I'm Ergless for Him

How do you like that? I just realized today that I've been dumped. It didn't occur to me until now because I'm usually the dumper, not the dumpee (maybe because I tend to dump right before being dumped) but I guess if you don't hear from someone for a month, you're done, yes? Here's the sitch:

So I walk 3 miles a day around a lake for various reasons, most of them neuroses induced, but you know, some in the name of health. For several years I see this skater-man who grooves to his own beat. At first I think he's somewhat bizaare because he's around my age and moving like one of the Central Park teen brigade, minus the spot-on rhythm and so I ignore him completely. Then, sometime around Spring of this year I see him have some kind of "spiritual" awakening (Spring, go figure) and his groovin totally turns my head. Somehow it's become extremely attractive.

Now, all of a sudden I must meet this man, in the biggest way, and I'm itching with quasi-obsession - but how? He never slows down! My daughter suggests stalking him to find out where he parks, but as I consider this I find it not only to be too creepy, even for me, but impossible, because I can't flippin' catch up with the guy!

My friend tells me to hand him a business card as he wheels by with my name and phone number on it - I find this horrifying, even for me, and rule it out immediately. However, after a couple of weeks of yearning, I decide that this is exactly what I must do. I write something like, "I like your skating, would you like to have coffee sometime - Nancy 206-555-5555" and after carrying it around stuffed in my back pocket for about a week, finally I see him coming around the corner and, although I feel enough anxiety to incite a stroke, I hand it off to him.

I'd love an instant replay of this moment, just to see what kind of face I had on. Or maybe not.

Anyway, he stops, we talk a bit, both of us quite stunned by my brazen hussiness, I find out he's an engineer (how functional, I think) and, of course, totally different than anything I had imagined, yet I kind of like this. We get a little info, find the little curiosity spark going on, etc.

Okay, flash forward - four months worth of at least twice a day contact, twice a week seeing each other, meeting my kid, seeing my house, fixing my lawn mower, etc., etc. and -

And what?

Nothing. One day, nothing. No call, no see, no household implement maintenance.

Three and a half weeks later I get a text. Something like, "I've been blah, blah, blah. How are you?" I'm well, thank you.

Another week goes by and I text him something about getting together, just because I'm baffled. He texts back. It's chilly, short. He basically just tells me when he'll be skating the lake.

Like what, I'm going to chase him around the lake? Didn't I already do that last Spring?

What happens to men? Where do they go when they disappear? In telling this story to women friends, not one of them was surprised - outraged, maybe, but not surprised. Every one of them had a story - this has happened, numerous times, to all of us. He's there, then he's not.


What I used to do is wonder why: why did he disappear, was it something I did or didn't do, why would someone just disappear without a word? I have found this serves no purpose, because in reality, it doesn't matter why. No one, no man, woman, friend, lover, no one should just be there one day and not the other and think it's okay to disappear. It's simply not nice.

And so, not another erg of my energy is going into this one. I'm spending my ergs elsewhere.