Many years ago at an anime convention in Ephesus I met Marla. She had come with some friends in the National Guard, but since she was not an anime fan herself she was pretty bored. I was a lapsed fan of anime that had been to one too many conventions and was looking for an escape. I ran into her at the bar where we watched footage of our soldiers in Afghanistan. We talked at the bar then went out to the balcony to smoke and talked some more out there.

She told me all about her life story and I mostly listened. I was going through one of my breakups with Evangeline and didn’t really want to get into that from experience. Marla was attractive, though not necessarily a stunner. She was certainly better looking than I was. She was also quite smart and a great conversationalist. By “great conversationalist” I meant that she could carry a conversation that I didn’t need to be there for. Having come from a background of social geeks, it was a relief not to have to carry the conversation.

One thing lead to another and we were no longer just people talking at a bar. We never left the bar or did anything that required the privacy of a hotel room, but we did become those obnoxious PDA people that some groused at and others ignored. My friend Clint ran into us and we talked for a bit while she was laying on my lap. I can’t remember the context, but he said something that included the word “girlfriend” which Marla didn’t completely hear. She perked right up. “Wait, you have a girlfriend?”

I told her I did not and she said “Oh, thank God.” I took note of the exchange.

Ephesus is about two hours away from my hometown of Colosse and I was not particularly enthusiastic about a two-city romance. Doing what I always do, I put my mind to work analyzing the situation and deciding what post-convention plans she and I might have. I had no reason to believe that she was actually interested in any sort of relationship — she could have just been horrified at the thought of making out with some other chick’s boyfriend — but I don’t let any sleeping dog like that lie. I ultimately decided that, sure, two-city romances were tough but she was close to being out of my league, I had nothing going on in my romantic life, and I needed something to mark what I thought was the post-Eva era.

Time marched on that night and as often happens warning signs started popping up about Marla. Though attractive and intelligent, I was starting to get the sense of a pointedly amoral person. She talked a little bit about her last boyfriend and mentioned some of the spiteful ways she handled the breakup. I wasn’t particularly impressed, though I managed to convince myself that breakups to bring out the worst in people. But I started noticing other things, many of which I have long since forgotten. In addition to the amorality, though, she had a mildly obnoxious streak. She actually had a good fake British accent that came up — I don’t remember how — that she wouldn’t stop talking with for stretches. She also made bad jokes that she thought were absolutely hilarious.

The evening turned at some point. We were looking out the balcony and she asked me, “What happens when you go back to Colosse?” I told her that I didn’t know. She pressed further and was elated when I said that I was willing to give it a try. I had been oscillating between whether or not I wanted such a conversation to occur. I was glad that she pushed it and essentially made the choice for me.

When the convention ended I went back to Colosse. In a story all its own I had lost her contact information and had forgotten her last name. Losing her contact information was classic trumwill behavior, but forgetting a last name was strange. It took me about four days to track her contact information after that day, which put me just over the three day rule.

I never actually got ahold of her. I talked to her parents a couple of times and they were nice and polite but seemed confused as to why a guy would be calling after their daughter. The first time I called they said that she was at work, but when she had talked she said that she was temporarily unemployed. Not able to take a hint, I took a trip to Ephesus the following weekend and stopped by personally. Her car was in the drive, but her parents said that she wasn’t home. They had a look of pity in their eyes. And that, as they say, was that.

My ego was dinged and I was sorry for the missed opportunity (to the extent that there was one), but the more I thought about it the less sour the grapes got. Clint backed me up, saying that he hadn’t liked her to begin with.

What bugged me was that I could not figure out what for the life of me happened. I try to take lessons from each missed opportunity, but I couldn’t figure out what I had done wrong. I had not cornered her into a prospective relationship that she had to angle out of, she was the one that brought it up! She only brought it up after we’d gotten physical, so she wasn’t trying to get something out of me in that regard unless she was hoping that I would get a hotel room for the night or something like that. I’d thought that maybe she was trying to make one of her National Guard friends jealous, but for the most part they were never there and that didn’t require a post-con conversation. It was possible that she just didn’t want to think herself a slut so she tried to attach a relationship to the whole thing, but one would think that would involve seeing one another at least one point after the convention was over.

So it remains one of those mysteries that befuddles me. It’s been years and I no longer have to figure out what I did wrong since I don’t need to worry about finding that special someone anymore… but man, chicks are weird.