nothing but flowers

Which is the better way to live one's life: by cherishing a dream—say, the dream that I might someday find someone to fall in love with—or to admit defeat and give up?

I feel I've given the first option more than a fair try. I've kept my eyes open. I've tried to be in places where I might meet someone interesting. I've read the damn books with the titles like Dreaming the Life You Desire and visualized my little heart out. I've sat in the circle of hell that is the southern bar and watched drunken frat boys abuse the elevated handslap. I've descended into the special pit of hell that is online dating, where grammar goes to die and no one is even in the same zip code as remotely acceptable. I've gotten excited when I've met someone who seems like he could be right, and I've gone from feeling actual sadness when it doesn't work out to feeling pretty much nothing at all. Lately I don't even get as far as thinking someone might be right.

Despite this being the sort of attitude the universe is supposed to love contradicting, The Boy For Me has failed to appear.

He has failed to appear so steadfastly and for so long that at this point, if he does exist, I'm kind of pissed at him. "Fuck you," I want to say to him. "Fuck you for not showing up when just a little extra income in my household would have been enough to let me stay in my favorite city in the world. Fuck you for not being there when I was in despair because I had screwed up and needed someone to help me and comfort me. Fuck you for letting me down."

The romantic in me sometimes still insists he'll be here Any Second Now. "Hang in there," she says. "Keep living your life the best you can, and when you're both ready, there you'll be in the same place." But I'm becoming more and more certain that the last few years have been the world hitting me on the head with a baseball bat saying, "Nobody's coming, nobody's coming."

Which is worse: false hope, or no hope?

Dear OKCupider with your pasty-white, Celtic-tattooed flab all up on your page,

1. You did not fall in love with my profile. That is idiotic.

2. It's painfully obvious that, in your case, "I'm poly" is shorthand for "I can't keep it in my pants, but if I dress it up in new agey terms, cheating on my wife is not only allowed, it's cool!"

3. If we had met in person, you'd be trying to hug me within thirty seconds, and would probably even ask my permission in some creepy, creepy way.

In other words, bugger off and don't come back.

***

It's never the ones I wish were poly. It's never the hot boy who owns the tea placea younger guy with pretty hair. It's always some skeevy 45-year-old who decides at first glance that I'm his third special soulmate or whatever the fuck.

Almost Valentine's Day, and I forgot to get a boyfriend again.