The Cruelest Month

In his epic poem, The Wasteland, T.S. Eliot wrote, "April is the cruelest month."  I have a bone to pick with Mr. Eliot.  In actuality, I think February is the cruelest month.  For some reason, every February, I get the worst case of cabin fever.  I get sick of my winter wardrobe, I want to go out but it's too damn cold, I just literally get sick with headcolds.  Like I am now.  Ugh!  The winter feels interminable, and it seems that spring is never going to arrive.

Additionally, there is that holiday I have a love/hate relationship with--Valentine's Day.  One the one hand, I love those chalky conversation hearts and other assorted candies, but despise the sordidness of pink.  I love the concept of celebrating love of all types, but despise the amount of cheesiness that goes with the expression of it.  It's truly schizophrenic.

Maybe the reason that I'm especially feeling the cruelty of February is a recent spate of great dates (yay!), that led to nothing (boo!).

I recently mentioned Alumni Guy--the financial gentlemen I met at an alumni holiday mixer.  Over the course of six weeks, we went on three excellent dates and did a lot of emailing and texting.  The conversation flowed, we had similar taste in nearly everything including sensibilities about life.  Seemed promising.  But I always thought it was weird that between dates, I would go a week without hearing from him.  Not to mention, we never seemed to be able to go out on a weekend.  I understand we're both busy professionals--and I would love your thoughts on this--but if he was really interested, he would have made some time, right?

I asked him to join me, the Brain Trust, and assorted significant others to dinner one Friday night.  It took him two days to respond "no" to the invite, but there was no rebuttal (i.e. let's go out next weekend). After that I gave up.  I guess he just wasn't that into me.

After a long drought, and many very bad dates over the past few months, it was a bummer that things didn't progress with someone that I actually liked.

So, back to battling cabin fever.  Luckily, the saving grace of the cruelest month is that it's only 28 days long...er...short.  And then it will be spring--with its warmth and possibilities.