I Am Everyone's Fool.

That’s me, dear readers. And I am caught up in a vicious cycle. I am guarded because I have been let down before. Then someone challenges me to open up. I struggle with it, but I give in and put myself out there, because although hesitant, I believe that one of the times that I do I won’t be let down. And then I am let down.

Most of the time I brush off the feelings of disappointment, but every now and then I feel like a real fool. Like when I’m giving someone an umpteenth chance to prove me wrong reject me. Like I am feeling right now.

Despite agreeing to meet up with Hobbes, I only believed we would actually meet up for the briefest of moments after we had outlined the plans. I switched back over pretty quickly when I didn’t hear from him for two days around the time he was traveling out here.

The cancellation came in two parts. The night before he bailed on the “maybe” portion, because he could not say no to (free) dinner with family friends. He thought he’d still be able to meet with me after. I asked him if we should just cancel our plans then, or whether he wanted to keep the suspense going?

I wanted to cancel them myself, you see, but if I waited for him to do it so I could write him off forever with a perfectly clear conscience. I wasn’t surprised by the official cancellation, mid-day the day of our plans, but I was pretty blown away that he didn’t mention anything that sounded even remotely like he was sorry that he wouldn’t be seeing me. Or that he felt bad about doing exactly what I had said he would do.

I guess I had thought that after I had made such a big deal of not wanting to be bailed on that Hobbes wouldn’t have made plans if he didn’t think he could keep them. That if he made them anyway and then had to break them, for whatever reason, that he would have done so with an apology. That he would have felt bad. For me. For my feelings.

All Hobbes wanted to know was whether a rain check was possible. I think no. No rain check. No future plans. No emails, no IMs, no texts. No more going out on a limb.

And no thank you to whatever you, dear readers, might think are words of encouragement on this subject. I'll be walking this one off alone.