Rejection Lasagna

I told my most embarrassing moment once to a man on a train. I mean, I was with a group of colleagues, and he was one of those colleagues. We were young and having fun. So I told this story of the funniest, bright-red-facedest moment I've ever experienced. There really was just the one, I swear. But my friend looked at me with an expression of awe on his face and said, "I never want to marry someone like you."

I mean, what a relief?

I asked a man to dinner once. I made him lasagna. It was really terrible - much, much too salty. But I was again, very young and it was my first attempt to cook for company. Then we went for a walk in a nearby park and enjoyed some of the late spring weather. The trees were green and gorgeous. I remember the trees. I kept staring at them. And when we got back to the condo I was staying in, he stopped to chat for a moment and casually mentioned, "I'm not going to propose."

Apparently my lasagna was THAT BAD.

Many years later, I was attending a mid-singles ward in the Salt Lake valley and my home teacher was just a really great guy. He ran triathlons, and made lots of money, and drove a really spectacular car, and had all the more important things, too. He had a strong testimony, a charitable ethic, boatloads of humility, and good conversational skills. I wasn't attracted to him, if only out of self-preservation (okay, I was being shallow. I don't like runners' bodies. They're too stringy). But I was more or less flabbergasted that he hadn't found someone he'd rather be with than without. I thought he might get along with my visiting teacher, who had a personal elegance that might have been compatible. What do I know about the mating habits of beautiful people? (Nothing. I know absolutely nothing.) But when I brought the subject up, I started all wrong. I started with "Are you seeing someone right now? Would you be interested in asking someone on a date?" And he got this expression of dudebro terror and constipated pity on his face, this look that was so clearly articulated. It said, "You don't realize how ugly you are, do you."

Because a date with a fat girl is utterly terrifying. Someone might see us.

I never asked Robert to marry me. I never asked Grant to propose. I was genuinely not interested in dating Matt. But what if I had? What if I was? What if I were the kind of person who could mistake expectation and desire? I should be allowed to feel things and express them (and someday, express them without judgment), and they should be allowed the same privilege, even if that feeling is unattractive or even contrary to cultural ideals.

You can't victimize me, but you can make faces. You can preemptively reject me before I've even asked. You can go confidently forward, certain that you have averted social disaster, and are a superior human. It's even possible that you are.

But we could have had so much fun.
If you hadn't been quite so superior.