Stop Me If You’ve Heard This Before By Guest Blogger The Loser

The First Essential Scary Truth

Relationship/dating blogs are all seemingly bogged down in the same Sex and the City/Tucker Max snarky vituperation. Any sort of insight gets bogged down in victimization. There are, however, a few blogs in the romance segment that break with the norm.

True Love Hates is one of those. The author of this blog is a friend who has chosen the pen name ‘The Loser’ in an attempt to highlight his growing personal dissatisfaction with the Brooklyn dating scene as seen from the view from the singles bar stool. His Valentine’s Day 2011 post ‘Stop Me If You’ve Heard This Before’ hits home with all of us who’ve met someone we’ve liked, had a few laughs, gotten blown off by and then run into a week or so later. The catch here is the love interest is a 40-something. It seems we never learn.

Enjoy!

I met Katherine a few weekends ago–where else?–at my fave neighborhood watering hole. A 41 year old, stunningly cute, blue-eyed blonde, she caught my eye as I walked in and saw her hanging with 2 mutual acquaintances which I immediately joined.

A few jokes later, we got deep into romantic talk, eventually went outside to share a smoke and a few sweet kisses, and made plans for a date during the week. Katherine and I spent the rest of the evening joined at the hip and pretty much smitten with each other. At one point, while outside sharing another cigarette, she mentioned how there was a stupid Aqua song she couldn’t get out of her head. Being the silly romantic I am, I took her in my arms and we slow danced while I sang The Beatles’ “I Will” in her ear. Needless to say, major points were scored and I was duly informed as much.

She e-mailed me from the bar, so that I would have her address. I replied and a few days later “friended” her on Facebook, which she accepted but did not reply to otherwise. A day or two afterwards I e-mailed but didn’t hear back from her. Hmm…
The day before our purported date I e-mailed to ask if we were still on. Again, no response from Katherine. OK, so she had a change of heart, I assumed. It happens. Wasn’t the first time and probably not the last. I was bummed out but them’s the breaks.

Two weeks after our fateful encounter, I’m sitting at the same bar we met. It was 3 AM and almost empty when Katherine walked in with 2 friends. My back was turned to the door, but the bartender–a friend of mine who knew the story–saw and discreetly relayed to me her shocked look as she registered my presence. So, did Katherine come over with an apology or a feeble attempt at one? Nope. She actually–get this–sat about 5 feet away, facing me diagonally across the corner of the bar and completely ignored me. Yes, boys and girls, that’s how she chose to play it.

I did notice she was uncomfortable so I decided to do nothing and let her squirm. I wasn’t about to call her out and give her the ammo to assuage her guilt. However, letting her off scot-free was not an option, so in order to make her acknowledge me I went outside to smoke a few minutes after Katherine and her friend did the same. (The second friend had already left by then.) I positioned myself right in front of the bar’s front door, which meant I’d have to step aside for them to re-enter the premises. When they were done and approached me I moved slightly out of the way. The friend went first, smiled and said hi. And Katherine, as if nothing had happened, did exactly the same. Wow. I did or said nothing further and they both left a drink later.

We’ve all had nights of drunken romantic interactions of varying degrees which we regret the following day. All the time. But when I’ve been on the business end of ’em I’ve always gotten an e-mail with some variation of “thanks, but no thanks“. Hey, that’s just how it goes. No need for sour grapes. But for a woman in her 40s to behave in the tacky manner in which Katherine did is just inexcusable and very bad form for someone her age. Seriously. Next.