Dear Tonight,

I have a feeling you are going to end badly. Either the "new" crush will bail on me for Happy Hour (in which case no one I know was up for it, laaaaame), or he won't bail but will take the opportunity to tell me that either A) he wants to stay with the gf; B) he doesn't want to break up with the gf (the distinction being that one is passive [or just laziness] and one is active); C) the gf would be irrelevant if I were hotter/thinner/less neurotic and so it's really just me that turned him off; or D) some other ego-blow.

And yet, I desperately want the afternoon to disappear so that you are here already. Why am I so masochistic? I probably won't have the willpower to go more than one drink before I say, "Okay, [insert name of "New" Crush], what's the deal? Because before your vacation, you said a bunch of stuff that seemed like you were interested in me and would be doing something about it, and now you are acting like I've got the plague and you don't want to be around me. Am I that ugly/fat/crazy?" At which point he'll mumble something about how he hasn't given his gf a fair chance lately and that will really just mean that He's Not That Into Me. And I will get distressingly drunk and pass out in tears.

Bring it on??
R

Pt 2

And pertaining to tonight:

Dear Nerves,

Please chill out. You're making my stomach churn and my arms and hands tingle. The last thing I need when getting rejected is to have a "fight or flight" response due to anticipatory adrenaline coursing through my system. This extreme heart-pounding can cease, too. Seriously, I can scarcely tolerate you-- I don't know how people do uppers.

I do wish I had a valium, though,
R