Thursday, June 18, 2009

Bubbles lasts only one round

Oh no.  Was I excited because I liked Bubbles or because I’d kissed a girl who wasn’t The Axis of Evil? 

I was hit with a dizzy spell and got off the phone shortly thereafter. After laying down on the bed, I closed my eyes and replayed my evening with Bubbles. At dinner she’d brought up how homeless people seemed to single her out when they asked for change, her gay dogs and her concern that her computer might have been haunted.

Bubbles seemed nice enough that if we’d met under different circumstances, we probably would’ve been friends. However, had she not contacted me on Tribe-Date via her haunted computer, I doubt I ever would’ve considered going out with her.

The excitement of having someone to flirt with was what had made the night enjoyable. Instead of asking critical questions about whether this was someone I wanted to be in a relationship with, I had let my hormones turn me into a conquistador with the absurd end goal of proving I was over The Axis of Evil.

I’d thought that my recently adopted Fiddler on the Roof Czar policy would forever keep The Axis out of my head. At the beginning of Fiddler, the rabbi claims that there’s a blessing for everything. Some smart aleck asks him if there’s a blessing for the Czar. The rabbi replies, “May God bless and keep the Czar… far away from us.” While I wished The Axis well, her immature batshit breakup had stung so badly that I wanted as much distance from her as possible. However, based on how I’d just kissed a girl I had no feelings for, I had no business laying claim to the moral high ground.

Nonetheless, it was time to take down my Tribe Date profile and end this blind dating experiment. Choosing a girl based on a picture and a couple of paragraphs was too unnatural.

As for Bubbles – how to end it? In fact, what was ‘it’? We weren’t boyfriend and girlfriend. What were the rules? It would feel strange to call, have her get all excited and then tell her I was out. Based on how our date had gone, there’s no way she could’ve guessed that I was having second thoughts. Bubbles probably drove away in bliss, anxiously awaiting round two.

What should I do? A non-breakup, breakup phone call sounded miserable. An email was almost as bad as using IM. I decided to stop fretting about it – it wasn’t like I had to get in touch with her that night. In the meantime, my housemates were still up. There was some rotten fruit in the fridge. I grabbed a baseball bat and headed downstairs.

“You’re such a spaz,” said Indiana Jones. “Just a minute ago it was Bubbles, Bubbles, Bubbles time.”

Setting down the bat and sprawling out on the living room couch, I said, “But I don’t have any feelings for her at all. I only kissed her—”

“How much can you really tell about someone from a single date?” he asked. “If you liked her at all, you should go out with her again.”

“I’d be stringing her along.”

Indiana sighed. “You’re being ridiculous.”

“Maybe I am, but I don’t want to date anyone again until I’m in a situation that feels right.”

“You’ll be waiting a long time.”

“Then I’ll wait.”

* * *

I kept putting off getting in touch with Bubbles.

After a couple of weeks, I knew I’d waited too long. A non-breakup-breakup call would probably only insult her further. Thus our hero joined the cowardly club of weak sauce dudes who kissed a girl and never called her again.

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