Woes Begone

I’ve been entertaining some curious e-mails over the past couple of days regarding MLB. This surprises me not at all. This blog has, for some time now, been a high-ranking Google return for the phrase “dating woes.” Strange as it may seem, I have taken a bit of bizarre pride in this distinction; if I’m going to have miserable luck in the dating game, my competitive streak wants me to at least be the very worst dater out there. On top of that, though, is the comfort of knowing that there are women out there who have stumbled onto this site in search of — what? — reassurance? solace? commiseration? — and perhaps I have offered them some small moment of respite by letting them know it’s okay to laugh at themselves. I’ve thought of it as my own little community outreach program. I’m a giver.

But big news, kids: The streak has ended. You know that episode of “Sex and the City” when Carrie is dating Aidan for the first time and she keeps waking up in the middle of the night, panicking for no reason, and she realizes that she’s freaking out because she’s never been in a relationship where everything is going really well? Welcome to my life. Only without the freaking out. Or the waking up in the middle of the night. Or quite as many wardrobe, um — adventures. (Side Note: Have you ever noticed how, in every season of “Sex and the City,” every time Sarah Jessica Parker wears a shirred top, she wears the tucks above her breasts instead of in her cleavage where they belong? Drives. Me. Crazy. I just want to reach out and pull her shirt down.) But the part where things are going well? That’s very like my life. Although the odds that I will f--k it up by sleeping with my millionaire playboy ex-boyfriend, with whom I’m totally actually destined to end up, are exactly nil.

Enter MLB, whom Young Lawyer Friend Bill recruited to cover sports trivia for El Jefe and the Notchos. MLB and I had a somewhat tempestuous relationship in the beginning, which, for narrative purposes, could mean only one thing: We would eventually realize we were actually attracted to one another, a lá Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, or Han Solo and Princess Leia in The Empire Strikes Back (before they got all soft and gushy in Return of the Jedi). Which is more or less what happened.

Reactions to the news have been overwhelmingly positive since, as Classmate Erica pointed out, my dating history has generally consisted more of entertaining stories than it has actual relationships. Turns out the more times you’ve failed at dating, the happier people are for you when something starts to work out. And so far, MLB turns out to be completely different from every other man I’ve gone out with in that (a) he appears to have no crippling emotional issues that prevent him from dating; (b) he’s not keeping his options open by seeing other women (at least he had better not be); (c) he has never gotten drunk and driven a friend’s truck into an art gallery; and (d) he’s a Red Sox fan. He’s also much smarter than most of the men I’ve gone out with. He’s also not intimidated by me. At least, not that he’ll admit.

(Side Note: I am about to receive a text message from MLB, the bottom line of which will be: You waited all this time to talk about how wonderful it is to be dating me, and ended up complaining about Sarah Jessica Parker’s cleavage? Yeah, well, deal with it, pal. I’m not intimidated by you, either. At least, not that I’ll admit.)

MLB seems to find it either funny or insulting or possibly complimentary that OTS enjoys such a close association with “dating woes.” He is a little hard to read on this subject, as a matter of fact. Every once in a while, apropos of nothing, he’ll turn to me out of the blue and just say, “dating woes,” as though to remind me that it’s not really accurate anymore.

Of course, I don’t know that I’d say it’s entirely inaccurate. I’m not free of dating woes; it’s just that my dating woes lately have more to do with my boyfriend’s insistence on inundating me with Obama propaganda and accusing me of making faces at him (which, okay, sometimes I am, but he totally deserves it). But I guess some dating woes are the right kind of dating woes.

So, sorry, Internet. I know you’re here in the hope that I’ll lay bare some disastrous story about my romantic failures, not to hear me gush about how swell my effing life is for crying out loud, but I have no new humiliating dating experiences to share with you. Since you came all this way, though, if it will make you feel better, here’s a link to the story about the time I got in a fight with a hot dog vendor.

UPDATE: MLB says he brings up the dating woes thing because he thinks it's a funny thing to be known for. He also says this post is "a bit saccharine" and he's looking forward to reading your disgusted comments.