I first chose a preference for my name in kindergarten when my entire class made me and Collin Walden decide how to distinguish ourselves in everyone’s limited lexicon. Collin got to choose first, and for some reason, decided he wanted to be called “Collin W.” for the year. I think I got the proverbial-W that year.
But now I’m choosing a new name, and I think I will start calling myself E.D.—for emotionally dyslexic. I’ve been doing this online dating thing for a while now, and I go on my fair share of dates, to the point where I’ve stopped getting nervous about them now. And through all those dates, there have only been two people that I felt like I’ve vibed with. For both people, “K.” and “M.”, our third date ended up at my 300-square-foot apartment1 Which, notably is like a quarter of the size of the hotel room I’m staying in right now where we’d cook or something, and inevitably, I had to show them my lofted bed; it’s not like I can hide it. I continue to laugh it off and pretend like I’m not actually super self-conscious about it.
I kissed “K.” after walking her to her car as the night ended; perhaps I was too hard on myself, but I thought I did a terrible job kissing her.2(I was out of practice.) “M.” and I went further.3(I was also a bit out of practice.) During and immediately after both of these third dates, I thought it went well and that we both vibed off each other. And yet, after each time, they texted me two days later to break things off. It’s weird because, during that inbetween-y day, I could feel in my bones that something was off. And voilà! I was right.
Sometimes I’m Mr. Emotionally Dyslexic and sometimes I’m just Colin, albeit a bit whiny right now.