Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle As Applied To Dating

Today started a little later than I really would have preferred, but after getting up early for two days I was inclined to sleep in at least a little.
Once I was up I had to get on a conference call for work. After that was over I took a shower and waited for my mother to call.
In the course of talking to my mother it became clear that I should not put off purchasing my plane tickets for my trip home in May for Jourdan’s graduation. I had neglected to consider the fact that because I’ll be flying around Memorial Day there will be considerable traffic, thus ensuring that the cost of tickets would continue to rise.
Finishing that, I looked at my finances and grimaced.
It became clear that the short-term financial goals I had are not going to be met. Not within the timeframe I had set, at any rate.
This doesn’t entail any sort of hardship, it simply means that my goal of maintaining a savings balance of X while simultaneously making purchases totaling Y just isn’t going to happen, as it seems that I can do one but not the other.
What that really means for my plans is yet to be determined. At the current rate, it’s looking as though I could create a savings balance of roughly X+Y(1/2) if I avoid making any purchases.
Alternatively, if I wanted to just drain my savings, I could make some substantial purchases totaling X+Y(1/2).
In general, I’m actually leaning toward the former (despite how tempting the latter is). I think, though, that I might end up finding some sort of compromise position.
We’ll see, I guess.
After I finished with the financial update I got back to work on writing something for work, which was so boring that I was almost relieved when it came time to leave for my dentist appointment.
Almost.
Once I got there I became more than a little annoyed, as I essentially had to have work that I’d already paid for more than a year ago done all over again.
A while back one of my crowns came loose. Today the dentist determined that he couldn’t just put the crown back in; I had to get an entirely new one.
Even better, my insurance will not pay for the same work to be done over again unless five years have passed.
This meant paying for a new crown entirely out of my own pocket.
Fortunately, as he should have, since it was his shoddy workmanship that came flying loose in the first place, he agreed to call the costs of whatever my insurance didn’t pay a loss and not charge me for the crown.
Still, while I was glad to not have to pay for it again, it was kind of annoying to have to sit in the chair and have the same work done all over again and to find myself, at least until next week, slightly worse off than I was before, as I currently have only a temporary crown in place.
After leaving there I stopped at my eye doctor’s office to pick up some disinfecting solution for my contacts.
As the woman working there was printing up an itemized receipt for me, in case I get a request for one from my Flex plan, she noticed that I was overdue for an exam.
I said that it didn’t surprise me, but that I hadn’t received any sort of reminder, even though she said one had been mailed. It’s fairly likely that it got mixed in with the junk mail (which represents the vast majority of all of my mail) and was subsequently thrown away.
In any case, I made an appointment to have my eyes checked. She had actually asked me if April 1st was good for me, and without hesitation, even though I do have the day off, and perhaps a little too forcefully, I said, “No.”
The 1st is, of course, the day that Sin City hits theaters, and I don’t intend to do much of anything that isn’t related to seeing the movie on that day.
My eye doctor has offices in Leesburg and Fairfax in addition to the one he has here in Ashburn, and I’ve had occasion to go to the Leesburg office in the past, as he has different equipment at different locations.
I recognized the woman working the desk today as the office manager from the Leesburg office.
The woman who used to be the office manager for Ashburn and Fairfax is the one I had attempted, in vain, to date a while back.
It’s been around a year since I last saw her actually working in the Ashburn office, and I’ve had occasion to stop in there several times since then. This was the first time I’d ever seen the woman from Leesburg in Ashburn. I don’t know if the fact that the woman from Leesburg is working in Ashburn is significant or not.
The woman I’d tried to date, whom we’ll call “Stone Face,” had mentioned that she might leave Virginia at some point, so it could be that she’s actually gone, or it could just be that there has been some reorganization between the offices and she just no longer works in Ashburn, or works here less often.
When I go in for my exam I may try to casually ask, “So whatever happened to…?”
Of course, the problem is that my ability to be “casual,” particularly under those circumstances, is pretty limited.
The only reason I’m even curious about her whereabouts is the total lack of any sort of closure on this particular abortive attempt at dating.
I might not even care so much for that reason, since life so seldom provide closure, if it weren’t for the fact that I was so enormously attracted to her. Physically, she pretty much fell into the “dream girl” category.
She was absolutely gorgeous.
More than that, though, and related to the reason I refer to her as Stone Face, she was absolutely infuriating.
The woman had virtually no expression, beyond a “professional” smile, and her demeanor, at all times, was polite yet utterly detached. Even when she laughed, which she did often (and at appropriate times, so it's not like she was, visibly at least, laughing at me), there was so little in the way of feeling.
Under the best of circumstances I have difficulty picking up on any signals that a woman might be giving me, and even more difficulty figuring out what they might mean.
So when it comes to mixed signals I’m totally clueless.
With Stone Face, though, I ran into an even worse circumstance, as whatever signals she did give out were almost totally imperceptible and when I could pick up on them they were, at best, mixed.
Technically we went on two dates, and kind of did the “having coffee” thing a couple of times, in addition to the several times I encountered her in the actual business setting.
In that time I was never able to get any sort of read on her.
Besides the issues of lack of expression and the whole Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle with her signals, there was another issue: she was “involved” with someone.
On some occasions she made it seem as though the relationship was essentially over (on one occasion she even told me that she had thought about using the fact that I had expressed interest in her as the impetus to end the relationship), on others she made it seem as though it had just started but was not serious, and on others she actually referred to him as her boyfriend.
Still, as frustrating and annoying as it all was, perversely, it mostly served to make me want her more.
But despite my inability to perceive and interpret signals even I can take a hint, so it really didn’t take me that long to give up after she continued never returning my calls and essentially avoided giving me a direct answer whenever I asked her to do something, choosing instead to say “I’ll call you.”
So I gave up.
For a while.
Then one night I found her number mixed in with a bunch of receipts I was going through, so I said, “What the hell?”
At most I figured I’d get her voice mail and leave her a message that she would never respond to.
To my surprise, she answered…and told me that I had the wrong number.
As it was clear that she had recognized me, and since for once there was some actual emotion in her voice (annoyance), it was obviously a not very subtle way of telling me to buzz off.
So I did.
I encountered her a while after that, and she was as reservedly friendly to me as she had ever been prior to the wrong number incident, leaving me a little confused (again).
I didn’t really get a chance to talk to her, though, so I couldn’t get into a What the fuck is your deal? conversation with her.
And, as mentioned, that was the last time I saw her, so I still don’t know what happened.
I’m of the opinion, though, that she’s lucky that I’m as lazy as I am, as I can’t help but think that this is how stalkers get their start.
Actually, that’s untrue, as stalkers really don’t need any sort of excuse, and besides that it’s not just laziness that keeps me from engaging in that sort of behavior.
After all, I don’t spend much time actually thinking about her. She mostly comes to mind on days like today when I actually went into the place where I met her.
And when I do think about her, it’s usually just to wonder WTF (Or to think about how big her boobs were. Damn!)
Honestly, I think the answer to the WTF is pretty obvious. Initially she thought she might like me (or, alternatively, that she could use me as an excuse to end a relationship), but then she decided that she wasn’t interested,but wanted to avoid conflict.
(I wonder if two “Avoiders” make a good match?)
The much less likely theory is that she was attempting to follow “The Rules” and that it backfired in the form of me just giving up on the whole thing.
…
I had take a break right there, as the notion that a woman would be so misguided as to think that she would need to follow some sort of self-help program to maintain my interest was just too funny.
*Sigh* Man, that was a good laugh.
Honestly, I think that a Jon-specific version of “The Rules” would be something like:

