Why I’m Missing Out – Stuck on the Edge of the Dating Pool

Six years ago, in a state fourteen hundred miles away, I got divorced. I don’t know what I expected to feel many years later, but this isn’t it. I had no specific hopes that I would be all extra assertive and shit, comfortable flexing my singlehood and meeting men.

But instead, I find myself making accidental eye contact with a man, and when 5 minutes later I realize that said man was lingering in the possible hope of a meet cute and I practically run past him in my indecisive panic. What is wrong with me?

So today I was at this gas station across town. It’s a bit of a destination stop when I am on that side of Fort Worth because FRIED PIES. That is correct. There is this fried pie establishment inside a Fuel City gas station that also happens to house a pretty legit taco place.

I was with my eldest son, he had an appointment earlier and we were on our way home, in no particular rush. Go inside, place my order, pay, then sit and wait for the pies – and the seating area is a new thing since the last time I had been there. It’s a wooden bar with stools set up along the window facing outside.

I am sort of going through my phone, looking for where the closest Starbucks would be located on the drive back since a latte would go pretty good with the pie… when a guy walks in front of the window.

I wasn’t really looking outside, it’s the way I was facing the front where to a bystander it might appear that I was looking forward, but my eyes were glancing to the side at my phone screen. So the figure passing along in front of me didn’t catch my attention until I realized that they appeared to have slowed down. That’s when I look up and make eye contact with this handsome older man, and my brain does a mental double take and I focus on him and what he is wearing.

About two seconds later I realize that he was looking at me and probably thought I was looking at him because of the way I was sitting maybe? But then he has moved out of my line of sight and I continue my navigation plan to the Starbucks on the way home, caffeine injection imminent.

Five or so minutes later, the pies are done, meanwhile I’ve been chatting with my son just passing the time. We grab the pies and walk outside onto our next destination when I look toward my truck and notice that the handsome man is still in the parking lot. Now this is where my memory gets a little fuzzy because I was not prepared and I think I had a mini panic attack. He may or may not have been in his truck, which was parked two spots away from mine.

What I am sure of is that he was looking my way, and dare I say it, right at me and that’s when everything else goes fuzzy. I picked up the pace and hot footed it to my truck, eyes straight ahead and the moment was gone. When I turned my head he had gotten in his truck and I was punching in the Starbucks into google maps.

During which, I had the sinking sensation that had I but given him a sign that I was interested, I think I could have genuinely had a chance to possibly get hit on by a man or vice versa – me hit on him? Not that it mattered now since I obviously don’t know how to act in public.

At the rate I am going it is clear I will forever be alone. And while I am fine being by myself, I fantasize about the possibility of not being alone, of potentially meeting someone who might think I am super cool and fun to hang out with.

Someone who isn’t under a biological obligation to be loyal to me. Someone who chooses to be with me on purpose.

It stings, to think that I spent 15 years of my adult life with someone who probably wanted to get away for 11 of those years, maybe even longer, but who was too chicken shit to do it, so I had to get to the point where I just couldn’t do it anymore and I had to be the one to leave. It really sucks. I think about it and I have many regrets that I try not to dwell on.

But when it is quiet, late at night and I lay in my bed and try to remember why I ever stayed, I also wonder how I will ever be able to let go and wade back into the dating pool?

I am so afraid of the relationship waters and what potential dangers lie beneath the surface. I am afraid because I jumped into the pool before, right into the deep end and I only got out after I almost drowned.

You ever have that feeling, that you’ve swum out too far?

Like you’re swimming and you might be struggling to get your breathing right, and you feel like your strokes look more like a doggie paddle because you just can’t seem to pull yourself along? Then you suddenly stop and tread water and look back and you realize that you have to swim that distance back and all of a sudden the tiredness of your muscles comes over you all at once? And your lungs seize up and you feel you can’t breathe and it’s taking every ounce of your will not to panic and drown?

You ever have that feeling?

Well, that’s how I felt after the divorce. Like I had waded out too far and had barely managed to pull myself out of the pool, dragging my tired carcass over the edge and flopping onto the tiles wondering what the hell was I thinking swimming out that far. Staying in the water that long.

Now I’m stuck on the edge of the pool. I want to get in. I see people swimming having fun. The water looks really inviting. But I can’t seem to let go of the death grip I have on the edge and I can’t seem to remember why I liked swimming in the first place.