Monday, December 31, 2007

the story of my life

Yesterday the next-door neighbors' son asked me out to lunch.

To celebrate his forty-seventh birthday.

I kindly turned him down in favor of housecleaning. He came back anyway when he thought I wasn't looking to pour salt on my front step.

Sighhh.

15 comments:

Rainey said...

Well, is this guy attractive? Even more important, does he have money? Haha, he's not quite 50 yet, so why not!?

P.S. Just in case anyone thinks I'm an awful person, I was kind of kidding about the money thing. Kind of.

Anonymous said...

By pouring salt, do you mean he was pouring driveway salt to melt ice and prevent a broken hip? Or was it some sort of curse?

The Prufroquette said...

Not even a little attractive. (Did I mention he lives with his PARENTS? At almost 50? Has no education? And watches televangelists? Those factors alone would be enough to render him completely unattractive to me even if he were my age, which he isn't, looked mouth-wateringly gorgeous, which he doesn't, and had more money than Solomon, which he hasn't.)

Salt for melting ice. Like I said, nice enough.

But no.

This is, however, just my luck. If he isn't old enough to have fathered me, I can't catch his eye. If he is, or, even better, old enough to have fathered MY father, he just loves me.

It's inescapable. I predict that this will continue to happen until I'm old enough myself that the continuing offers begin to come from my peers. I will be old and gray with an old and gray boyfriend.

Lovely life.

la persona said...

It's even worse when it happens on Christian dating websites. I'm like, you're over 40, you've got a potbelly, and it looks as though you may be missing some teeth. Do I CARE what kind of car you have or that you think I'm kind of pretty? Ugh, ugh, ugh.

That said, I did fall for someone possibly older than my father once. But thank goodness the feelings weren't reciprocated. Once you're free of kids, alive, and in your 40s, he's just starting to get prostrate cancer and check out nursing homes. No, thank you!

hehe, I wish you better luck in '08!

The Prufroquette said...

Haha, I'm with you 100 percent, Joey. My opinion has become, If you've waited this long to get married, you don't deserve a fresh young twenty-something; you deserve someone your own age whom you've forced to wait by your dallying.

Thanks for your support! Here's hoping that 2008 starts looking up...

la persona said...

"prostrate" cancer?? yikes, there is so much of the male anatomy I have yet to learn. Can you believe I actually thought that was a part?!

Yax said...

Yikes. As I have recently come to fear prostate cancer, prostrate cancer sounds even worse!

That being said, every time I see the title of this post on my RSS feed, I get this song stuck in my head: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuKOc_Mpumc

Good luck to you in 2008, in any case.

Rainey said...

You are not the only person who can only attract old men. The security cards and the guy behind the counter at my lunch place are all super into me... they are nice enough, but it's totally depressing.

Why don't guys our age grow a pair and ask us out? We cannot only be attractive to men twice our age.

Rainey said...

Also, the guy in Matt's clip is wearing eyeliner... that is disturbing... I think I might rather have an old man. The only man who can pull that off is Johnny Depp.

none said...

If it makes you feel any better, I keep getting proposals from cab drivers... seriously, like 3 recently. Cab drivers always start by asking me my ethnicity, and then sometimes they make me guess theirs, and then they want to know where I'm going and/or what I do. Somewhere in there, they propose marriage. They really seem to like it when they hear I'm going to be a doctor. Although once, a cabbie simply yelled out his window as I crossed the street in front of him, "Marry me!"

Yesterday, I invited my cab driver to church, and when I handed him a church flyer, he asked if the number on it was mine... I was like "ummm, no, that's the church office." lol

The Prufroquette said...

Oh wow. I can't complain TOO loudly, then! ;)

While in one respect it's a blow to the ego (ONLY these inappropriate men notice me), in another it's at least comforting to know that SOME men out there are thinking of you in those terms, right?

I've starting meticulously avoiding my neighbor. I hate when these things happen so literally close to home...now it feels all awkward even to say hello.

Bah. Oh well. Like I said, at least SOMEone noticed.

I have plans, though. Plans to Circulate. Somehow. I think it may involve joining a gun club, and perhaps working up to competitions, although probably that won't get me what I'm looking for either...more smoky old alcoholics. But at least I'll be out of my house, and more confident in my ability to wade through the attentions.

