I got back to online dating immediately after Billy Bullfight terminated my contract, relationship-wise, mostly at the behest of girlfriends who insisted I should distract myself (and amass more Billy Stories, which I suspect was a slightly self-serving motive). So, because dating is something of a team sport among my local network of gals, and also because goddamn if I was going to be unaware of the down-to-the-minute, not-if-but-when of Billy Bullfight's return to electronic matchmaking, I bit the bullet and reactivated my profile.
(I see you've failed to change your status to "divorced" now that we're both back online, BILLY.)
Immediately, I got "favorited" by somebody whose overview details included a tiny thumbnail of him in what appeared, at that minute scale, to be a questionable flat-brimmed baseball cap/sports-jersey "street" style combo, and the fact that he was already somebody else's baby-daddy. He looked to be all of 22, and from the one main image I saw, I would have bet on the probability that he had his (undoubtedly exceedingly Caucasian) surname tattooed somewhere on his own body in Olde English font.
I did not click through.
So the summer progressed, I racked up a few ridiculous Billy yarns, and just as my three-month subscription was about to expire, I happened to browse back through the various "connections" that had been made with my profile and saw a picture of a possibly... kinda... actually pretty darn... waitwhat? whoah, hell-O there! Billy I didn't remember seeing before in any previous notification. My exact thought was something like "WTF how did I miss this one?!"*
*(accompanied by involuntary grabbing motions in the direction of my computer screen, because I am subtle).
(Of course it is, otherwise it wouldn't be Billy-Blog-worthy).
And it worked! Even despite the fact I'd ignored his indication of interest for a good two months based solely on my shitty superficial assessment skills, as soon as I made contact he messaged me back immediately to say, in effect, "Thanks for (finally) writing - yours might be the most memorable profile I've seen."
We emailed. We texted. With every exchange I learned something increasingly attractive or intriguing or just fucking cool about him - we had some obscure, long ago and far away life-experience stuff in common, he did interesting things, he was pretty into being a dad, and the cherry was that one of my friends actually knew him in-person and attested to his real-world hotness and general seems-like-a-decent-guy-ness. So we set a date.
On my profile, I had included a photo of me from the roller derby facet of my life. Picking up on this, he suggested we meet at the local roller rink for a skate date. Nonconventional, physical, and likely a little out of his comfort zone with potential for mutual embarrassment and/or bodily injury? I giddily sent something like:
"Really, roller skates on a first date? That, sir, is a bold opening gambit... I'm in!"
...to which he quickly texted back: "Well... I'll be on blades."
(.................Oh.)
***
You've probably heard this one before: What's the worst part about being a rollerblader?
(No no no, not "telling your parents you're gay." It's realizing you're also a cop.)
***
Punchin' Judy and I have a mutual friend who also used to work at The Homebar with us. Will is a hugely-tall guy, he has kind of clumsily thrown himself at every female coworker to cross The Homebar threshold, over the years, and to my knowledge never once sealed the deal. It's legendary by now, because he actually seems relieved to be able to assume the platonic-pal role once his halfhearted advances get turned down. So in summary: he is terrible at women as elusive moving targets, but wonderful at women at point-blank, stationary Friend-Zone range, because he's super sensitive. He's a listener. He's a damn good honorary-girlfriend, and when added all together, the sum of it was that he was known at The Homebar (quite openly) as Big Gay Will.
(One time Will actually wore a kerchief. Nope, not Halloween.)
Even he jokingly called himself "Big Gay Will" from time to time, as if he was so obviously hetero it was just a funny lark, but here's the thing: he really might have been gay. Not in the fabulous, self-loving, "And, so what?" way that I adore and support, but in a kind of pent-up, closeted-even-from-himself way that I still adore and support, but come on. Come ON.
So one time, I had this dream that Big Gay Will was having a very important package delivered, but it had to come to my house because it was a secret from his family, who was visiting or something. And in the dream, I came home and there on my porch was Big Gay Will's box. Like an enormous refrigerator box, size-wise. So I dragged it inside and during the dragging, that monster came a little untaped and from it, spilling out like a slot machine jackpot, came an everlasting cascade of rollerblades.
Ladies and gentlemen, I will rest my case and allow you to draw your own conclusions from here.
(Ahhh... yes, sure, it's true that they "weren't your size," Will.)
***
Anyway, so Billy Blades and I had a roller-date.
If, like most of us, you've not been to a public roller rink since somewhere around third grade, and if, as was my situation, you are not at said roller rink to sit on the sidelines with a celebrity gossip magazine while your small uncoordinated offspring teeters around in circles, let me tell you what this is like: you immediately feel like a suspected pedophile.
I mean, parents are looking at you so hard that you even start to suspect yourself after a minute or two. Who knows, maybe it has to do with the odd lighting, or the "manic clown" theme decor, or the blaring kid-friendly music, or the fact that the one other adult in the place who's actually wearing roller skates is a middle-aged, denim shorts-clad, mulleted dude with a creepy pencil 'stache and shifty eyes who is also clearly NOT here with a child under his charge. Maybe it has to do with the fact that the particular roller rink where we'd arranged to meet happened to be exactly right next door to a topless "gentlemen's" club (totally true story because WTF, zoning?). Maybe it had to do with the fact that I am a pretty short female, and this:
(No, glaring mother of a 6-year-old, I'm not taking pictures with this thing.)
