surfer-girl
surfer_girl
Being single is like surfing: you work hard to catch the perfect wave and then ride it until it either dies or it flips up and smacks you in the face—hard. That’s just how it is. And so, just as the sun rises and sets, another one of our close friends has taken a longboard to the face.
The lovely and talented Riley, who helped us kick off the Single Scene column with her shocking inability to land a guy worth landing, has found herself getting the “It’s not you, it’s me speech” from the guy she had been dating for seven months. The relationship had been wobbly for the past month or so with sporadic fights over small things and reconciliation followed by trips to luxurious destinations. You know the drill.
“We were the perfect couple while traveling. It’s when we were home alone that things felt off,” says Riley, during a recent debriefing (not a euphemism).
A perusal of the Single Scene’s text history finds that Riley had been MIA for almost two months, until we caught her on the return from their last wobble stop in Sonoma (or Sedona or Napa or one of those other places where people go to drink wine even though there’s a perfectly good liquor store down the street from their house). Here is what she sent us upon her return.
Sept. 14: “We had a major breakthrough while in (cool place) after a major blowup. He said that’s what he was hoping would happen, because we needed it.”
Sept. 19: “It’s going into a flat spin (when a jet fighter stays horizontal but spins uncontrollably). Had another bizarre blowout.”
Sept. 21: “And he just broke up with me, for good.”
It happens to the best of us. Riley herself admits it was a “round peg in a square hole” situation. And all the lube in the world won’t make that work.
But even though on a logical level she recognized the relationship would never work, she was (and is) feeling a massive sense of loss.
Sept. 23: “He still has my bike! It’s $$$$$$$$$!”
Us: “He will drop it off … When you are out.”
Riley: “Maybe later tonight?”
Us: “For real?”
Riley: “I hate men.”
Unfortunately for her, she’s still in a controlled tailspin (not a flat spin). Even though there have been many discussions during the past month about him being a total ass, now that he is gone he is suddenly almost perfect (“I could really help him work on those things…”)
Sept. 26: Where’s my Prince Charming?
Sept. 26: Looking for a cross between Linus Larrabee, Atticus Finch and Jon Stewart. Know him?
Oh god. Two fictional characters and an Emmy-dwinning television star. We have a long way to go.
The Chronicles of Miss X:
Here we go: “When I asked (the guy from last week) about date number three, he said he was holding off planning anything because his friends are wanting him to go off-shore fishing this weekend. Next weekend, I’m out of town with my kids. When I said something about all the evenings during the week, he mentioned a scheduling issue because we live an hour apart (even though that didn’t seem to be an issue when we first met). That kind of irked me. He caught me on an emotional day and I texted him some things I probably shouldn’t have. I could blame the negative reaction on all of the (losers) I’ve met on the site (Plentyoffish.com) but I know it’s no one else’s fault when I behave badly…”