V-Day or D-Day?

For the mother of all holidays, Valentine's Day, I was a guest author for the3six5, a blog featuring 365 days of posts, told by 365 different people, from 365 points of view. A very cool and innovative concept. 

My post for February 14, 2012...

February 14th. Such a polarizing day. Whether you are single, committed, casually dating, happily married, recently divorced, or pretending to be (or not to be) in love with someone, you can’t avoid the day.

Valentine’s Day shows up on the same day, every year, mocking or celebrating your life choices.

And I’ve been in both boats.

Today, as with every day, I spent a great deal of emotional and strategic energy planning my outfit. Ever since I closed the door on my Catholic uniform-wearing days, outfit selection has occupied more time than I’d like to admit. But today’s mental tug of war pulled me between the two polarizing personas I could choose to be perceived as embodying today.

If I wore red, I would be implying that I supported the day; that I was on their team. One of the people with romantic dinner plans and a dozen roses on the way to her stark desk. One of the people who cooed at the Hallmark commercials, instead of scoffing at them. One of the people who didn’t “see red” when she saw red.

If I wore black, I’d be pegged a cynic. A soon-to-be spinster. Miranda Hobbes' understudy…untrusting, unhappy and one candy-coated heart away from a public mental breakdown.

I wore neither.

I settled on a colorful, non-black, non-red, patterned dress. My outfit screamed effortless ambivalence. What? TODAY is Valentine’s Day? I totally forgot. I would fool them all.

But I soon realized it was I who was the fool. Everywhere I turned, I couldn’t escape it. My StarbucksTall Blonde was served up in a cup littered w/ hearts and sweet nothings. Forbes “thought of the day” discussed love at first sight. (Or as I like to refer to the theme of relationships in my younger days: love at first slight.) #HappyValentinesDay was trending on Twitter worldwide.

I may have not made a choice to be on the Lovers or Haters team with the choice of my color palette. But the world was forcing me to make the choice now.

So to keep this V-Day from turning into D-Day, I’ve decided.

I choose red.

I’m thinking a nice California Cab will do just fine.

The Straight Gay Man

I love people. Short, tall, big, small, straight, gay, black, white. If you are a good person, I will like you. If you are a bad person, I will buy you a six pack of Miller High Life. Now, the person I'm interested in dating is judged by very different criteria. I have a minimum height and education requirement, maximum cologne-usage limit, first-date shoe expectation and jean size barometer (his jean size must be bigger than mine). But, there is one thing that he, hands down, without question, absolutely, positively CANNOT be. 

And that thing is gay. 

When I first walked into The Bluebird, a trendy wine bar slash Belgian beer mecca, I was impressed. The lighting was perfect. It was the kind of lighting that made everyone look good. Like movie-star good. Or at least extra-in-a-movie-star good. The slightly unattractive were now sexy ugly. The girl who desperately needed a hairbrush now had Blake Lively bed head. It was a happening place. So, when I saw B, my date, I was already warmed up...and he fit the bill. He was tall, was a college graduate, cologne smelled amazing...did my 10th grade crush wear that? Wait, is that Cool Water? His shoes were impeccable. They were these Italian leather, beautifully crafted, caramel-colored beauties. 

These shoes should have been my first clue. 

In my defense, I was high off the visually stimulating crowd...the endorphin-infused aesthetics of the mahogany bar. And so the fact that this guy was more than likely sporting this season's Gucci men's lace up dress shoes did not quite register. We ordered two Belgians and started to chat. I found out that he grew up in a very religious household in a very religious town. He was home schooled with his siblings from the first day of pre-school to the last day of high school. 

What is that word you're trying to think of right now? Run. That word is "run." 

He spoke about the strict hyper-Christian way he was raised...and then we meandered through the valley of avoidance, into the forest of denial and straight towards the land of homosexuality. And we spent two hours there. 

It turned from a first date into a therapy session. B was clearly struggling to admit who he was. Maybe he didn't even know it. I spoke emphatically about how his parents' views were narrow-minded and small. Things got heated. I desperately wanted to map out how to get him out of this crazy family and break out on his own and be free to be B! 

Then I took a deep breath, got oxygen pumping back to my brain and realized that I have a little habit of taking on projects. Especially when these projects are packaged and rolled up into a tall, intelligent, good-smelling man. I muttered, "Enabler!" under my breathe...to which B perked up. 

"I'm sorry?"

"Oh nothing...just reading the menu. Whadda ya say? Another round?"

B stood up and sashayed up to the bar. And that's when I saw it. I squinted my eyes and moved my head and upper body ever so slightly in B's direction. Yep. Just what I thought I had spotted. Discreetly peeking out of the seam of his left Seven Jeans' pocket was a small red tag with yellow writing. It read: 26. 

Oh. Hell. No.

I haven't been a 26 waist since high school. Scratch that. Middle school. There was no way this could work. I had visions of him picking up a pair of stone washed boot legs from the chair in my room, slipping into them and while swimming in the jean material, exclaiming, "Whoa! These are NOT mine. Yikes."

He had to go. 

I knew deep down B was a straight gay man. And one day, he would grow up to be a gay gay man. But I didn't have to help him get there. I could take a night off from projects and enabling and leave that up to someone else.

B turned his head back over his right shoulder towards our high top table and asked, "What kind of beer do you want?"

I paused, gave myself a knowing nod and responded, "I'll take a Miller High Life."