Being ignored

I go to the bar where my friend works.

'ur babys here' his text states.

Tom is razzing my about my confession that I'm 'in like' with one of his bar's servers. She's sitting with her new boyfriend who is also a server. I say hello. We chat a little. Then Mason, the boyfriend, gets close to her. She turns to him, puts her hand in his pocket; they speak to each other in a hushed voice only they can make out.

I get warm, take off my coat, and move to the opposite end of the bar. I drink my beer, gain some courage, get another, and return to that end of the bar. I make my presence known through more small talk and sit at a table near the entrance. I talk briefly with another guy named Drew who was hanging out with the new couple. I give her a few looks. Her back is to me. Damn, she looks good. I can't stop staring, but I do.

The night wears on and the bar closes. I make eye contact a few times with Amber, the reference in 'ur baby.' It means nothing I'm sure. She's got one of those suburban mom hair cuts. Her hair is dark; it's cut short; and I've gathered from a previous conversation that she's spent a lot of time to give it body. It poofs out on the crown of her head. I saw a woman in my mother's neighborhood with an identical cut. I don't know. Perhaps I'm just chasing after what's near, but hasn't that been the situation for so many thousands of years?

The bar closes. Mason is drunk. Sitting in a booth across the main path that runs the length of the bar I tell Amber to take his keys. It's something of a playful gesture. Mason's being a goof, and Amber is perhaps mildly bothered by it. She's driving though, so it doesn't matter. They take their leave. I say goodbye. Mason turns and says goodbye. She doesn't. It's like I'm not there.

I was ignored.

Being ignored is nothing new. That's perhaps the least meaningful of my instances of being ignored. The times I'm ignored that bother me happen earlier that night.

'Partying or remodeling?'

I write a text to my neighbor. The guy who lives with this girlfriend above me. No answer. He has no need to respond. He's throwing a small party with Chris, a mutual friend. They're watching a movie, using my neighbor's projector. The noises and the dialogue leaking through my floor indicate this much. No answer. No response. I leave. I head to the bar to be ignored by another woman.

Friday night, the day prior to this event, I get a knock at my door. I peek out of the shades. It's my neighbor Anna. I made a pass at her many, many months ago. She's still upset. She gives me one of those distant stares that she's honed over the months. Deadpan, she tells me that she and my neighbor, Bryan, will be starting a fire in the backyard. She indicates that they will be outside shortly. She tells me she has to change. Her voice leaks an intolerant, spiteful attitude toward me. It hurts. I roll with it, and say nothing to support this impression. I look at her briefly.

'You're not in your bonfire clothes?'

She's wearing some elastic pants, high boots, and a long coat. She slides out of view to enter her apartment to the right of me as I stand in my doorway.

'You look nice.'

It's all I could muster. But given the situation, given her practiced frown, given her practiced indifference to me, given its absolute departure from our prior amicable relationship, I immediately feel again like the creep.

I'm not.

God damn it.

I'm not a creep. I care. I loved her. She said as much to me, and I made a scared stab at touching her. My gesture pushed her away. After that first night when I crossed the invisible boundary separating us, the one that would force her to pull the ripcord on what relationship we had, she gave me a concerned stare. It said everything. No words were spoken. I felt that I had done the damage. But damn, I was infatuated. I couldn't give up yet.

I didn't.

She pulled the ripcord.

I am being ignored.

Leaving the house to find some kind of affirming look, even a smile, I'm ignored.

When you spend your days inside your apartment, days punctuated by the traffic of a few once-close friends, being ignored hurts so bad.

I don't like being ignored.

I don't want to be ignored.

I hate being ignored.

I can't ignore the feelings that being ignored causes me to have. It's the worst sort of pain, a pain issuing from an existential lack.

I can't ignore me, but if only someone would pay attention to me I would have an opportunity to think of something else.

That ain't happening.

I'm being ignored.

I hate this so much.

I hurt so much.

I can't take this much longer.

Ok Cupid is a dating site that I joined the week earlier. I've been working on my profile and my unimpressive collection of pictures. I have messaged four women. None have returned a message in kind. I just noticed an indicator telling me if this person is a frequent responder. I am unsure if I'm just picking infrequent responders. The last one wasn't.

This shouldn't bother me. It still tugs at the dangling scar tissue of my soul. It's not a soul really. I call a host of neurons that I've cultivated since my earliest days of being ignored my soul. It's that 'poor me' attitude that I created as a mere three-year-old when my mother would scream 'fuck' as I followed her into the basement. She wanted some privacy to smoke weed. I still remember what I did. Sitting on the landing with three final steps descending into the basement, I dropped my Oreo cookie. I did it to enhance the pain I already felt. It was the gesture of a three-year-old, a three-year-old trying to place some control on this feeling I was having being ignored. No, I only tried to up the ante, to outdo any pain that the world could cause me. Now I'm stuck with that feeling. I misplaced it once or twice in my life, but it always returns.

That pain, that abject loneliness won't ignore me. If it weren't for this recurring pain of rejection and loneliness I would be completely alone. It's status as an entity seems solidified. It's been thirty years since that first Oreo incident. I've substituted my Oreo for unrealistic targets for my affection: an unhappy woman thoroughly ensconced in a relationship, a woman grooming herself for suburban housewife status, a series of online entities that can easily not respond as not come to the website and check their messages.

I performed my separation from the Oreo. Perhaps my attitude and participation in my current situation is a continuation of this Oreo refusal behavior.

I don't want to be ignored anymore.

I want to be ignorant.