Fine Line

Total Black: $157.36
Total Red: $225,563.13

Today was one long day at the theatre.  I worked there from 11am to 10pm.  I hawked in the morning.  Then attended a mandatory training.  Covered an event after that hosted by Boston University and finally wrapped up the night ushering at Avenue Q.  And despite having seen that show countless times, different parts of it still speak to me depending on the day.  Tonight, the final scene of Act I hit home.

Act I ends with the song There’s a Fine, Fine Line.  The character, Princeton, comes face-to-face with the reality of his life.  He’s unemployed.  He’s lost his direction and focus.  He and Kate Monster had been dating, but now he’s feeling suffocated.  So he tells Kate Monster that he can’t date her any longer; not until he figures out his purpose, what he’s been put here to accomplish—an underlying theme of the show and simultaneously this character’s Achilles heel and redeeming grace.  When Kate Monster realizes she’s being dumped, she sings this song.  Tonight it reminded me of my antics of late with Drunk Texter.

This morning, while hawking, he and I resumed our playful banter.  I had mentioned this blog to a few of my coworkers at the theatre back when I first started, him included.  I referenced it today, probably in some asinine effort to impress him.   During a lull in the conversation, I mentioned my progress: debt down, hits up.  When I first referenced the blog to him I don’t think I had topped 5,000 hits.  When I mentioned the blog’s at over 40,000 to date, he quipped that maybe my efforts will be turned into a movie, just like “Julie & Julia.”  Months earlier I had explained that backdrop to this blog.  I liked that he remembered it.  In response, I teased that he’d have to decide who would play his part and he asked if I had mentioned him on the blog.  At some point I asked how big a role he’d like to have in this movie.  And, as if to snap my heart in two, he replied, all doe-eyed and bashful, “a big part.”  So I told him he could have as big a part as he wanted.  And there it ended.  We reverted back to silly chatter.

This guy doesn’t like me.  He’s had months.  And even if he does, he’s taking way too long to act.  And, as Kate Monster says, “there’s a fine, fine line between reality and pretend. . . .  And there’s a fine, fine line between love and a waste of time.”  Clearly, I’ve been wasting my time somewhere between that fine line, lost between reality and pretend.  In my head I’m steadily making progress with this man.  He’s slowly being won over to my side.  Seeing all I have to offer.  Coming to appreciate me.  Because I’m a steady incline not a spike.  Once I get guys to take an interest, they stick around.  Some for too long and then I can’t shake ’em again.  I don’t stop traffic though.  Maybe I’m too shy.  Not sure.  Traffic stoppers are one part looks and three parts attitude.  It’s hard to stop traffic carrying this yolk on your back.  But this guy isn’t being won-over.  Instead I’m just being led on.  Because a few hours later, a new man was standing in my place, talking with Drunk Texter.  A new hire on the tech staff for the theatre.  Someone whom he had spotted while he and I were chatting.  From what I’m told, in the theatre world typically the tech people (sound board operators, lighting, stage hands, etc.)—the men in those positions tend to be straight and the women gay.  On the house side (ushers, managers, etc.) it’s more the opposite.  And as for performers, well that can go any which way, right?  But, the new guy, a tech guy, well, though he’s a bit rough around the edges: a chain linked his wallet to his belt buckle (really?  I did that fifteen years ago); and a metal stud below his lower lip (yeah, piercings too.  15 years ago bud)—but from what I’m told, the new tech guy is gay.  And Drunk Texter liked him.  That’s when I realized we had crossed that fine line.

See, Drunk Texter never gets excited about me like he did about today’s fresh meat.  If anything, whenever I arrive at work he’d get nervous or apprehensive.  He doesn’t engage me in conversation unless we’re alone and he has to, like in Puppy Love when we were stuck together in line waiting to get into a club.  Sure, he’ll respond if I talk to him, but he doesn’t initiate conversation.  No suggestion that we grab lunch together during our breaks or do anything together at all, especially outside work—a chance to get to know each other better, even as friends.  And any of the times we have gone out together, like in Jollification or And More Jollification, and definitely in Later Night / Early Morning—any of those times, he barely spoke to me.

Commenters to the blog have referenced my thick skull in other contexts, usually finances related like cutting cable, for example.  At least I’m consistent, eh?  Looks like it’s taking a while to get this message through: he’s just not that into me.  As Kate Monster says, “I guess if someone doesn’t love you back, it isn’t such a crime.  But there’s a fine, fine line between love and a waste of your time. ”  Now I see that fine line.  That line “between what you’ve wanted and what you got.”  And I too, for my own sanity, have to “close the door and walk away.”  I don’t have the time to waste on him anymore—whether he knows what he’s looking for or not.