Holy shit, Billy Blades could not arrive fast enough.
And then he did.
And he was beautiful.
And he was charming and irreverent and smart, in just the right proportions.
And yeah, he was wearing roller blades, but I swear to god that man made even roller blades hot, or at least he made me forget he was on them while we skated around and talked. At some point the conversation turned to sailing, and that's right about where I started to get blown out to sea.
He knew the same spots in the Bahamas that were dear to my heart. His retirement dream was to run away on a sailboat, too. Sitting on a bench while that awkward "expanding Solo cups" skating game was underway, he casually finished my thought (between mild bouts of delightfully horrific jokes about the "stretching-machine" Mr. Jorts - who by this time was one of the finalists in the cups game, ogling the leggiest tweeners as they straddled ever wider in skates - probably had in his basement):
"You'd just need the right partner to make it work."
And lingering eye contact.
Aaaand scene (begin montage).
(Terrible humor and the same endgame? Be still my beating heart, Billy!)
Right there. Right there I saw it clearly:
Our wheels touched and I envisioned Billy Blades and I skating around on the deck of our sloop, shamelessly escalating each other's most tasteless jokes right into the sunset. He side-smiled at me and I started to think about multi-faith relationships - could I convert him to roller skates? It didn't matter, love conquers all. He brushed my knee with a gesturing hand and I started to think about how dual-religion families raise their kids - would our little ones start off on skates or blades? Would our liveaboard be called the SS Quad or the SS In-Line? Or maybe some combination of the two?
A random little boy toddled up to us, interrupting as Billy Blades was about to expound on the splits-stretching pulley system Mr. Jorts secretly strapped himself into by night just to be able to skate to the painful end of the cups game amongst the most coltish of prepubescent girls. And this child, clearly sent as a divine messenger, handed me a tiny blue hair clip, then wandered away. "Perfect," my brain immediately realized, "Here it is, a sign: something borrowed, something BLUE."
The bench beneath us started to rock as if upon gentle waves, the years-of-burnt-hot-dogs-and-stale-cotton-candy odor of the dark rink gave way to fresh sea-salt breeze and bright sunlight, the incessantly high-pitched shrieking of children became the music of chattering seagulls, and Billy Blades, O captain my captain, my co-pirate, glanced knowingly at me. Our 16-wheeled, seafaring life together, the one we'd both been unwittingly, perfectly leading up to with our every waking move, every day of every past trip we'd both made around the sun without each other up to this point, had begun.
(But not in a creepy jean-shorts-mullet way.)
"I have to go to hockey soon," Billy Blades said. It wasn't exactly how I'd imagined his marriage proposal being phrased, but I, unfazed, accepted.
With full sails, we set our course toward the doors, as not only were our lives destined to change today upon meeting, but, it turned out, he also really did have to get to hockey. And anyway, I admitted to myself, parents would definitely not approve of us consummating our starcrossed love right here in the concessions area. Somewhere hidden in the laser-tag room... maybe, but not right here. Next time. Next time.
We navigated out to the parking lot, where Billy Blades had parked right next to me. Even our vehicles were drawn together by an unseen force! I looked at him. He squared off to me. This was going to be it: the defining before-and-after moment. From here, forces joined, we would set sail on the greatest journey of all!
He lowered his chin and I raised mine, flush with anticipation.
He looked deep into my eyes, right into my soul, and smiled. He knew me.
I coyly asked if he'd like to go out again, knowing it was a frivolous question, knowing he understood the implied meaning: when would we pick up where we'd left off, on this, our ever-after life of adventure and romance on the high seas?
"Uhh," said Billy Blades, "I've kind of just started seeing someone else, so I probably shouldn't."
(You really should have thought of that before I married you in my head, Billy.)
Um.
So wait.
So wait.
Now when we sail off over the horizon, this other gal is going to have to come too? What kind of a stupid third-wheel fairy tale is this? My captain's been bewitched by another siren and we haven't even gotten off the fucking dock? I mean, we don't need a second-mate, Billy. In fact I'm kind of starting to question your Captaining ability if this is the way you're going to staff our bo---
And then.
...he shook my fucking hand and bade me good day.
(I believe the old saying goes: "Red sky at morning, sailor take warning; handshake in strip-club parking lot, sailor--hold on, have you even read the script, Billy?!")
Lightning. Roiling storm clouds. Swells building to mountainous tossing walls of water. Suddenly, gale-force winds whistling out of an ominously-dark sky, drowning out the polite farewells from our mouths. Our future, heeling over at an alarmingly unsustainable angle, rigging groaning and snapping, sails ripping at their seams, me stumbling and falling on the heaving, splintering, foam-washed deck. And then right before my eyes, Billy Blades swept overboard by a crushing wave, never to resurface despite my frantic, wind-whipped scanning of the whitecaps.
I mean, realistically, of course he was lost at sea.
Nobody can swim with fucking rollerblades on.
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