What kind of wine comes from sour grapes?
One of the more distressing elements to this condition of terminal singledom I appear to have contracted, is the inevitable ‘moving on’ of guys I’ve dated.
Now, if you can imagine: You meet someone, hit it off, one date leads to another, leads to another but then somewhere between the second and eighth date, it fizzles out. Either that or they irritate you, you notice them flying a red-flag or two, they butt up against a deal breaker and so on. The list of reasons is endless, and believe me, there’s plenty of material for many, many more posts in the future on the topic. After that, after you’ve said your, “it’s not you, it’s me” speech or occasionally the “it’s definitely you” spiel. Post radio silence and avid avoidance of each other’s presence, when the dust has settled, and you’ve almost completely forgotten about their existence. Just at that point of blissful ignorance, they pop back into your periphery, often via social media or a friend-of-a-friend’s gossip circle. In my experience, it’s never good when this happens, especially when you’ve been single for as long as I have. This intrusion of a long-forgotten memory is usually the result of some of the worst kind of news, especially if you are (like I usually always am) still, very single.
They have moved on.
I know this seems obvious because if they were dating you, they’re not going to simply give up on dating anyone after you. I mean, that’s narcissistic in the extreme to hold yourself in such high esteem to believe that you’re the only person they’d ever want to be with and anyone else would be but a poor imitation, therefore not worth continuing looking! Or maybe you do?! Either way, this harsh bump of reality is generally quite, quite unwelcome. Often, it’s not enough that they’ve begun some form of meaningful relationship with someone else, but this is much more serious news, they’re rubbing your already bloodied nose in it with something far more drastic. An engagement, the ‘we’re expecting’ announcement or maybe all that has passed you by until they’ve eventually changed their status on Facebook to ‘Married’.
I know this reads as particularly cynical and I’m aware of the incredibly sour grapes I have in my basket, but when this has happened not just once or twice, but several times, you can see my point right?! There comes a threshold where you start to think the problem (and quite rightly so) is yourself!
As I have mentioned in a previous post, occurrences like this are a symptom of my many, many issues contributing to the existential (mid-life) crisis I’ve been enduring for the last twelve months, not the cause. The ‘terminally single’ situation is definitely something for another post, another day, for your entertainment no doubt!
