Falling is hard on your knees

It is typical of the luck I have with women. After months of sorting through my feelings for a co -worker, I decided to make an effort to insinuate myself into her life so I could better my chances to have the opportunity to date her. With impeccable timing, she announces her intent to move to Las Vegas once she finds a job as a dental assistant.

Poof! In an instance, my hopes are smashed into a million smithereens. Gone are the dreams of me cradling her in my arms watching some B movie or us sharing a ice cream cone at Dairy Queen. Forbidden are the hopes of staring deeply into her azure eyes ,gently caressing her soft skin, with our lips locked in a loving embrace.

Heartbroken is not an appropriate label for how I feel,for I had not even reached the stage of close friend. My current position is analogous to that of a pledge to a fraternity. I am in the midst of applying to be a member of her club.

Disappointment would be a more accurate description of my current mental state. I was just getting into her and now this. Typical

It has happened with every girl I have liked.Boy meets girl;boy becomes infatuated with girl; boy says nothing to girl for months; boy then overcomes his trepidation and starts slow paced pursuit of girl; by then girl has either met someone else or has dissipated from boy's life.

I deserve no sympathy. I have earned my "available" status with my passive and frankly,wimpy approach to women. I am a coward when it comes to garnering the affections of a woman.My timidity is owed to a lack of confidence and experience with the humans who bear the XX chromosome.

But that is not a legitimate excuse for my cravenly conduct.It is of no use to explain why I have not done something because it does not alter the fact that I am a coward.

There are and will be other women--the delectable brunette nurse on the 4th floor for one example--but the neophyte dental assistant has caught my fancy. A fancy I shall not lose very easily.A fancy I know I will have to purge from my mind so as to avoid the crushing sense of disappointment I will feel when she leaves for the City of The Meadows.

But feelings of regret, sadness, and disgust will remain as they always have after the conclusion of every infatuation/ non-relationship I have experienced since puberty.Regret for never having actually undertaken a determined pursuit through the years I have known her; Sadness at the elimination of the potential happiness I could have experienced;Disgust for my inability to overcome my neuroses.

I wish I could say that next time will be different.That next time I will be more aggressive in my pursuit;that I will pull out all the stops;that I will become more Superman than Clark Kent.

But I can't.That is why I will always be the meek, bespectacled guy who makes all laugh, yet who has no one to laugh with.