I am the New Paragon

What a fucking GEM of an evening.  From the best first date ever to the worst second date I could have expected.  Just Wackow-Tackow all over my emos. What seemed to be an infinite supply of insecurity and indignation dumped all the fuck over me in a matter of seconds, concluded with a walk out.  How could such a thing happen you ask?

Let me tell you.

She read this blog!

Yep, Dear Internets, that'll about do it.
Let us rewind the night.

Admittedly I set a high bar for myself Sunday evening.   I sported a fine outfit and a nice, new handsome physique and it worked quite well.  I was dashing, confident, charming... dare I say debonair?  Yeah, I fucking dare.  I was debonair.  Which is something I not often am, so I'm going to say one more time - on the 7th of January, 2013 your very own Caveman De La Noco was motherfucking debonair.  Charming as shit. It Has Been Said.

For her part, she was cool, beautiful, original.  She rocked great conversation and seemed to vibe with me on 99% of things important.

We both went straight Karate Kid on each other and swept the leg.  It was... a very nice Sunday.  There was coffee.  There was conversation.  There was veggie-stir fry.
I made one serious mistake though.  Ugh - no, fuck that.  I almost made a mistake.  I almost didn't tell her about my wonderful blog here.  Luckily I did.  Because no doubt it saved me months of drawn out scenes and instead helped spark one, well-spoken shit-giving, and a Period on this adventure.  So, yeah, thank my genius, I mentioned, and later sent a link, to my blog.

For if one needs any reason to not trust or care for me, one only needs read this blog with an intention of finding a reason to not trust or care for me.  It's all here y'all.  I contain multitudes.  Take what you will.

Cut to this evening -

We meet at a trendy pop-up StreetVendor celebration thing that happens every Wednesday in San Antonio.  Just two cool adults staying current with the kids.  We grab San Antonio's best Truck Food and continue to charm each other. But there's a distance there... a nervousness.  A question or two.  One cannot help but see it.  Is it the fact that I didn't wear quite as nice an outfit on this evening?  Of course not Dear Internets, Turns out she read my blog.  Like the entire thing.  All the way 2008.  What's got her concerned now is the countless amounts of reasons I've given on this very blog to be concerned.

Bless her heart, she even decided to make me guess what exactly had her worried.

"If you had to pick one thing from your blog that really had me worried, what do you think it would be?"

Real quote y'all.  Paraphrase that: "Having now read all about your life, what do YOU think, I think, is the absolute shittiest thing about you?" She was good enough to buy me a Jameson before asking.

So I mused out loud, "Well, is it the remarkable rise and crash of my last relationship?  My bouts of depression?  My ex-wife?  My financial boomerangs?  The t.v.?..."  What could it be that drove her away from me, Dear Internets?

She sensed a dampening of my mood and said as much.
"Well, I'm being asked to think about the worst aspects of myself."  I replied with the patience and gentlemanly nature of that paragon of Southerly virtue... I'm not sure who. Frankly, I don't think anyone would have been as patient or as gentlemanly as I was at that moment.  I am the new paragon.

She apologized and seemed genuinely embarrassed for having asked such an insensitive question.  She thought it might be nice to change the topic.  I agreed but didn't push it, she had the bit in her teeth.  She was coming back to this.

I cannot exactly recall what we changed the topic to - she lasted on it maybe 45 seconds.  What came next was great.

"It was 2 things.  Your last relationship and your ex-wife."

...okay.  this should be easy.

Conveniently for all of her insecurities and for the efficiency of the coming conclusion of our knowing each other, the end of the last relationship, managed to include jealousy of the ex-Mrs. Caveman.  Once these two points connected, we had something thermal.

I'd recount what she said, but I have this remarkable ability to forget bullshit.  Also, it went on a bit.  And basically it all added up to one thing, "This ain't happening."  So I sipped my whiskey and listened to a woman, who had read all of my most vulnerable thoughts, sit on her high horse and try to rip me up. I listened and didn't even flinch.  I smiled politely and listened. Because I am badder than Shaft.  I am more gentlemanly than Williams with a Ginn Fizz. I am Sidney Poitier's and Abraham Lincoln's lovechild.  I am Ice Cold!

I am the new paragon.

She heard what she needed and what proceeded was basically a rationalization for her backing out of what may or may not have been a good thing.  I'm guessing "may not." She flipped.  She needed to decide that I wasn't real and once she had a reason she ran with it.

And then she got up.  Told me she'd already tipped the bartender.  And walked out of my life.  Pray that it was forever.

Until Tomorrow...