I Dated

I need to put it out there that I went out on a date last week.  It was the first "real" date I think I've ever been on.

Growing up in the 50's and 60's didn't provide a lot of relationship-testing dating opportunities for a gay kid from the suburbs of Wilmington, Delaware.  I couldn't exactly ask the captain of the football team to go to the prom with me.  So I didn't go to my prom. 

"Jack" is a guy I met a year or so ago at a 12-Step meeting I sometimes attend on Saturday nights over near the Willow Grove naval air station in Pennsylvania.  He's fun and kooky -- and fairly new in recovery (more than a year, but less than 2).  I hadn't seen him in many months when he resurfaced at the meeting about 2 months ago.  He asked me if I'd be willing to help him with one of the Steps, to which I happily agreed.  We never quite got it together to do the step work but he called me the week before Christmas and wondered if I'd go out to dinner and a movie with him.  I didn't think anything about it, other than as an "activity" a couple of guys in recovery could do together.

But I talked about it, with my sponsor and with some friends and the feedback was all the same... that this was a "date."

As dates go, it was catastrophic.  The service was terrible at the restaurant.  The food practically inedible (Thai/Malay).  The movie he picked, one of the "Fokker" flicks, was gawd-awful and his movie etiquette was abysmal (he yapped and commented throughout, much to the chagrin of me and everyone around us.).

But it *was* fun.  And I did have a good time.  And I do like him.  Even if he wants to live in half a dozen cities and is converting to Judaism (whatever for?  didn't he get enough guilt in his Catholic childhood?).

I went out on a date.  With a guy. What next?  A goodnight kiss? Cue Katy Perry!

Whodda thunk it?

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

And goodbye, American Exceptionalism.  Hello, American decline.

And if there is blame to dole out for this, let it be spread, equally, among the left and right.  But it should all be concentrated on one institution, the Congress, which perpetually runs for re-election rather than running the country.

Trillions of dollars which *should* have been spent on bettering ourselves, were spent trying to shove our brand of world-view down the throats of other nations.  Other trillions were spent enriching people who needed no further enriching, i.e., the already obscenely rich.

We're sliding.  Fast.  China and India are rising.  Equally fast.

What I find really sad is that the British Empire lasted twice as long as ours will have lasted.