If it seems like my Anna issue is all I've got going right now, you're very perceptive. Work is at a dead stop. Every time she shows up at my house unannounced during business hours, with a bottle yet, I'm napping in front of the TV.
Okay, it was just the once. The point is that I'm boring right now.
I've been in this position only rarely: someone targets me when I'm not particularly looking for a relationship. In this case, it's a god-awful match to boot. Other than my possessing a job (theoretically) and a decaying store of Y chromosomes, I can't even speculate as to why me. Anna is a fitness nut. She loves people and hates carbs. She has a super-high motor. She shoves positivity down the throats of all listeners. She's into a pyramid scheme. She isn't educated. She doesn't read. She posts misspelled inspirational GIFs on her Facebook wall, then repeats this misspelling when she types it in comments. Other than her luxurious brown ponytail, our Venn diagrams do not remotely overlap.
"Are you having a great day?" reads the text I just received. At 10am.
We've had the talk. As gently as I could, I've told her I'm not interested. And that precipitated this awfulness:
"You're telling me you'd rather be alone than date me?" Anna asked, incredulous and bewildered by an alien value system.
"I wouldn't have phrased it so harshly, but...yeah, pretty much. But you gotta—"
"Oh. My. God." She started breathing heavy, clearly hurt. I get the distinct sense that to Anna, worth = relationship. I clearly had just said the most insulting thing she could imagine.
"But you gotta realize that I like being alone. I would rather be alone than with anyone but maybe two women in the world." I said this because I am an idiot.
"WHO ARE THEY?"
Seriously, when am I going to learn how to talk to people? In the nursing home?
"It doesn't matter. One's happily married with kids, and the other's like 7000 miles away. Neither will ever happen. The point is that I like my li—"
"Fine. You hold out for that pipe dream," she snapped. She didn't add enjoy dying alone, asshole, but it was implied.