tonight? tonight i got a head start on my report cards and am fighting off fatigue and a spasmy back (my neighbour's alarm went off at 5:00 for an hour and i had already had a bit of a restless night.
on the flip side, ottawa is playing well so far in the first playoff game and i feel like i finally have something interesting enough to write about.
being one of the only people on the planet who still has dial-up, i am in the habit of checking my phone for messages before i turn on my laptop. when i checked recently, i got what i thought was a message from a telemarketer " hello, this is a message for @@@@, this is @@ from ottawa ,my number is #### just wondering if i could drop by at some point tomorrow. just give me a call when you get this message, once again, the number is #####.
the voice was calm and businesslike. had the tone of a returned phonecall that i had at some point initiated. and yet, i was perplexed. @@@ from ottawa? do i know a @@@ from ottawa? it sounded so official, so preplanned, but i have to work in the morning! i was totally thrown off. how is it that the voice on the other end of the phone could speak so assuredly about the likelihood of our meeting when i have never even known this person to have lived in the city he claimed to be calling from!
when my "tune out the prerecorded telemarketer message" sensors switched to attentive mode, i realized that the mysterious caller was a guy that i went on two dates with about three years ago! i have moved since then but my number has stayed the same. felt immediately creeped out that he had "found" me here (was never lost according to my number but you get the idea...) i met him during my, sure, why not, let's go against type and see what happens phase. he's in politics, which explains the "work the conversation to make me think that i had been looking to reconnect" aspect of the call. has been in politics for awhile and like others i have met,the culture has infiltrated to the way he communicates in his personal life, very shake your hand, call you by your name, networky kind of vibe.
anyway, while we were able to keep conversation going, i wasn't feeling a love connection. i told him so at the end of a second date and it didn't go over well. (did i mention i met his dad before our first date...?)
saw him again months later and was chatting with a guy he knew, political rival of sorts i think. he came up behind me and said bitingly " so this is the guy you dumped me for". once again, a little creeped out and a whole lot perplexed.
it was incredible. it was the first time that i had seen someone else act out one of those excruciating unrequieted have- a- whole- relationship- before- you've -been- on- a -real- date moments that had been such a prevailing theme of my own life. is this how i am coming off, i wondered?
so different to be seeing it from the receiving end. suddenly i was back in a friend's basement in junior high where i had a tortured yet meaningful (to me at least) final dance with a soul mate who could never be mine-he was with the cute petite girl, Keri, like the lotion. i would write letters to him for years, seeking him out over time, convinced that he too, felt fate had cheated us earlier on...
as an adult, on the other end of a phone where a message like one i have no doubt left on someone's machine at some time was still ringing in my ears, i felt not the hand of fate, but the eye of big brother.
where the hell does this guy get off calling me after three years to set up a time for him to drop by? does he think i don't work? and then, to ask me to call him back?! if he wants to reconnect then...but i digress.
not so much of a romantic now, am i?
i didn't call back. neither did he.
guess this is my karma for letters to self-willed partners of days past.
one day we'll all get it right.
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