After the Thanks

Reader, when you are a 41-year-old woman - or perhaps just when you are this 41-year-old woman - it turns out that saying, "No, thank you" to an internet match, even when you have corresponded with this match to an extent that allows you to be 95% sure that "No, thank you" is the right answer, and even when all your instincts tell you "No, thank you" is the right answer, is a tense business. What if this is it? you think. Not in the sense of what if this is "the one," (a concept I don't believe in), but what if this is "the last one"?

There are women who don't worry about this, I know. There are magical women who just believe someone will come along for them, or who don't much care if someone does. God, I wish I were those women. We never notice the things we don't worry about (I, for example, don't worry that I'm stupid, or that I have poor taste in clothing, or that I'm too short, or...or...the thousand other things I never notice because I'm not worrying about them), but I, at least, notice the things I do worry about. And I worry about this, as you know. And I wish I didn't. Well, sometimes I don't: and that's a start.

My new year's resolution, by the way, is to eat more carrots. More green vegetables, too, but really more carrots.