1. Have a pulse
2. Be willing to settle for less
3. Agree to be seen with him in public
4. Be nice to him every so often (birthdays and holidays at a minimum)
5. Learn to smile and nod while tuning out what he says
6. Develop a high tolerance for boredom

That would pretty much cover it. No need to play any sort of never returning calls games, or endeavoring to make yourself appear to be a “creature like no other” in my eyes, as being willing to go out with me pretty much makes you a creature like no other by default…
No, I think the first theory (particularly following the more cynical line of thought about using me as a convenient excuse to dump her boyfriend) is the most likely one.
Also, she had heard a lot about the quality of my company’s holiday parties, which are sort of famous in this area, so I also served as her ticket to one of them.
But whatever. It’s all irrelevant, and as mentioned only comes to mind because I went to the eye doctor’s office.
So now my weekend is over. Its end arrived a little more quickly than usual thanks to the two days of training.
Next week I will, as mentioned, have an extra day off for Sin City.
Somewhere along the line before the 4th I need to pick up a spring form pan and the ingredients for the Oreo cheesecake in order to have it ready for the morning of the 5th.
Once Sin City has come and gone I’ll be back to having little or nothing to look forward to.
“Dead Like Me” seems to be dead and buried at this point. No other movie (not even the latest Star Wars) appeals to me as much as SC.
So I guess I just have to hope that SC generates lots of sequels, otherwise I’ll be in search of something to look forward to.
In any case, that’s going to do it for this week.
I’m sure next week, as the time ticks away, will be very Sin City-centric, so I extend my apologies in advance to any of you who are sick of hearing about it.
But, in the meantime, have a good weekend.