One Out Of Three Hundred And Sixty Five Nights

I'm sure we've all had one of those nights where nothing seemed to go right at the bar.  Either we tried to pick up someone and they didn't reciprocate the feelings or no one paid any interest to us at all.  Maybe it was one of those nights where all we wanted was to have some fun and just our luck, all we got was an evening where at every slightest turn, there appeared a drama that we really didn't want to get into again.  Ever.

Well I had one of those particular evenings last Saturday when I went to the bar.  I went with the intention of having fun, dancing throughout the entirety of the night and talking to good friends.  It did not go as planned though.  I ended up not dancing at all, feeling like crap and somehow by the end of the night, I felt like I was the only one not in on the joke.  It was a night where I expected someone to jump out and say, "You're on camera!  Wasn't that fun?", only someone forgot to get the camera.

I got to the club and at first, knew no one.  Then a few people showed up that I knew and I began chatting.  One guy seemed okay, but steadily, I began to get the feeling that he didn't like me.  I had seen him the night earlier at another bar and I wasn't in a great mood, not speaking to anyone really, so in my good nature, I spoke to him again, apologizing for my behaviour.  I thought it would mend the fence, but as the evening went on, the fence felt as though it were being knocked down by a herd of vengeful cattle and me being trampled underneath it.

I couldn't explain it, but I decided to not let it bother me.  I then began talking to a friend of his who was quite cute and seemingly interested in me.  I wasn't really looking for anyone, but I figured it can't hurt to get to know him.  We chatted away and expressed similar topics of conversation, but we eventually moved on to chat to other friends as well.  His story continues later.

As I was talking to another friend, I noticed my ex appear before me, whom I had not talked with since the break-up.  I hadn't expected to see him and it completely threw me out of loop.  He came over and chatted, but I wasn't in any mood by now to talk.  In fact, except by adding a few tidbits of information on the present whereabouts of the last month, I wanted to run screaming, though thankfully I just beelined for the bathroom to wash my hands for five continuous minutes.

As the evening began to disintegrate, the second guy entered again and I saw that he was talking to someone else.  I waited a bit until that guy left and thought talking to him might help.  Suddenly the guy who left darted back and I was placed in the awkward position of competition for the guy.  This would be where the nightmare began.  The guy took off, leaving me with the competition guy and I began to realize there was no saving this night.

Thankfully my friend whom I was talking to earlier came back to check on me and we took off.  I spilled out all the circumstances of the evening and he listened with great care.  We had coffee and chatted longer and when I wasn't quite ready to leave, he let me stay at my house.  The awkwardness continued for me though as I should enter the details in that I quite liked this guy.  He let me sleep with him and somewhere in my delusional state of really hating this evening, I tried to cuddle with him.  At first, it was okay, but soon it got uncomfortable and it stopped.  I went to work in the morning, kind of confused and in no better a mood.

What do we make of these nights when nothing goes right?  I saw the night as a complete disaster and in my eyes, I doubt it could have got much worse in the spectrum of relationships.  Normally I could laugh at a stupid night like this, but when I headed to work and throughout the day and could only think negatively, I knew something was missing.  I had went in with good intentions and left feeling as if the world crashed around me.  I could barely operate that day at work and nothing could salvage any optimism over the evening.

Like most times, however, when all I could think about were the wrong things about something, I was blessed with one of my Libra personality traits: balance.  I'm a pros and cons type of guy and when I think about a decision, its like I lay out a chart in my brain, make two columns and I start to write in the information and suddenly, I saw the evening completely differently.  Oh the night was a complete disaster if I wanted to have fun, but I gained a lot from the evening in relation to the people around me.

