When a doctor looks at you, hands you a piece of paper to sign and says, “And this is to verify that you understand you will no longer have the ability to bear children,” you’re gonna lose it a bit, even if you never planned to bear children.

I’ve never had the mom gene. Kids ask a lotta questions and let stuff drip from their nose and want money to go to college and stuff. I’ve never wanted to deal with any of that or, for that matter, the logistics of child-rearing and child birth. I was never comfortable with things growing in my body (which, now, are) or doctors making incisions (which, they now, must) or removing things from my body (which, I now, am scheduled to have).

Funny how that all worked out.

Yet and still, I’m hard-wired as a woman and have, at times, had the fantasy of telling the man I love that I’m pregnant with his child or spitting out a little genetic mini of me and my man. Problem is, that man never showed up. I’ll never have the option to change my mind and bear his child.

I’m upset about that to some degree.  Sure, I can use a surrogate or adopt should a man decide he wants to do more than be buddies with benefits with me, but the female experience of pregnancy is one I’ll never experience. With that comes a twinge of anger with the memory of every man who put me in the bang buddy or friend with benefits zone or hung out/chilled/kicked it with me — because they’re too sensitive, scared or uninterested to use the word “dating” or “relationship” in description of what they’re doing with me — and said “I’m not looking to get serious until later.” Well, it’s later now mother fuckers and because my dumb ass spent too much of my precious time dealing with men who were only serious about falling into bed and not falling in love, the options I had to bear my own child without complication are now gone.

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I began the holiday weekend watching films from the Criterion Collection on Hulu, since they were free and I’ve been too broke to restart my Hulu Plus membership. After 24-hours of foreign films, unsimulated sex scenes and unsuspected, and quite horrific, film endings (I mean, where did the rapist with the ax come from and why wasn’t I properly warned for that?) I felt like I was dipping a little too far into art-house for my own good and needed to lighten my mood. So, I did a decided to engage in a little binge watching — my favorite past time — and check out Seasons 1 through 3 of Braxton Family Values on Netflix and YouTube. I started on an intellectually high. I ended a bit on the low side, albeit ecstatically happy.

There’s a lot going on these days, strangely for a woman who rarely leaves the house for anything other than work and spends her free time sitting around watching television shows and movies. I suppose the most important thing to mention is a trip to the hospital following some of the worry I expressed in this post. I hadn’t been able to stomach a meal for about a week and, after a night of chills, aches and a bunch of other stuff that’s just plain too nasty to mention I headed my butt on into the ER.

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My ad:

I don’t know about you, but I find dating to be an activity I simply can no longer enjoy, mostly because I go on one date and never see the man again. So, I’d like to skip the coffee and dinner and drinks. I’m a unique woman seeking to spend my time in unique ways.

I’m at a stage I’d like to greater enhance my life and improve the person I already am. I’d like to spend my time doing activities that are fun and that enrich me as a person. I’d enjoy company. The vast majority of my girlfriends are married or in relationships and I’ve tired of doing things alone, so the company of an intelligent and engaging man would be appreciated. If we hit if off and want to do it again, great. If not, it’s ok. We will have spent our time doing something that enriched us as people so we won’t consider it time wasted. We’ll walk away better people for having known each other if only for several hours.

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I’m going to refer to an oft repeated, and quite apt,  quote by Vicki Gunvalson: “My love tank is empty.”

And, one of my favorite RnB songs, by a group named Brownstone, that I heard today on Pandora and got me to thinkin’.

Five miles to empty
My heart is running low
I need a good man to fill me up

Most long-term single’s love tanks are empty. You can attempt to sipon some fuel and see if you can fill it a little bit to keep yourself keepin’ on:  have a one night stand with that dude from the bar or  hang out a few times with that guy who has the handle-bar mustache and a liking for Mumford and Sons until he stops calling. But, when those encounters are over, and you’re there, solo, again, you’re running on empty. And, we all know, things can’t run on empty.

Sometimes, if you’re lucky, a friend will come along, see you’re stalled and give you a little love fuel to run on until you can siphon some fuel from another source to keep yourself running.

What’s all this tank and gas shit have to do with anything?  Well, it’s how I’ve been feeling about friendship as of late. And a metaphor for how I’ve been feeling about my relations with my friends.

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Last night was one of the difficult nights, though I know it was made worse by hormones which are all out of whack at the moment. These episodes are usually punctuated by my surfing Craigslist Women for Men ads and, after finding a very small 2% of which I can actually respond due to one preference or deal breaker or another (theirs, not mine),  I create my own ad. Two to be exact.

One ad is short, simple and with no mention of my ethnicity, body shape to avoid flagging. Mind you, this isn’t one person flagging. This is a TEAM of people taking me the fuck down. Don’t get all weird or defensive about me on this. And don’t be all Becky Unicorns and Rainbows and shit thinking it’s a man flagging it to up his chances with me. It’s not. There’s a place on Craigslist somewhere that talks about flagging and they let people know, straight up, look, sometimes racists and mean people flag shit because they don’t like the way you look. I’ve dealt with it. You can too.

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I’m going to talk dates, second dates, specifically, because they’re a rather foreign concept to me. In the nine or so years I’ve been single I’ve had, technically, four second dates. One was with Smokey, but his Peter Pan sensibilities  regularly challenged what we were doing as “not, technically, dating” for three years so, I guess, technically, that wasn’t a second date.

The second second date was with a guy I knew much too briefly to create an alias for. Our first date was wonderful. My first dates, usually, are, or so I perceive. I’m not one of those women thinking a date was awesome when it really wasn’t. Most times, they call back requesting a second date. Half of that time, the second date is actually planned. Like this dude.  We spent our first date out on the town enjoying a Bay Area Art crawl, grabbing food from carts,  having cocktails and listening to music at a local bar. Our second date was dinner a few days later, followed by cocktail and a bit of making out. I saw him once more before his mood changed; he’d brought a pillow for an impromptu sleepover at my house. Afterward, he began to create excuses as to why the dinner he’d offered to make me at his home one evening soon was, suddenly, something he was unable to do. In cases such as these I did what I knew my role was to do, go silent. When he did, confirming his disinterest, I moved on with life. I kept his fucking pillow though. That thing is soft a shit. No wonder why he carried that thing around with him and brought it to random bitches houses. It’s the primary pillow I sleep with now — three years later. Not gettin’ that back, son.

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Every single word I wrote is now a thing of the past. Gone. Disappeared into the abyss. I could go find most of it on my old Facebook posts, but what would be the point of that? I’m not that woman anymore, so what she said may have mattered at the time, but certainly doesn’t now. It was difficult losing all of my writing at first, so much so it brought me to tears several years ago. I mean, most of my tears were over me being a dumbass too lazy to back up my work, but, today?

It’s a clean slate, a new day, a fresh start and any other saying used to signify a new beginning. I think I’m funnier now anyways, at least, in my head I am. I haven’t really written any single-woman shit of significance in over a year so I may not be funny at all. I may just be that crazy woman laughing at the thoughts in her head on the train.

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