A Brief History of Failed Relationships

There’s the one who my friend Katherine said kept looking at me from behind the bar and I should hit on her so I said do you want me to leave you my number and she said “Dude, I don’t even know your name.”

There’s the one who’s forty.

There’s the one who I met through my ex-coworker and then tried to get her to drink a beer on my roof at 2 a.m. but she said she had to go home and then I got her number from the coworker the next day and asked her out via text, describing myself as “Duke, the guy with the armpits,” because I had sweated through my shirt the night before.

There’s the one who I met on Tinder and on our first date we went to Game Stop so I could buy my friend Mark a video game for his birthday.

There’s the one who I thought I was hitting it off with before realizing she is a) a lesbian and b) lives with my ex-girlfriend.

There’s the one who is my ex-girlfriend.

There’s the one who snapped her fingers every time I said something she agreed with, like we were at a slam poetry thing.

There’s the one who I saw every morning for a few months at the Hynes Convention Center T stop and talked to exactly once when I asked her to watch my stuff while I ran upstairs to get my water bottle where I left it on top of the machine and then never spoke to again, but wanted to.

There’s the one I went on two dates with and then she apologized and told me she was “mostly gay” but we stayed in touch because she has a funny Twitter.

There’s the one who I met while visiting Rhode Island and I kept telling her I liked her dimple and she finally said “It’s a scar not a dimple.”

There’s the one who liked my friend Matt instead.

There’s the one who was my Uber driver and we complained to each other about the weather for eight minutes and then I was like, “Should I send her a message using the Uber app to ask her out?” but decided that was weird so just clicked five stars instead.

There’s the one who prefers black men so now we’re just friends.

There’s the one who is my friend’s neighbor and we went to her party and I just kept asking her “How are you?” because I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

There’s the one who always wanted to sit inside her closet and do bong rips.

There’s the one who I met in a gay club in Paris who made plans to meet me in Poland and then I flew home instead of going to Poland.

There’s the one who’s my older sister’s Spanish friend who is married with children.

There’s the one who had never seen The Princess Bride so I made her watch it and she spent the entire time telling me how bad it was.

And there’s the one who had never seen The Princess Bride so I made her watch it and she said it was “fine.”