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.

Nothing is worse than a date that goes down the drain after you’ve spent a good amount of time planning it and setting it up. Nothing so painful as agonizingly planning how an evening will go and then having it fall flat on its face.

Ok, fine, there are worse things in life, but you gotta admit, it does suck like the bubonic plague. Ok, fine, I exaggerate once more. Let’s just agree that it sucks and never talk about it again. Ah, but where’s the fun in that?

Anyway, just in case you’re not up to date on the recent misery that is my life, let’s make it a matter of public record that I am hopelessly and desperately in love with a lesbian. Yes. How joyous. Well now that we have that out of the way, let’s move on with the flash back.

Not having realized that my fair lady is in fact of the third gender, I confidently asked her out on a date. To my surprise, she agreed. Keep in mind that during this time however, I only had unconfirmed reports of her, ahem, gender preference. Being the egoistical S.O.B. that I am, I then felt it my duty to grab this opportunity and ask her out. Her agreement only served to increase my doubts as to her being a lesbian. I mean why agree on a date, right? What more, it felt even better that she did agree to go out on a date because that only pointed towards her also being single.

Looking good for team Fyodor right now isn’t it? I thought so too.

Assessing the situation pointed me towards two very favorable conclusions. One, it was highly possible that she’s not a lesbian or at best, she’s at least bisexual (yeah, I’m not picky, shut up). Second, it was the fact that she was single or, if otherwise in a relationship, obviously willing to “breach the contract” because she bothered to agree to go out on a date. At this point my brain was screaming “all systems” go, and why shouldn’t it right?

In my mind, I was thinking that for once He (yes, I mean God.) wasn’t being such a jackass and making this harder than it otherwise should be. Also, as a side note: I would advice you not to call God a jackass because he tends to want to make an example of you. All for fun of course but an example nonetheless.

By now I suppose you know where this is all going right? Yes, it’s going towards the inevitable ruin that all my chances for a relationship goes to. What happened was that after having made reservations to a Five-star Spanish Resto, setting a time to pick her up and basically setting the entire night in stone… she cancels.

About six hours before I was to pick her up, my mobile phone buzzed its innocuous little tone and displayed a text message that read:

“Hey there Fryodor, will [name of common friend] and [name of common friend] be joining us for dinner?” oh, shit. This. Is. Not. Good.

When your date starts asking whether a common friend is joining you for your dinner together, you know damn well you’re about to get screwed. So what do you reply? Well the truth of course. I text messaged her in reply:

“Not really…”

Yes, I made sure that I used the ellipses just so I can convey my undying hope that she won’t cancel. My undying hope that perhaps, she was just making sure that it really was a date. That I did ask her out. That hope died by the way.

It took a while for her to reply. Her reply however was definite:

“Oh no, I’m sorry Fyodor but I don’t think I can go to dinner with you tonight… My partner doesn’t feel comfortable about it.”

Cue the thunder and lighting bolts over the darkening horizon. Also, cue the scene where I stop my car in the middle of the freeway, get off, point angrily towards the heavens and scream “BLOODY HELL, YOU JACKASS!!!”… I really ddin’t do that by the way. I really, really wanted to, if that’s any consolation.

It was utterly devestating. Not so much devestating because she cancled last minute but because here is a woman who is every bit as wonderful as I could ever hope to meet. A woman so fiercely intelligent that you could spend hours on end just picking each other’s brains. A woman so beautiful, with a smile so perfect that men of old wouold go to war for a glimpse of her radiance. A woman so seemingly perfect for me that you would think the stars aligned when we met. A woman who unfortunately prefered another woman.

In the end what else could I do? I gave it the normal mourning time of not replying immediately and waiting until I made it back home before I replied in text message:

“That’s ok, I understand. Maybe next time…”

And so ends project donnervogel. So ends the hope of ending the 8 month long relationship drought that has plauged my life… yeah right!

You see, part of the things that make me who I am is that I am uinflinchingly and ridiculously persistent. I never give up and I never surrender. At least not immediately. Therefore I refuse to end Project Donnervogel like this. The story will continue, lesbian or no lesbian!

It’ll just be a very, very uphill battle.

After an infinitesimal amount of biding my time and waiting for the “right opportunity” (read: growing some cajones), I finally decided to officially and, in no uncertain terms, ask my fair lady out on a real date. “In no uncertain terms” actually means phrasing it in such a way that there is a fair amount of room for saving face should our worst fears be proven true and it does turn out that she’s of the “alternative crowd”.

And so I did ask her out and she agreed! Well sort of.

Actually I did ask her point blank if she would like to go out to dinner with me some time. She said “yes”. That’s the short version of it. The longer version goes along the lines of me timing the moment I leave the office at the exact same moment that she leaves so that I may have the opportunity to walk with her to the elevators and out the building, thereby having the opportunity of being alone together so that I may pop the question without the pressures of our peers looming over our shoulders.

Understand that this was no easy feat as she worked a full department away from me which is about six or eight desks away, inside a different section of the office. Couple this with the fact that I was already done with all my work for the day since two hours ago and that all, save for one of my coworkers in my department had left. In any case, that leg of the mission was at least a success and as I pretended to say goodbye to her (after judging that she herself was about to leave), I managed to weasel my way into a “might as well leave together scenario”.

And so, while waiting for the elevator to clamber its claustrophobic cabin into our spot in the glass high-rise, I shot her the most sincere smile I could muster and said, matter-of-a-factly and with as much “cool” as I could possibly exude, “Hey, do you want to go and have dinner with me this week?”

She smiled that disarming and bubbly smile of hers with her sweet lips ever so slightly parting to an alluring crescent and said, “Sure! Let’s have dinner some time!” it was then at this point that I felt my world suddenly and precisely, fit snugly into the right pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that is life.

Could it be?

She said yes…

Does that mean that she’s not…?

Does this mean that it’s possible that she’s….?

Ah, the sweet, sweet success of proving that there was a great chance of my fair lady not being a lesbian—or at the very least, bisexual. Still, it was a simple date and with near godlike effort to mask my exuberance at her agreement to my proposal, I quickly set a time and day with her as we rode the elevator down the building. By the time I walked her to her car and saw her go, I was convinced that this day could not possibly be ruined. And in fact, it was not.

This was a Wednesday that would make its mark upon my unyielding, ADD riddled mind for weeks to come if only because the first insurmountable step has been taken and that all other challenges are now a simple prelude to success. Ah yes, such comfort my over-inflated ego brings.

If only life was so simple.

“I don’t really have a witty quote to fill this block quote at the moment. Let’s just say that this story gets better, so stay tuned and read on.”