Average Joe

Since that fateful day in September of 2005, my life has had its ups and downs. It’s hard enough being a single girl in today’s mean dating pool. My mother tells me every day she doesn’t know how I do it sometimes, how I put myself out there the way I do. For those of you that read my blog on a regular occasion, you have been there with me, through the good dates, the bad dates, and the ugly dates. Many of you write me comments, or personal notes about your own similar situations, that I take a lot of comfort in receiving. I may not be able to answer all of you, simply due to the sheer volume of messages I receive on the daily, but I assure I read every single one of them. Some of you tell me I am dating the wrong guys, and that may be partially true. Some of you say I date jocks, or guidos, or narcissistic pretty boys… and I am sure there have been one or two of those archetypes in my dating resume, but it is by no means fair to lump them all together. I won’t lie. There have been quasi-celebrities, sports figures, and various public personas hidden in my thinly veiled relationship blogs, but I have always respected their privacy, and certainly never ousted them no matter how badly things ended. But intermixed with the familiar faces, were the regular guys, the everyday guys, and the “Average Joes.”

This is one of those stories.

I had been seeing this guy for quite a while.. well, especially when most NYC relationships last about as long as the small sizes on a sale rack at Bloomingdale's. He was seemingly an amazing guy, who was the true definition of what any man should be: he was kind, considerate, and prided himself on doing right by others. He wasn't really my type physically, but, it didn't stop us from hitting it off from the moment we meant. We’ll call him Joe. Joe was the kind of guy that just didn’t care what people thought. He was going to party, and be the life of it. Some people can walk in, and just own a room. Well, Joe was the electricity that kept the lights on.

He was so much fun to be around it almost made me forget the months of misery I have endured in the past year. Unfortunately, we were both fresh out of mentally and emotionally abusive relationships, so neither of us was quite ready to make the jump back into the fire. So instead, we decided to take things as they came to us, and just wait and see what evolved. We began spending a ton of time together, to the point where even my door guys eventually stopped interrogating and frisking him upon his arrival. I guess most people around us just assumed we were dating. But you know what they say about assuming.. “It only makes an ass out of you and me.”
Apparently in this case, it was just me.

We were out at dinner one night, when Joe brought up the subject of relationships. He knew my theories on giving things official titles. I've always been from the school of thought that if you don't label it, it has a better chance of survival. He on the other hand, was familiar with my dating history and was slightly intimidated by the roster of predecessors. Not like there weren't plenty of average decent guys on there, but there were also a few names that came with that certain edge of intimidation. Joe was always scared that he couldn't be everything I wanted and that I'd inevitably “one up” him when something better presented itself. He said he felt like I was ashamed of him, when in reality, he couldn't have been further from the truth. I liked the fact he was normal, unpretentious, and didn't seem to be easily phased by the attention I received. I liked the fact he did something noble with his life and worked with underprivileged kids in bad neighborhoods. I think it made him more of a compassionate, understanding individual. It kept his party boy persona in check.

I guess somewhere along there, between leaving his job with the kids, and accepting a new position doing something far less noble, he forgot the reasons why I liked him in the first place. He became someone else, someone I wasn’t quite sure I even “liked.” He was like Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde. Only, Dr. Jekyll began making fewer, and fewer appearances.

One night Joe and I had made plans to have a nice dinner at home together. I had spent all day shopping and planning this elaborate Italian meal, including learning how to make an amazing meat sauce, as I have been informed that serving sauce out of a jar in this part of the country is considered blasphemy. It started to get late so I texted him, asking “where he was, if he was okay,” as this was generally out of character for him. No answer. So when midnight rolled around, and I still had no date, I arrived at the saddening conclusion.. That I had been stood up.

Every bit of that dinner went bad, as I had suddenly lost my appetite.

Fast forward to a week later. I was out on the town, at one of Joe and my normal haunts when I was confronted by a blond girl.. I had no earthly idea who the girl was til she launched in on me regarding my “relationship” with Joe. She told me she was his “ex girlfriend, whom he still regularly asked to get back together with.” And that she “had no idea I even existed.” She then proceeded to tell me how I had “never mattered to him, and that I was insignificant.” Then she dropped this bomb..

“Sweetheart, did you honestly think you could compete with what we had?? That a few months could surpass everything we have been through??.. Aww.. you did, didn’t you?.. That is sooooo sweet.”

I could feel my face flushing, and my eyes beginning to water. There were stood, in a crowded room of people, all of whom had gathered to watch these two trains that were gunning for a collision that was my life. I was on the verge of a breakdown, while she sat there… and SMILED. Why had no one stepped up yet?.. Why had no one pulled her off of me?.. What kind of REAL woman operates like this? Furthermore, what kind of man, if you can call him that allows his ex to do this to the girl he has been seeing?? I gathered my things, and what was left of my self esteem and soul and left the bar, without so much as a word to Joe.

My dating experiences in NYC have really been enlightening. They just make me feel incredibly sad for this generation of guys that don’t realize when they have found that one person who is so great, and they f*ck it up. Most just walk away and continue to live their lives as if the other half never existed, while there are others that return and try to make it all better after the fact. I guess it’s just youth, because when you’re young it is so easy to look ahead to the rest of your life. But then, there comes this one moment of clarity when you get older, when you realize the defining moment that changed the outcome of your life. Then, you spend the few years you have left torturing yourself on all the really stupid decisions you made...especially on the good people you let slip out of your life.

Sometimes we need to stop analyzing the past, stop planning the future, stop deciding exactly what we want, and just see what happens. Why had an Average Joe’s past come back to haunt me?... Until he and I had started talking, the ex was a non issue. She only wanted him back, once she realized he had in fact found something better… something that wouldn’t cheat on him, lie to him, or sleep around. The circumstances surrounding her confronting me that night were all wrong. The fact, I was just an innocent bystander in their unresolved issues. Then I realized, the two of them were still living in the past, still living in the hurt… while causing a world of pain in my present. It’s always been my belief that people who live in the past generally are afraid to compete in the present. I've got my faults, but living in the past is not one of them. There's no future in it. Unfortunately, with my career goals, and my drive… I’m perceived as a bit of a gamble, even despite my other endearing qualities. But, he knows how their story ends… she was a sure thing, a safety net. Sure, it hurts, but maybe its all for the best. I will always be the Anna Scott to his Average Joe. He just couldn’t handle being with something like that regardless of the fact it just “worked” effortlessly.

I haven't seen Joe since that night, though I did get an email from him, that simply said "not a day goes by I don't think about you."

If only that were really true.