In the Waiting Line

The last time I was at my hair salon my colorist, who has never done anything less than magic with my hair and has therefore known me for years, asked me whether I was still seeing the same guy (Summer Boy) as before. I told him we had ended things. Three times, to be exact, with the last one having stuck for close to a month. He asked whether I had any prospects. I said I had been getting to know someone that I thought had potential, but it was really too soon to tell.

He remarked that that was one of the things he loved about me, I always had a backup.

I hadn’t thought about it that way, but it’s true, I usually have someone in the pipeline, in case my current interest doesn’t pan out. I don’t intentionally line up guys, but I do think I hedge some of my disappointments with future prospects. I think everyone does, actually. Isn’t that the meaning of mantras like “you’re better off without him” and “he wasn’t the one for you”? We choose to believe there are other, better men in our futures.

It’s a comforting thought, especially if you believe that you end up with the person you’re meant to. But one could easily argue that keeping a mental waiting line of men prevents one from fully committing to new relationships. Knowing myself as I do, I have a hard time finding fault with this argument.

It may not be something I need to worry about, though, since recently the Universe seems to be clearing me out. The only reaction I had to the brief re-appearances of several old flames via text was to cross them off and delete their numbers. Any hope I had for a Hobbes connection was permanently destroyed when he blew me off and I’ve abandoned my online wanderings, disabling my OKC profile and seriously considering canceling my eHarmony subscription early since I haven’t had any requests for new communication since the Mr. Numbers debacle.

Normally this would freak me out, just one too-soon-to-tell-still-a-big-maybe guy with no backups, but surprisingly I feel just fine. After all, all you do in the waiting line is waste time. Maybe having a safety net was what was holding me back from really taking a risk on love.