Why I Don't Date

I have so many things running through my mind. So many things I'd like to write about but I hardly know where to start!

When I returned from England, I was transformed. I had a whole new lease on life and immediately used my better humor to socialize and get out and about more. One of the first events in which I participated was a tubing trip down the Shenandoah River with a bus-full of strangers!

My former co-worker, Lisa, was organizing a variety of events for her birthday and I immediately signed up for this one. I talked my friend Misha into going with me and we set out early that morning from Arlington.
All-in-all it was a very fun day of floating, laughing and drinking a LOT of beer.
During the course of the trip, a young guy named Alex struck up a conversation with Misha in Russian: the native tongue for both as A.M. is from the Ukraine. Slowly, A.M. also started floating closer and closer to me and began flirting. At one point, instead of holding on to my tube, A.M. was holding my hand.

We exchanged numbers and had a few dates in the following weeks.

I was sad and irritated when, after three dates, A.M. stopped calling and completely blew me off without a word.
Two weeks after that, he wrote me a feeble email on Facebook which SHOULD have just read: "It's not you, it's me." The funny thing is, I was over it by the time he sent that pathetic email and it just pissed me off all over again!

More than anything, I was mad at myself for getting involved at all. I knew from the start that there was no way this could end well but allowed myself to be hopeful. Thankfully, it was only three dates and thankfully I'd only just begun to *think* I really liked him. Ironically, that thought entering my head the night of date #3. Oops!

It is a shame he couldn't be more of a stand-up guy about it in the end because I would have LOVED to have a "Friend with Benefits" again. If nothing else, we had excellent chemistry in bed and it would have been fun!

Idiot.