Green-eyed Monster

A friend has seen the same woman three times this week. The same friend dated this same woman several years ago, and she broke it off from him without warning or explanation and has been dodging/friend-zoning him ever since. I should be empathetically happy for his chance at redemption, but I just want to pop his balloon with a really long pin. 

In January I took my knives to be sharpened by a professional. He was tall and cute, charming in an awkward sort of way. 

The day after Valentine’s Day I received a message on my dating app. “Need any knives sharpened? I know a guy.” There he was: the cute knife guy. He admitted to being attracted to me that day when I brought my knives by. Since I am certain I was wearing my sweatpants and was not wearing a bra, I thought I was doing pretty good. 

Since we know that Great Date Guy never called, we know I was wrong.

Now that my friend has his hopes up all over again, at the prospect of dating this woman from whom he never got answers, I am not hopeful for him; I am annoyed. Hopefulness says, if someone like my friend, with inadequate communication skills and a touch of self-involvement, can find someone, "then so can I!" But the inability to be joyful for others' successes, or the idea that misery loves company, bespeaks of the green-eyed monster. 

I am forced to admit painful jealously that my friend -- and GDGuy -- might each find love, and I will still be alone. I am still suffering the sting and bafflement of that recent piddling failure (and because it is what I do best), I cry. I cry out of loneliness, and from the disappointment of seeing a tiny spark of my something wonderful snuffed out before it even had a chance. I cry from embarrassment and about how small he made me feel. Most of all, I cry because life is not fair. In one moment “30” has gone from being "the year I finally found someone" to being the year I throw in the towel. 

For the first time in a lifetime of dramatic declarations, I finally believe that I have given up, and I have no one to declare it to.