time heals all wounds

Last night I went out to the Village Tavern to celebrate a friend's venture to a new job. She is good people; so all kinds of colleagues and buddies came out of the woodwork to wish her well. Including two pieces of rockstar kryptonite.

The first was mr boxer. I give him this title for two reasons: First of all, he prides himself in the fact that he was a bouncer when he was younger, and currently boxes as a hobby. Secondly, once I went around asking people to tell a funny story, and his was, in graphic detail, how he bashed someone's head in. Ummmmmm...ha?

Mr boxer and I had a bit of a falling out last year. I have been organizing an annual white water rafting trip in West Virginia for about five years, and based on his anti-social and rude behavior two years ago I told him last year that he was not welcome to join us. He got very very pissed at me, we had a nice long discussion, and he ended it with a pleasant "then go fuck yourself." After that he stopped going to the bar with our group of friends, and eventually I stopped even inviting him.

The second gentleman was mr betrayal. Two years ago he had started working at my company, and we became friends. In order for him to get a raise and not have to quit, he was offered a job as my assistant. I was not sure if he was right for the position, but he was a friend, and I wanted to help him out. I figured if we worked together we could get him up to speed.

Or not. He not only did practically no work for me, leaving me quite in the lurch, but would also blame me for his inability to do his job, and eventually would lie to the head of the department about the work he did (or didn't) do. This was an incredibly painful time for me, as I blamed myself for his failure to do his job for a very long time, and worked as hard as I could to get my "friend" up to par. I worked massive overtime, and couldn't sleep nights. Finally we had a knock down drag out conversation, and agreed he should work somewhere else in the company. They gave him a demotion, cut his pay, he became disgruntled, and then he quit the day before they were going to fire him.

Both gentlemen were at the party last night, and I steeled myself with a few good stiff drinks. It seems they have both chosen to "forgive" me, and I felt no actually angst towards them, so all went well. It was such a surprise and relief that they were civil, I am not used to people being upset with me, and do not deal well with negativity. A weight has been lifted, hooray! It seems time really does heal all wounds.

Another fun thing of note from last night, I got do defend my singledom yet again. One of my friends who got married recently was at the party, and he made some comment about how he was sure I would find my special someone soon. Offhandedly I mentioned that it was no big deal because getting married is not one of my goals. Silly me, that offhanded comment put me into a twenty minute explanation.

You see reader, it is not that I am against marriage or that I would never get married, its just not on my "to do" list. For most people you meet it is. Yes, it is that simple. Most people have a goal in life of getting married, and I am not one of them. At this point the person I am explaining this to inevitably says that I am a great person so they are sure that I will find my match. To which I have to point out that the two things have nothing to do with each other, really. We are not taking bets or measuring the odds of me ending up with someone. Heck, I could be with someone and just not get married as well, why not? Or I could have a handful of long-term relationships in my life. Isn't that what people with multiple weddings are actually doing? I honestly believe that if I never get married my life will have been so full that at my funeral the last thing to cross people's minds is, "Oh, poor rockstar, she died a spinster." C'mon.

The conversation eventually ended, as it always does, to me conceding that yes, one day, I could possibly get married. It makes them happy, and they again have utterly missed my point. Married people (most) are like pod people. Once they join the club, all they do is try to drag you down with them. Suddenly they are paired off, and it is their personal mission to get you paired off as well. It’s kind of creepy.

Oh, and today I'm going to a wedding shower. Good way to start the day. Ha.