Evasion 101

If you've read more than three of my posts, you know that at some point I stocked up on fear multi-packs on special. As a child, I had a diagnosable dread of someone finding my underwear while at a sleepover. It mattered not if they were dirty or clean, I made sure I buried those suckers in the bowels of my bag, past the mouse traps and land mines to which I imagined crafty 9-year-olds were resistant. I'd fake cramps and other teen illnesses so I wouldn't have to play in my piano recitals. Because it is a well-established fact that screwing up Clair de Lune has ruined many a young life.These days, I'll pop you a good one should you make fun of my fear of roller coasters, as everyone of sound mind knows that there's no real reason to propel yourself to Mach 5 wearing little more than a purse strap. And group sports? When I know I'll have to play softball, I hope for locusts and leprosy and yes, even pregnancy – anything that will prevent me from having to get up to bat, assuming a position of failure for all to witness. My hands sweat and I silently invite a pitch to the temple, anything that will get me out of the line of sight and into a more comfortable place, like the dentist's chair. Ah, the calming hum of that drill.

I will also admit to having a pathological fear of people. Not just the cell phone, which we all know I wish would die the horrible death of any period piece starring Scarlett Johanssen, but of real, live people, the ones who breath oxygen and steal labeled food from group refrigerators. I absolutely hate how I feel
when meeting them. Any of them. I'm clammy, I feel clumsy with my words, I'm wondering until just how long I have until it's polite to use the restroom. Then while in the restroom, I'm likely drying my armpits with a toilet seat cover and wondering what I have left on Tivo and just why everyone else in the world is that much better at this than I am.

This, my friends, does not bode well for finding a life mate. I've only realized recently that I have a pathological fear of dating. I am under the assumption that, upon meeting a man, he will deem me insufficient and way too chunky and funnier in email than in person. Whoever I am won't be quite right. That all of it – the straightening of the hair and the current highlights, the carefully scheduled post-work meet up and the cab fare in the oppressive humidity so as to avoid your normal level of disheveled, the washingtonpost.com search
for a venue that's not too loud but not too quiet and has enough wine should you need to drink your weight in it – all of the blah blah blah
will amount to little more than a blog post. They'll want perfection or what they saw on a page, and I won't be able to deliver. I've already failed before I've even gotten up to bat.

I understand what this means. Avoidance virtually ensures the life I don't want, of solo attendance at Celine concerts and sad efficiency at stamping Cricket's paw onto homemade cards. But like daily leg shaving, it's just so damn hard, and truthfully, I just don't want to do it.