Again, there are maximum five of us in Manhattan, so he had forgotten me. (Bad memory for an Ivy Leaguer)

As the writer of this blog, I was thrilled to have this happen. My sister and I were the only ones who saw this as a potentially great love story (but I guess there lay my problem, writing the ending before there’s been a beginning).  We went on a few more dates with the wittiest of witty banters in between, filled with sarcasm and stuffed with intrigue(at least for me…my parents were massively less than thrilled that my newest interest was still not Jewish Charming.)

No worries though, Second Time Around, as my co-worker nicknamed him, has no happy ending. Two hours prior to a date I planned on a Sunday afternoon, a half hour after I showered and shaved my legs with a brand new razor (WASTE!), an hour before my sister and brother-in-law went on the date I planned, and nine hours before I lay in my bed asking the worn out question, “What’s so wrong with me,” Rahul texted to cancel with a probably false excuse of having to go into work. He asked to reschedule. I told him I understood. I never heard from him again.

I guess it’s true what they say: Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice… this was a blessing in disguise because a Rahul isn’t my NJB. And the search continues.