Reading On The Subway: A Total Bust
Yet another fruitless endeavor in the name of love.
On the first day of the promising new year 2023, I made the bold resolution to start reading on the subway.
When pried by others as to why I made this resolution, I cited my failed 2022 Goodreads Reading Challenge (I only read 7 books - my goal was 20) and explained that I couldn’t face yet another humiliation amongst my literary peers (I have 24 Goodreads friends, which is pretty big for me).
And while my 2022 Goodreads Reading challenge humiliation definitely factored in, I conveniently omitted the other, deeper reason for why I started reading on the subway. After all, every woman has her secrets.
But now I am ready to share my full truth: I started reading on the subway in part to reach my 2023 Goodreads Reading Challenge, but mostly because I hoped that a beautiful stranger would see me reading on the subway and fall in love with me.
I hoped - I’m still hoping - that the next great love of my life will enter the car, espy me reading the 20th century Russian classic The Master & Margarita, and become instantly bewitched by my mysterious and intellectual allure. And then I, feeling someone’s eyes on me, will coquettishly peek up from my book. Our eyes will meet. And after I have completely beguiled them with just that one look, they will ideally introduce themselves in a kind, normal, and not creepy fashion. And from there? I don’t know. I haven’t thought that far ahead.
I don’t think I should think that far ahead either. Because, unfortunately, I’ve had no such luck with this scheme. No one has fallen in love with me yet. Not-a-one! I don’t even get much reading done because I keep glancing up from my book every minute to check if anyone hot is looking my way. I don’t want to miss the moment where our eyes are supposed to meet!
Overall, reading on the subway has been a total bust on both fronts.
In the cinematic tour de force of When Harry Met Sally, Carrie Fisher learns that Meg Ryan and her blonde boyfriend have broken up and IMMEDIATELY pulls out a rolodex of eligible bachelors for her newly single friend. But when I complain to my friends about being single (as I do often), they just say, “Same” or, “You should put yourself out there.” Some advice that is! Little do they know, I’m putting myself out there every time I go to work in the morning and every time I come home in the evening. I’m dangling the bait. But these fish are just not biting!
Maybe my expectations were far-fetched from the beginning, but in all truth, I really do want someone to fall in love with me. And I want to fall in love with them right back! I know other people my age who have been in love so many times. These people baffle me. I genuinely don’t know how they do it. Like, where do they find these people?
My first (and so far only) love was like this too. When we broke up, I told them that I knew they would fall in love again before I did. They denied this, claiming that they also had “a hard time finding a real connection” and “didn’t fall in love easily.”
Despite their protests, I was soon proven right. Two months after our breakup, they found somebody new. The worst part was I couldn’t even enjoy being proven right, something that usually gives me that type of euphoric high you only find in rave drugs. Yes, I was right, but I was also alone.
I don’t want to be alone anymore. I want to find somebody new too. I just don’t know where to look! And don’t even think about suggesting I get on Hinge - I’m already on all the apps. My efforts on the algorithms have been fruitless thus far, but I’m doing the work, okay?
For now, I suppose I will continue reading on the subway. After all, it would be imprudent of me to give up after a mere 3 weeks of no results. I’ll give it 3 months, and if no one has fallen madly in love with me at first glance by then, I’ll hatch a new love-seeking scheme. I think that sounds healthy. Right?