Not for lack of concern

I had a long IM with a friend of mine tonight... we're both sort of trying to figure out this "dating" stuff, but from somewhat different positions. She's with someone who puzzles her, someone with whom she has absurd amounts of sex but for whom she isn't sure she feels anything solid... I'm with no one and not really sure why not. I don't think either of us would trade places with the other, but there we are.

She met this guy last summer. She announced, with a mixture of sheepishness and pride, that they had gone through an almost comical number of condoms on their first tryst-a-thon. She still sees him, but she's really troubled that she's somehow leading him on... as if she's not feeling for him what he seems to feel for her.

I don't know what to tell her. I really don't know whether I could make a choice right now to give up a relationship, even a problematic one, for the option of... nothing. I wasn't much good to her as far as useful advice.

She wants to give me useful advice, but I think she's stymied, too. She, and several other women friends of mine, really don't know why I seem to get so damn many of those "best of luck" emails I talked about the other night. I went back and counted, by the way... since the middle of June, I've gotten twenty of these things. Think about it... 20 first dates, 20 women who couldn't bring themselves to do a second date, but felt empowered to use a nice, sterile tone of dismiss.

"Sorry, I have absolutely no sense of adventure, and so much certainty in my own judgment that no, I don't think there's any point in us ever seeing each other again."

All of my friends tell me, "well, that's their loss." All of my friends are certain that somehow these are just the wrong women. But twenty of them? Never mind that these were only the ones who chose to write the kiss-off emails... since this summer, there were at least five or six more who simply... disappeared. Emails went unanswered, calls went unreturned. Twenty, plus any number of others.

Yeah, before you get all haughty on me and send me notes like, "well, it must be you then," understand that I trust my friends to tell me if somehow there's some massive flaw in my person. These are practical, realistic people who've known me for years in most cases... yet they all seem puzzled why I'm still alone. They're sympathetic, but there's not much more they can do. None of them have single women friends, at least none who are interested in dating men right now. Just as I can't, they can't reach out into the world and find that woman for me, the one who actually trusts her own judgment enough to take the risk, not run and hide from it. They can't do it; I can't do it.

So, here we are, the later part of November. I'm going to be alone next weekend, and the weekend after that. No holiday parties, nowhere to go on New Year's Eve. No sparkling young woman to admire in her finery, no sense of glowing pride that she wants to be with me.

This is going to suck ass.

It's not for lack of my friends' concern, though.