All By Myself...

"He once tried to justify cheating on me by saying I had left him."

"Wait, that seems like a valid reason to me. It wouldn't even be cheating at that point it would be..."

"I left him to go to work! Like literally I was gone for 8 hours at work!"

"Oh no!"

With that the whole table started laughing. Nobody was going to be able to top Jenny's worst boyfriend ever story. No one ever could. And the horrible thing was she could win this every time without ever repeating bad boyfriend stories. She had just had the worst luck ever when it came to men.

"At least you can laugh now right?"

"Sure, I laugh now because once I gave up it all seemed very funny to me that it had ever really mattered."

"You gave up? What do you mean you gave up?"

"I don't date anymore. I haven't had a date in five, I think five years. Let me see, the last date was for Em's Halloween party up at Mt. Hood. Was that five years ago?"

"Yeah, that's about right. She and Mark just celebrated their fourth anniversary and that was the party where they met so that seems right. What was so monumental that that was where you called it quits?"

"You just said it."

"What?"

"Mark was MY date!"

"Oh god...that's right! I'm so sorry! I totally forgot that!"

"It's fine really. It was only our second date, we weren't a serious couple or anything and as soon as he and Em saw each other it was clear that was that. I feel worse for the guy Em had been dating. I mean they had been going out for months. He had no idea what happened. I was used to disaster by then."

"But to completely give up?"

"Yep. It's clear that I am not meant to be part of a couple. There is something wrong with me."

"No...you are...."

Jenny laughed and shook her head, "No, don't try to jolly me out of it. I mean it. Something in my psyche around relationships is just broken. I have a bad picker. A monumentally bad picker. I can find the neurotic, the asshole, the co-dependent, the mommy's boy, the emotionally unavailable, you name it, if there a relationship breaker I've found it. If it were just one thing I would say, okay, I have a tendency to find X problem so I need to fix that in me but it's not one issue, it's relationships as a whole. I have found too many new and unique ways to make bad matches and I'm done."

"Have you ever had a good relationship?"

Jenny thought for a moment. "One."

"One?"

"Yes, one. There was a guy in high school. He was great. Really smart, really cute. Interesting. We had a lot in common. We had a great time together."

"And what happened?"

"I broke up with him. Dumped him for a popular jock."

"Ouch."

"Yep. Broke his heart I guess. He pined for me for months, trying to find out what he had done wrong. I told him he just wasn't what I thought I wanted. He wasn't cool enough for me. Ended up killing himself on lover's leap."

Everyone was silent.

"His mother was a gypsy and put a curse on me that day. I was never to find true happiness again. If his soul was restless mine would be unloved." Jenny looked around the table and then smirked. "No. That never happened. I have never had a decent boyfriend. Not even my imaginary high school boyfriends were any good."

"Bitch. I believed you!"

Jenny shrugged and they all laughed.

They wrapped it up soon after that. Jenny walked to the bar to close out their tab. "Did you win again?" The bartender asked.

"Always. Nobody can top my 'he's the worst' stories."

"Someday you and I will have to play head to head. I have a lot of 'she can't really be that bad' ones myself."

Jenny laughed. "You're on. Name the time and the place and we will have a relationship off."

They lingered chatting while the bill was tallied. Making elaborate plans for their big bad date-a-thon. Both of them thinking maybe there was something else there. Maybe what they each needed was someone who had just as bad of luck. Maybe broken pickers were meant for each other.

But then both deciding they liked each other too much to ever risk finding out what was wrong with the other.

Besides there is no way someone would want to take a chance on someone as broken at they were.