TheBanyanTree: Trouble in Paradise

[Monique]

I'd like to say these things happen, don't let it get to ya, who needs
him anyway, go forth and forget about it. But yeah, it isn't pleasant.

Yes, I am aware that is an understatement. 

The world is full of people who will stand us up, one way or another. I
have been stood up. Yes! Even! Me! Wipe that shocked look off your face.


Or is that a smug look, because you knew it all along and just didn't
think I'd admit it? 

I am suspicious of people who have never been stood up. Either they're
lying, or they haven't taken enough chances. Take enough chances, and
everything happens, the good, the bad, the ugly, the amazingly unlikely
things that prove you cannot predict what will happen tomorrow. 

I'd like to say I've never been stood up and have it be the truth, but
that's not going to happen. On the other hand, this particular sort of
being stood up is not in my future, and I must admit I like the sound of
that. 

Not that I mean to gloat, and I certainly didn't enter into a committed
lifelong relationship because I didn't want to be stood up anymore, but
that is an added benefit that I do appreciate. 

Because it does suck. And the reasons for why it happens vary with each
situation, each person, each day. 

Or the reasons stay the same: someone is inconsiderate of others. That's
the long and short of it, though it doesn't answer the why at all. It's
only a broad answer to a very specific question. 

Of course, perhaps he was involved in a crime spree, major or minor, or
his wife decided he had other plans, or perhaps he collided with a
freight train on his way into town.

Hey, it happens. 

I was at work once when the sheriff came in to the office to tell a
co-worker that her husband had just suffered that same fate. They had
two children, and she was pregnant with their third. And he had, on his
way somewhere early in the morning, collided with a freight train on the
North Dakotan prairie. Freight train 1, human 0. 

Best not to tangle with those trains, though it is one way to ensure one
will never be stood up again. Not the recommended method however. There
are other, better options to avoid this fate. Such as, not giving anyone
the opportunity. But if we take this route, we must be ever diligent and
watch our every move, because as soon as we inadvertently leave the door
just a bit ajar for somebody to stand us up, they will, and that'll be
that. That one crushing little blow will make us even more hesitant to
let it happen again. 

Unless you're like my friend Jill, who thinks being stood up is
something to be proud of, and who will go out of her way to give
someone, anyone, the opportunity to do so. She's working on a world
record. So far, she's the leader in my social group. At least that
particular social group, which is the really interesting one.

For those of you in my other social groups, that was not meant to imply
in any way that I have more interesting social groups than the one we're
in together. That is so totally not true. 

As for why did he do that? I think maybe because he could. But maybe
not. 

M