And every guy loves a girl that can wield a firearm. "Hi, I'm Sarah. This is Harriet. We're very pleased to meet you. Now get out of my personal space." Hahaha.

But hey, inviting them to church is genius. It sends them a very clear message and also spreads the gospel -- two birds with one flier. Well done!

Anonymous said...

I was feeling the same way when I lived in St. Maries (not about old men propositioning me but about the shrinking dating pool), and I thought I would have to start being proactive. So I started grad school, instead. Three years dateless in Idaho, and within a semester here I was back in the dating game. It's kind of an expensive, stressful, and time-consuming solution, though.

The Prufroquette said...

Yeah, I'm glad it's working for you (congratulations!) but pretty sure that's not the answer for me. I'm looking into buying a house within the next year or so, and there's no way on earth I'd be able to afford a mortgage, property taxes, and homeowners insurance on a bitty little grad school stipend, with the repayment of enormous student loans looming over my head. Plus I'm rather fond of my regular nine-to-five schedule and free weekends and no extra-hours deadlines.

But I do miss some kind of intellectual stimulus, and I do miss interaction with many kinds of people. I'm exploring solutions to the problem within the context of my current life, which I want to keep. I've been feeling more than a little trapped, and it's time to break out of the coffin. As my boss always says, "You've got to have your line in the water if you want to catch a fish."

none said...

I'm glad grad school works for some people as a good dating pool. It hasn't worked for me thus far, probably due in part to the isolation of my little 170 person med school class from the other grad students. Next year I take regular grad school bio classes, so maybe then... ??? Who knows?


Sarah, how does one go about putting their line in the water? I'm at a loss.

The Prufroquette said...

Boy, if I had a clue, you can bet I'd be reeling them in and tossing them back at a prodigious rate until I found THAT FISH, the one I have to keep photos of because no one will believe I actually caught him, the one I have mounted (HAHAHAHA) at home.

But the sad fact is that I don't, so I'm going to go about this in a muddling, trial-and-error sort of way.

The dimly conceived plans so far include:

1. More church involvement (bound to be a failure as far as actually landing a fish within the specific congregational pool is concerned, but maybe some of the congregation members have friends or relatives I could bait).

2. Develop a hobby that isn't too girly and takes me outside the house. Joining a knitting group, for example, would probably be a waste of time (although Sufjan knits. Cool guys knit. But do they join groups? I might have to check it out, but I'm a little doubtful). So I'm thinking, gun club, maybe take a class here and there (MAYBE. This one will cost money I don't have and require studies I don't want, so it's an iffy), maybe find a writing group. Also figure out a way to get my singing voice out there (certain men have fallen in love with me because of my voice before, so that's a definite lure with which to bait the hook). I'd probably have to go to South Bend or Niles to get into any good coffeeshops, but the trips will be worth it, because I certainly do love to sing. It would take some development, however, because I have no accompanist, so I a.) need to find someone to play the piano or guitar for me, or b.) need to learn how to play the guitar myself, which would necessitate some lessons if I want to be any good...and that's a good developing, fulfilling pastime in an of itself; I miss playing an instrument.

3. Get where the kinds of guys I'm interested in are. This one's the most mysterious, as it's proven to result in so many failures in the past, but there's no denying that one of my biggest turn-ons is a guy who knows literature, or a guy who's intelligent in general. Hands-down, that's the best way to catch my attention. So I'm thinking, maybe some lecture attendance. Something to get me circulating. (That's where taking a class MIGHT be a little more productive, though obviously it's no guarantee, not even a little bit of one.) But if I want to find a brain, I have to go where the brains habit. A little daunting. But not impossible.

So basically the first step is simply getting out there. I know that I catch men's eyes wherever I go (sounds pompous and arrogant, perhaps, but we're interested in truth here), so if I want the kind of men I'm interested in to notice me, I have to put myself in their way. If they don't know I exist, they can't approach me. And my current life habits keep me inside my own home, where nobody sees me. Definite badness.

I'm hoping that putting myself out in the world will be enough line-in-the-water action to yield some results. I don't believe in getting very aggressive with the asking-out of men. I want it to be their idea, but I have some work to do myself if they're going to get any idea at all.

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