CUTE GIRLS IN AIRPORTS

I am a single man.

Despite the fact that I am devilishly handsome, I remain gloriously unattached. It is a mystery as to why no female-of-the-species has snatched me up for my superior genetic material. Aside from a nice attached stretch through college and one regrettable multi-year mistake, I have been in a perpetual state of "dating" through most of my adult life. As such, I tend to notice single women, often with laser focus, depending on where I land in any given refractory period.




What the Kid (that's me) has learned in his advanced years, is that Spock is always right. In STAR TREK episode 30, "Amok Time", Spock has experienced the Vulcan mating ritual of the Pon Farr, and lost his arranged mate to another suitor. He congratulates his former bride's new mate with indifferent logic (naturally), and tells him, "You may find that having, is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true."

More honest words have rarely been said.



Thus it is that the Kid views relationships. The fun is not in arriving, but in looking at the map.* If being in a meaningful relationship is the endgame, why is the long-term so much worse than the beginning (when you are figuring out how far you can get with fingers and orifices and dangly bits and soft parts and variations thereof)? It is only at the beginning when singing "Total Eclipse of the Heart" at karaoke can make you alternately horny and heartbroken. Emotions run high.

The relationship parts that come later are a chump's game. Pretending to like awful cooking, listening to litanies of complaints you have no empathy for, washing someone else's dishes because otherwise you have no spoons; this is tedium made literal and you have to eat it every day like gruel in a Dickens novel. No sir, I don't like it. The Kid is a "confirmed bachelor". In ye olde days, this would mean I was ye olde homosexual, but in modern parlance I am simply living out a prolonged and exaggerated adolescence. I am not proud, but this is the world I know. I accept it.

So the best part about dating is the actual dating. OR IS IT? Let us trim that hedge and see the courting ritual for the farce it is. It is a shell game, with two people constantly moving the cups. Pretending alternately to like someone's company more than you do, and then pretending to like them less. Honesty becomes the worst policy, as there is a binary of "too eager" and "not interested", either of which will brickwall intercourse if applied at the wrong moment. It is a combination balance beam and pummel horse, and the only people there to give you chalky powder and a quick boost are friends who have fallen off more than you. Every tentative step is across a white carpet when you have poop on your shoes. You want to have manners when you go out to eat, but not look like a priss. You want to have a sense of humor, but uh oh that joke about Jews running Hollywood was probably a step too far.


You want to have similar interests, but they don't like ABBA (dealbreaker). How many pairings have come to a close when, over dinner, the female looks quizzically at the male and he realizes that she doesn't know what "blitzkrieg" means. Your Humble Narrator has been there at least two dozen times! In that very scenario!

And so it is that the beginning ain't so hot either. Which takes us back to the initial attraction. Which is, again, essentially a scam. You see someone at a party, or a bar, or in a German night class at some community college. You make a hilarious crack, or wait for them to ask where you bought your parka. Maybe you are with a friend who knows them. "Who's that?" you might ask. "Are they into really good-looking guys (like myself)? Would they be interested in a handsome man-child that owns cats?" Two people size each other up, wondering "can i do better at this moment?" If both parties are interested/bored/desperate enough, the flirtation begins. From there it is a precarious two-step that leads, if you are lucky, to dating. Which is basically a nightmare.

Removing that initial meeting, what we have left is seeing someone attractive from across a room. This is the most romantic thing that ever there was. You see someone lovely, and the part of your brain that isn't reptilian rolls out butterflies and starshine and cookies. Is she alone? Is she single? A lifetime of possibilities runs through your head, as you watch this dream girl meet your family and give birth to your potential and fictional kids. She is a perfect creature, wearing a terrific outfit and reading that book that isn't awful. The way they sit is totally charming, and you assume that whatever is traveling into their earbuds via iPod is something amazing. Probably ABBA.

Maybe someone will say "hi", and maybe a light conversation will take place for five to ten minutes. Probably not. You have to take a call, and her flight is boarding. Ships pass, as they say. Beyond this point there are no embarrassing trips to buy her tampons, or being yelled at for farting. You will never be irritated by her mother and she will never be upset because of your pants. Maybe you will nod and smile at each other as you walk by one another, rolling small suitcases behind you and clutching boarding passes. This particular trip is over before it began. You may never arrive anywhere, but looking at the map was a nice distraction.

Seeing a cute girl sitting alone in an airport is awesome.



* This may be the only time when the old saw is true, about the journey being better than the destination. "It's not where you go, but how you get there", or a million other variations on that theme. They're all horseshit; traveling sucks, and the only good thing about it is that you get from point A to point B, with point B presumably being the pudding under the crust. I'm on an airplane right now, and it's cramped, sweaty, and loud. The guy next to me is a baseball fan from Texas, loudly chewing smelly gum, and prone to coughing fits. That is, when he's not sprawled out in his seat, fast asleep, and snoring like a THREE STOOGES gag. It's barely 2 in the afternoon and he is fast asleep. I suspect blood sugar problems.