The Last Best Chance

Logically, it would seem that bringing a whole lot of crazy to the table is not going to help one's case in finding true and lasting love. In fact, I could point to my entire dating history as empirical proof for that eminently reasonable proposition. That being said, given that I know that the crazy is detrimental to my achieving what I ultimately desire, why can't I leave it behind?

When I was younger, clearly it was because I simply didn't know better. Passion and obsession and commitment and loyalty and honor and desire were all the same thing. Love was a one note proposition. A short staccato note at that. Today, I no longer have the excuse of naivete. I ought to be able to achieve better range, if not perfect pitch. So why is the crazy still a component?

It is because every date I have, every relationship I consider, is my last best chance. I cannot help it. It has absolutely nothing to do with biology or its associated time pieces. I assure you. It also has nothing to do with sociologically mandates rituals. I promise. If it has to do with my age, it only does so peripherally, in that, the ever resonant chant of "you should know better by now" is always with me. I am a slave to my own selectiveness. I am picky. I know what I like, and what I like is very, very rare. Less flatteringly, I am an elitist. But I do not want to settle. I want to feel that feeling, that feeling that my fingers are skimming the sky and my toes are nestled in the cool grass of the earth beneath my feet. I fit anywhere and everywhere. Without thought.

And so I do select. I don't go out with anyone -- hell, I don't talk with anyone -- who doesn't seem to have Those Possibilities. But such people are so rare. And when I find one -- A Possibility -- the rarity and the promise of the situation itself drive me to distraction. The pressure is maddening. My insecurities magnified by a thousand. Each of these rarities, my last best chance. My last best chance at the happiness I envision in the deep recesses of my heart for myself. The happiness I dare not speak of for I will be wistful for its absence and cursed by an outward expression of its desire.

But oh the pressure of the last best chance. It makes things impossible. It stifles. It frightens. And the fear -- The Fear -- it brings the crazy.

Do I want more than I deserve? Quite possibly -- my behavior indicates that subconsciously I believe this to be true. Neuroses are a foolproof way of thwarting all happiness. Could I settle for less? Unfortunately, I just don't think so.

I don't know what is wrong with me that I can't just embrace the nice, or the friendly, or the good and just find happiness in these singular qualities. Ignoring whether all else may fall short of my traditional standards.

But I just don't think I can.

And so I keep believing in and overburdening The Last Best Chance. And so they each successively fail. Another inevitably comes along, so I suppose that the Last Best Chance moniker is itself a falsity. But I never believe that at the time. Every one could be the last. The last before I am forever locked in to that life of being alone. And when I will look back and regret my craziness, my elitism, my stubborness, myself.

But even this fear can't change the picture in my head of the way the story should end -- how it should look, feel and sound. It feels so certain when I think of it. In fact, I don't think of it anymore. I just feel it. I know how it will feel and I want that feeling. I want it more than anything.

Object Lessons

In retrospect, perhaps scheduling a first date on Friday the 13th was not the wisest course of action.

Nonetheless, some object lessons, in no particular order:

• I can in fact be attracted to someone who is not arrogant, snobbish or in any way pretentious.
• Amazing character can in fact come in an Abercrombie & Fitch-looking package.
• I clearly must have a subconscious hero complex.
• I may, in all likelihood, be too weird to date.
• My time in BigLaw, even when I try to give it a positive retrospective spin, is inconceivable, and more than slightly disturbing, to anyone who is unfamiliar with the genre (read: anyone happy, well adjusted and normal).
• Given that, I am not sure how one goes about explaining away six years of living an inconceivable, disturbing workaholic life. Feels like it might be easier (and more acceptable) to say I was in a coma for the last half-decade and have recently awoken. Hell, it would be easier to say I had had some sort of vicious addiction and been in rehab for the better part of the 21st century.
• I have no hobbies. I always hate confessing that. I am not sure that I really want any - it seems like there is enough to do in life already - but I realize it makes me sound (or maybe just makes me) incredibly boring and pathetic.
• I am more confident than I have ever been in my life. However, clearly, that isn't saying much.
  
• I don't think I could possibly be more socially awkward. Truly, there ought to be an award for it. I could use a plaque to put on the wall in my office.
  
• It is so much easier to complain about being alone when one is only theoretically dating. Actually being out there is scary. It is an amount of vulnerability that I had avoided for a better part of a year. I forgot the potential for exhilaration and for bruising disappointment in the risk/reward arena.
• It is a good thing I am out there.
• But it is hard.
  
• Really hard.
  
• And I worry.
  
• A lot.