the dodged bullets:

One by one those failed attempts at relationships have wandered into my scope in ways small and large and my perspective is so different and this has happened before, that I realize with some amusement that it was never going to be and I feel some slight embarrassment for the girl I was (and still am to a less dramatic, obsessive degree):

[the man of the year] At a party, a friend of a friend told me what really happened that night, that new year's eve when I balked at his attentions being placed elsewhere (some blonde older woman). He apparently got her number, tried to date her, unsuccessfully, and it turned out he was not a good guy to date after all. Then with a delicious smile, I was informed that he has become fat and ugly.

[the drunken ambusher] Walked by the bar, not noticed by me, pointed out to me, I looked up at his disappearing figure and cackled; laughed the kind of big fat laugh that makes people turn around, but he didn't. Everyone else did. He is such a fucking coward. And then, I forgot about him completely, instantly, poof. An hour later, coincidence prevailed in a way that planning and timing would never have contrived to have us meet on the street and I realized that even though he smiles and cajoles, he is a panicky mess constantly and I never noticed before because I never saw him objectively.

[the city] I found him. I have decided to forget the past, the pain of him choosing her over me, the further pain of forgetting me completely, and I saw that he has gotten pulled into the first woman who he spent any time with, so good for them, that they are cut from the same cloth and can be geeky about what they love, but I noted with some slight pleasure that she is a strange looking one.

[the triple alliterative] I haven't written about him here, because there's not much to say, he doesn't have many impressive qualities and I can't really tell what direction things were going in, but I've decided no one gets to date me via loopholes and arrangements that are like dates but aren't dates and make me wonder too much. He is like one of those people who you never notice until a lot of time goes by, whose presence makes no difference, whose personality is stuck in a vault and no one knows the right combination.

[the singer] he randomly called and I randomly answered and there were good times, but now that the time is stretching out between us I am starting to lose my faith. He made some attempt today to maintain my interest, but it was so half hearted and so poorly managed that all I could do was laugh and escape as quickly as possible. And I hardly ever push the eject button that early. Oh well.

[the magnetic disc] this one is most painful, the most intriguing, because we both mutually stepped away from each other out of some code of decency; him to a love he couldn't forget, me to the knowledge that I was trying to board a sinking ship and sensing the futility and imminent frustration I would bear, I swam away. The distance from my absence has created confusion for him, he speaks of me when drunk, he blathers on and on about the nothing that didn't happen between us, he projects his pining, awkward behavior and unrequited mess onto my good name, and all I feel for him is sadness, mixed with pity. I know what he is going through, because I do still have an immense attraction to him, but I would never never never promenade it out in public to his friends.

I want to relish in the poor choices these men have made, but more than that, I'm so glad they didn't choose me.