*SIGH*

I will now recount my experience with fate laughing in my face, as it happened today.

Mom and I were talking about me going to Ozzfest and somehow, the conversation wormed its way to the subject of Sexy Eyebrow Ring Man, a.k.a. Jason. I start talking about him and how he should be able to overlook the six years between our ages. And my mom just says to me, "No. I think you're a little too young for him."

This is a recent revelation for her, since she was all gung-ho in the beginning. So I asked her, "Why? Did you ask him?" I say this incredulously, like "What evil soul would interfere with my lovelife, or lackthereof?" And she says, "No, but Tish did."

My heart drops, but my morbidly curious mind inquired the details. My mom explained that Tish had said to him, "You should ask Rachel out." And this is what he says:

"I would, but she's too young for me. She couldn't go to any of the clubs I go to."

Tish defended me, though. She tried another route: "Well, you could go to movies and stuff."

And I wasn't there and have no knowledge of his face during the conversation, but I'm sure he smiled sheepishly when he said, "Naw. She's just a little too young for me." That's the way I imagined it anyway. The sheepish grin, the voice that is just nice enough that you know he's a good guy but not nice enough to get boring.

I sulked for a little while the conversation moved on to other things. Then, a thought occured to me. I turned to my mom as we were driving to the mall.

"But he said he WOULD?"

She smiled. "Yeah. He WOULD if you weren't so young."

It wasn't much, but at least it was something.

Now, here's the part where fate laughed in my face.

We went to Ruby Tuesdays. It's Tuesday night at six o'clock. Nobody goes out on Tuesday nights. Yet, we're sitting at the table and who should come over to say hi other than Sexy Eyebrow Ring Man himself. Oh yes. He says hi to my mom, casually glances in my direction and smiles and then walks away. I turned red from head to toe.

Then I wondered if his failure to say hello to me is a sign of future weirdness. I hope not. Look, Jason. I'm waving a white flag. I give up. You don't want me. Or if you do, my age is too big of a problem. And I'm accepting that. Just don't get all freaked out around me now that you know about this crush.

But a thought dawned on me about an hour ago. What the hell are the chances that we'd all be in the same section of the same restaurant at the same time on the same day that I found out he'd never date me? Obviously pretty good when fate decides to make an ass out of you.

I got a mental image of Fate dancing around with it's tongue out, taunting, "See? See what you can never have? And it's not even because he thinks you're dumb, mean, or ugly. It's because you were born in 1983. And now, because of that, you can't have this Sexy Man with two Eyebrow Rings. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha."

Bah. Bah, humbug, I say.