No Fun is Lost

What do you do for fun? Each and every single one of my Match.com dates ask. I pause, my eyes wander, I avoid looking at the seemingly interesting being sitting across from me. And I try to remember. And I mentally reprove myself. Why didn’t you rehearse the lines? Barely smiling, I reply, Oh, you know. Some of this. Some of that. For those who really aren’t interested in me to begin with, but who thought it’d be interesting to meet a girl – any girl, they don’t pursue the matter. I single-handedly put them back in the speaker’s chair, twist conversation so that not a single word passes through my lips. I am an observer. I am listening to them. Nodding my head. Smiling at something I really didn’t understand. And then, I tell them, it was nice to meet you. And we part.

For the others. I try to think really hard about what I do for fun. I draw a blank instead and shrug. Actually, I don’t do much for fun. And the conversation dies. It’s a killer.

I’ve since then canceled my subscription to Match.com. For a variety of reason too long to list – mainly, I don’t do dating well, as I wrote an ex-Match.com date. And now I ponder what it is that I do that’s fun. I wonder, why it’s so hard to answer an simple question. Or is it really all that simple?

Oftentimes, I think I place myself in their shoes, and their expectations of what they want to hear – which is not what I would have said. So I say nothing and move on. My friend would say, I am purposely pushing them away – but I don’t think I agree. At least not 100 percent with her.

Fun. I think I used to have lots of fun. As kids, my siblings, cousins – we played endlessly in the rolling green hills surrounding our homes. The tree in the middle of the neighborhood. We’d climb and sit on its bulky limbs – we were pirates, or commandeering a starship. We were hunters and waiting for our preys. Later, during my teenage years, fun meant RPG games – strategic games that placed me in another world. Books that took me away from the precarious life that my family seemed to live in. Movies, outings to the park for spontaneous picnics, the amusement park.

I think perhaps, the fun that I used to have – could very well be attributed to the people I was with. The people I was with made the activity fun – whatever it may have been. Picking pickles under the unforgiving sun for hours – back aching from too many hours spent bent over to raise the leaves that hid the pickles, hands roughened, dirt clinging to the skin, and ingrained deep in the nails. I hated going to the pickle farm – it was hard work. Harder than I’ve ever worked before in my life – even now. But, time seemed to pass quickly – we sang in the fields, we joked, and we were silly, happy.

Now. I no longer have fun. Nothing seems to hold interest for me. I move on and barely remember seeing the cow with the pretty eyes. I am searching for something, yearning for something – and the fun has disappeared. I am self-conscious and I carry a weight on my shoulders that has come too soon, unexpectedly, and with more baggage than I could have ever wished for.

So how do I explain all this to strangers without seeming mad? And so I say nothing. And all they can say is, Gosh, what a bore. And somehow, I don’t mind. Because really, my story is too long to explain. Actually, I don’t want to explain because 99 percent of the time, I don’t think they’d understand.

And so I sit. At the coffee shop. Outside, drinking my hazelnut latte. I stare at the people walking past. I stare at the blue sky and the rolling white clouds. I stare and my mind is blank.