Ever since my break-up, everyone I knew said that I had to go out and have fun and I tried to heed their advice.  What I learned however, was what fun was to me might be completely different to them and I knew what fun meant to them: casual situations with people.  Suddenly the evening that was a complete disaster turned into an amazing experience where I learned yet again valuable information about myself.  I even wrote a lot of it into a song while my friend lay in the bed beside me, trying desperately to sleep, though I know curious about what I was writing.  Here's what I wrote (with no editing until after I write this article):

The Part Of Me Gone

All I really want

Is a warm soft man

Wanting to feel and be in mine

But there's something there

Without the slightest care

I just don't want to waste my time

I could lay in your bed

Try not to think ahead

Try not to listen to my heart

But it speaks so very loud

High over the lonely crowd

It covers my weary sad part

I can't sleep

It rings in my head

I can't hear

I'm just not quite dead

Maybe that's why its so hard to go on

If I move

I might crash

If I care

I won't last

I really don't want that part of me gone

It would give me chills

And briefly a thrill

But in the end, it will leave me all spent

I can't ignore its words

No matter how much they hurt

Losing me cannot be my intent

I'll turn on the light

Say goodbye to the night

Hope your door will open once more

I can't wait for that

Too many chairs I have sat

The tables already full, long before

I can't go

Without a goodbye

I can't stay

Living this lie

Maybe that's why it's so hard to go on

I need love

To fill my life

I need heart

To make it right

I really don't want that part of me gone

I can leave

More out there

I can walk

Time to spare

Maybe it's not so hard to go on

I have eyes

To make me see

I have hope

For the future me

I really don't want that part of me gone.

This song (a popular channel for my creative energies lately, though I seem to forget the melodies) came to me while the chaos was still fresh, telling me what I already knew.  This evening wasn't going to end in some unpredictable mess, but instead the night was going to tell me what I already knew long before.  The song is about entering a one night stand and having to leave it because I never wanted that in the first place, a topic I have told many a friend before.  The fun that they thought I could have wasn't really the fun I needed or wanted, but still tried for without considering who I really was.

This isn't a judgement call on one night stands, though, just judgement on what I need in my life and what I wasn't going to find if I entertained the thought of them.  Fate has a way of leading you to the thought you already knew sometimes, wrapped up in a nice little package, and deep down, you have to believe that things will just workout in their own way, your way.  It took a week to figure that out, but thankfully, the old proverb, that "you can't teach an old dog new tricks" apparently went out the window.

And like most evenings with moral messages nicely tied to them, good did prevail in the form of an epilogue.  The guy who I thought didn't like me at all actually was just in a different mood as I was the night before and has talked to me since.  The guy I flirted with and thought I was competing for turned out to be rather drunk and in fact had to leave early in order to get himself out of it.  He asked for my e-mail address from the guy I thought didn't like me and I'm sure we'll chat once again.  As for the ex, well I haven't quite dealt with him, but if the conclusion to the other events means anything, I'll get around to him pretty soon.

Which brings back to the guy who took me in.  I haven't chatted with him since that morning after and for me, it was pretty awkward, but more than anything if he is reading this which he more than likely is, I want to say thank you.  You see, in a world where a lot of bad shit happens, where hearts are broken, diseases reign supreme, and war is at the brink, he did one hell of an amazing thing.  Not only did he listen to my problems and take me in when I didn't want to go home, he gave me a greater gift: he looked at me and began to understand me.  He very easily could have taken advantage of the situation and made it into the one thing I never wanted in the first place.  Instead, he quietly did nothing and made me very proud to have him as a friend.  That's not something that I can easily forget and I won't.

The moral of this story?  For every bad thing that happens to us in the world, one good thing compensates for it and we have to have patience, faith and hope that in the end, we learn something from the experience.  We all have paths that we take in life and while I believe we control our destinies to an extent, there is something out there that puts our life on a board game surface and pushes us along.  The difference is that it's us that have to roll the dice and make the important decisions when we hit the crossroad on the board.  Thankfully we are given people in life who don't have to play against us, but with us and these people don't come around every single day of our lives.  I had one bad night at the bar that I'm not sure I would want to go through again, but on another day, I met a really good friend.  Just thoughts from a Libra with balance issues.