FROM MY TROPICAL DECK CHAIR

By “Consuelo”

 

playa-vallarta-colorMen don’t like me. I know, I know. I shouldn’t say it. Thoughts are things. The Laws of Attraction tell us that what we say goes, but only for the person saying it. So, by openly stating what I have long suspected to be the truth, am I not just inviting the gods and goddesses of abundance to abandon me, and not ever grace me with a new boyfriend, or a third husband? Well, they don’t give bicycles to fish.

My friend, that whale watching tour has left the dock. Not only has that boat sailed, but the cavorting whales blowing through their blow holes and shooting straight up in the water, to the unbearable excitement and thrill of everybody, have already cavorted, blown, shot, excited and thrilled every camera-toting passenger. Every camera-toting passenger has bought their commemorative t-shirts, hats, and shot glasses. Sweetie. Darling. You are not on the boat.

I have not had a boyfriend in six years. I have not had a date in six years. Oh wait. There was one, a department store Santa Claus in the off season, whom I picked out of the personals. Santa Claus is nice. I extrapolated from his career choice that he would be nice. Oops. After my handsome old preppy boy bad boyfriend in 2003, all I put on my list of requirements for a boyfriend is kindness. Not counting the hidden agenda. Smart, funny, cute... I do not think I ask too much. Do I?

Even if I don’t, I still have worst-man-in-the-room syndrome. It is a syndrome I made up, but it is very real. In any given room full of people, half of them men, I will navigate unerringly to the one guy who is a nasty piece of work. As sure as God made little green apples. As sure as frog’s fur.

The Santa Claus guy? Dope smoker. I am Presbyterian. I don’t smoke anything. Santa Claus boy was looking to get laid. Not me. I was looking for someone I could love as much as I loved bad Gary. But no. I shouldn’t ask for that. I was addicted to bad Gary. It was love, and not love. So I left the Santa Claus guy at the table. He asked to meet again. “No,” I said.

Ok, so that date didn’t work out. Surely there must be someone I could go out with? Nobody asks. Nobody approaches. All the men in my life are friends. Sometimes I imagine that I see fear in men´s eyes when they look at me. I think they suspect that I am far more like the black lab street dog who is starving, and who has broken his teeth from eating rocks than I am like the fluffy white lapdogs that you see chauffeured around Vallarta in shiny silver SUV’s. I think men like the lapdogs type more than the street dog.

I mean, I am still cute. Fat, fattish. We can’t all be skeletons. Why would we want to? Someone cool must want to be with me. But who? Whom? I’ve already dismissed and deflected the approaches of the yummy barefoot beach guys. The logistics of dating anyone, when subjected to a cost-benefit analysis, tells me the time and energy is a river of no return. Maybe the men feel this way, too. Maybe I am too much of a joker.

Good thing I found Puerto Vallarta. I can live in peace and quiet. Paint my paintings, feel my feelings. I can enjoy men at a distance. A distance is probably a good place for me to be at with men. I offer truth, love and joy. But a man would have to go through my inner black dog of the broken teeth to get to me.

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