Project Donnervogel: Officially Ended

To make up for the sheer lack of updates here at project underground, we’ll do a rundown on what’s been happening and get you up to speed all quick-like.

Ok, first of, Project Donnervogel. That ship has sailed, got lost in a maelstrom of doubt and confusion and is currently in a state of unknown. Think Bermuda Triangle type or unknown or “Lost” kind of unknown. Not really hopeless… just still waiting to get to its final destination.

So, my fair lady and I had a “closure date” some weeks ago. Although this date did wondrously well in terms of uplifting my ego –I, however, still didn’t get the girl. Or the “not so girl” at this point.

So how did this date go and how exactly did it manage to save my ego from peculiar amounts of ego suicide? Well it went “ok” if you count any date meant for closure within those lines.

I took her to this quaint little place near where she lives. It’s a known “secret place” in the area as it has a seating capacity of just about 20 or so people. It’s definitely a small place with an open-air veranda if you’re into dining with a bit of fresh breezes. It’s one of those places that are perfect for dates because of the ambiance, the food and the price. Think four-star resto but the prices of a fast food joint.

I both so dreaded and appreciated the opportunity to have closure from my fair lady. In fact, I think what I really wanted was answers. It’s really more to do with answering the “whys” of this sad mishap than anything else. And so, I find myself near her place, gut wrenching in anxiety as I get closer to picking her up.

I hated that day. I despised it because amidst the backdrop of sundry smokers and cars speeding by, she stood there dressed in the most incredibly sexy dark green spaghetti top paired with skin-tight jeans that I have never seen anyone pull off quite so well. If looks could kill, bloody hell, I would have been struck by lightning right then and there.

I had to stop a moment, take a deep breath and compose myself before I stepped forward and met her. NEVER in my life have I ever wanted to perform our cultural greeting of “beso” (kissing the cheeks of someone close to you as a gesture of fond greeting) than during that time.

And so off we went to this resto and began what would be the end. (Man, I have such a flair for melodrama don’t I?)

The thing is that this “date” was supposed to be a business meeting or at least that’s how I invited her. I asked her for lunch using the pretense of getting contacts from her. Why you’d need to go to lunch to get something she can give over the phone or much less through text, I can only fathom. But hey, if it gets her there right? Come to think of it, the bigger question is why she agreed with my ulterior motives being so blatantly obvious. I would find out the answer over my plate of Cajun Chicken.

Over lunch we had the most intellectual yet seemingly light conversations and we probed her feminism, my thoughts on racism and why I believe Obama will never win the next elections, our common friends, common experiences, hopes and dreams, ambitions and our careers.

With every conversational piece there was a connection, every thought seemed to intersect and merge. We talked about everything and nothing and the hours passed and lunch turned into a three hour rendezvous which I wished would never end… but time wore on and eventually it was time that dictated to us that we had to do what we came there for. Closure.

I needed it and she knew that I did. My ego notwithstanding, at least she gave me that much. So, over one of the best churos con tsokolate you can have, I asked her, “why?”. One word, asking so many questions, needing only one answer.

There was really no definite answer for a “why?” that had no real statement attached to it. Maybe I was asking her. Maybe I was asking myself but at least she was kind enough to pad her answers and help my ego crash land as softly as possible.

I made the mistake however, of asking her why she was a lesbian. From her reaction you can see how she found it annoying that people ask her that but annoying only in the sense that she gets asked too often. I would liken it to being asked why I’m agnostic or rabidly against religion. It’s not that you don’t want to give people a real answer, it’s just that you’re tired of giving answers they won’t understand anyway. It’s a personal choice and I understood that all too well. However, I just had to put my foot up my mouth further as I posited that “maybe you just haven’t met the right person yet?”.

She laughed and her radiance filled the small resto and her smile melted me in my seat as her deep brown eyes glimmered while she answered, “maybe”. Her voice was soft, almost hinting at it being plausible yet firm in the undertones that said “it’s possible but not today or the near future.”

And that was my closure. That was our closure. It’s possible, but not today or in the near future. She didn’t have to say it but she said it in the way she answered my question when I asked why she was a lesbian, saying, “I can’t really answer that because there’s no definite answer” and again with that smile, “it’s like being in love, Fyodor… you don’t really know the exact ‘why’ but you just know you’re in love.”

And I smiled, forcing a laugh. The same laugh I’ve been trained to do in my four years of undergrad studies where I earned a degree in “bullshitry” majoring in “how to talk your way out of anything” with a minor in a language I’ll never get to use. The same fake laugh that’s been honed over the years to sound so genuine to everyone else’s ears. It was the first time I wished that I had never learned that laugh… if only for the fact that this was one time I’d rather not mask the disappointment I was feeling.

She ended it with a last ditch effort of at least saving me some face and helping keep what little of my damaged ego I had left by saying, “you know, Fyodor—and I even told my close friends this—if I was straight; I would have totally gone for you.” I replied a genuine “thanks” both for the gesture of her having said so and for at least being kind enough to have thought of saying so.

I like to think she sincerely felt that way. I like to think that if she was not a lesbian that I really did have had a good chance. But hey, I like to think she’s not a lesbian as well and we all know where that got me! Besides, she took the same undergrad studies as me so her sincerity over that statement will forever be cast in the shadow of doubt—if for nothing else but the fact that pessimism is a definite character trait of mine.

And so ends that possibility.

I walked her back to her door and she kissed me lightly on the cheek, saying “thank you” for the great lunch and saying what we both knew was goodbye. I thanked her as well for her company, and even though I didn’t say the words, we both knew I thanked her for being kind enough to give me the closure the way she did and for letting me down as easily as she could have made it.

I went back to work with the disappointment of thinking I found someone only to be defeated by gender preference. I haven’t felt as close to falling in love as I did with my fair lady for a while now and I guess the biggest disappointment here is that I really thought this was a shot worth taking.

Well then, until next time dear readers. For now we’ll all have to settle for whatever misadventure I subject myself to.

Project Donnervogel is, in no uncertain terms, closed.