Greg's birthday gift

I assumed that since I've been seeing a couple of woman regularly I could plan ahead for an event on my birthday (today!) and surely someone would be available to attend. So I bought a couple of tickets to a local play - and then none of my current dates were available! They both have careers, they both have kids, they are both busy people. It wasn't clear until the day before that I wouldn't have a date for the play. I had several options - start calling friends, go on my own, just skip the play and let the tickets go unused. Years ago I would have tried to find a friend to go last minute and if no one were available then I would have skipped the show.

This time I decided to not try to track someone down last minute. I decided I go on my own and so I found myself driving to the theater tonight solo. I kind of viewed it as treating myself to a night out. And who knew - it was possible I'd make new friends there. Driving to the city I vacillated about whether I should just skip the whole thing. I suppose from the underlying fear that people would see me solo and wonder "why couldn't that guy find a date". Then I thought what's the worst that could happen - maybe I'd meet folks I actually knew and they would ask why I was alone.

Instead of trying to arrive just as the play started I made sure to arrive early. I went to the bar and got a water and lo and behold I did meet people that I knew from work and they did ask why I was alone and I told them my dates turned me down and I was solo. And the world didn't end. The theater of course had assigned seating, so I sat by myself during the show, but I felt a strange sense of being OK with being on my own and maybe just a little, being proud of it. It made me wonder 'who is this guy Greg and what's he capable of'?