bad date post-chemo

ok, i am really not ready for public consumption yet.

i got out of bed and reluctantly met a guy for a cup of tea this afternoon. someone i'd "met" on a social networking site.

back when i was pretty and actually resembled like the picture posted there.

ostensibly, it was a conversation about a project he was working on.

he looked totally taken aback when i arrived even though i was wearing a dress and had applied some kajal on my red-rimmed eyes and matching (but totally inappropriate for a saturday afternoon) bright red lipstick (on my lips).

our conversation therefore was all about me and my stupid health labyrinth rather than anything interesting to a normal, unrelated person.

tragically, i am still obsessed with the fact that i look like a 100 year-old turtle and my memory/brain still has huge lapses, so instead of making leaps in logic, i fall into the abyss. as he spoke, i had a chemo-induced hot flash that made my eyes and scalp burn and my face damp.

so he rushed off to meet someone he thought "sounded lovely" online and i dragged myself back home. i wasn't hurt, i wasn't feeling it either.

then i called a friend and went out to see "it's complicated" which made me laugh like crazy but felt a bit too much like my real life as a middle-aged, single mum with three teenaged kids, except of course, my exhusbands are not nearly as funny (or self-aware or articulate) as alec baldwin (the way the scriptwriter made him).

my current advice, don't suffer the dating world - or the critical gaze of a total stranger until you're really comfortable in your own skin. again. trying to give myself a break.