oh harriet, here we go again

this one is five years old. never written. rarely spoken about. but most certainly one of the longest running theories i’ve had. i came up with this in april of 1999, and so far (unfortunately) so accurate…

it’s called “the odd man out”. allow me to explain…but first, a preface:

in april of ‘99 me and my fiance finally split. it REALLY needed to happen, and we’ve since made up and are friends again, so i won’t bore you with the circumstances that caused it to end – but it ended. i had friends lecture me at this point about having the women i date live with me, with a “revolving door” theme being implied.

the problem with that theme?

number one, i had only had two girls live with me ever.

number two, the first moved out in may of 1996 – the second moved in january of 1999. that’s two and a half years. if THAT’S a revolving door, that’s a slower revolution than even the french could manage. but i decided DOUBLE that would shut EVERYBODY up, so i pledged to myself that i would have nobody move into the house, human-wise, for five years. ten more days and i’ve made it – and due to the odd man out theory so far proving true, it hasn’t been that hard.

so now, the theory…

statistically speaking, i have beaten “the odds” on several occasions – i am bright, degreed, and pretty much broke. statistically, that’s no great accomplishment. but to bury my mom before i turned twenty-five? to do some of the things i’ve done? to pierce some of the parts of me i’ve had pierced? to have as many readers on a blog i NEVER push or advertise as i do? that’s beating the stats pretty well.

picture if the odds were just one in two. half and half. fitty percent (that’s 50% for the caucasians in the audience). those would be easy odds to bet on, right? well, statistically speaking, there’s a fifty percent chance that the population of the world, at any given moment, is an odd number. with that in mind, that means the old adage that “there’s someone for everyone” CAN’T be right. if the population is sitting at an odd number at a given moment, we can’t all pair up. someone has to be stuck out. someone is destined to be solo to “balance” the rest of the population. when that person is out TRYING to hook up, the rest of the world is in social disarray because it throws off the balance. but if this person would except his or her fate and simply be alone and deal with it, all could balance out and everyone could be happy, right?

guess who i figure the odd man out is…

and so far, i haven’t had any proof to the contrary.

don’t get me wrong – i’ve stumbled upon people that have made me happy. i’ve even found one person (or two) who i thought was “the one”. i figured i had been proved wrong. maybe i still will be, someday. but for now, with only ten days left to the nickel anniversary, i can say, without reservation, that the five years with nobody living with me has also been five years with no girlfriend. at all. i’ve had some i’ve CONSIDERED a girlfriend at the time, but nothing was ever “official”.

so again, so far, so accurate…unfortunately.