I am not a normal man and my relationships look like those weird cuts of meat you find at the end sections of small groceries and butcher shops. Recognizable as meat, but ultimately unidentifiable and oddly shaped.

The last relationship I was in—and it can barely be called a relationship—went something like this: I was in Singapore and a woman I knew from when I lived in Florida said, “Why aren’t we dating?” And I said, “Because I’m in Singapore and you’re in Florida.” But she proceeded to get really sweet on me anyway, and I, taken aback, went along with it, even when she escalated it to the point of living together, having kids, and putting me on her car insurance. It sounded good. It was a nice daydream! I sold my car when I moved to Singapore and I was about a month away from returning to the US. I was afraid: What will I do without a car? Where will I live in the US? She solved these problems.

She was also an RN and in a PhD nursing program. She made about five times what I did. It’s what they used to call ‘marrying up.’

So I scurried down to Florida when I arrived back to the States. She picked me up at the airport, we stayed up until 7:00 AM, talked, did intimate things, fell asleep. Woke up a few hours later. We went grocery shopping. She bought groceries for us. I gave her some of the presents I bought for her in Singapore, but not all since there were a lot. She called her friend over. We watched Space Camp. And then, right before bed that night, while I sat in her bed in my night glasses and boxer shorts doing my best Rock Hudson, she came over and said it wasn’t working and that I should leave by Saturday. Ah. Death.

I crawled out of her bed and slept on her sofa with her cats on my face. I didn’t know what had happened. Perhaps reality didn’t match up with her fantasy. I hadn’t told any of my Florida friends and acquaintances that I was coming to visit their town, but after I woke up I called the ones I had numbers for. They were all out of town. The one I got ahold of said I could hang out with him the next night.

So I spent an awkward day on her couch, reading Oliver Sacks (which she had on her shelf) and surfing the internet. I went for a walk that night and looked at the house I used to live in and the bars I used to go to. I got back and she wanted to watch me play her Nintendo Wii. I’m not even kidding. So I did.

I got out of there the next day. Saw my friend. Saw my other friend who took me to a bar where there were other friends and my pre-Singapore ex-girlfriend who gave me the nastiest look in the world. (Which, if you want to know the truth, makes me feel quite awful today. I should have sent her warning.) I decided that night that Florida was the last place I wanted to be so I booked a flight and a rental car at 4:30 in the morning from my friend’s sofa and ran out of town like a coward.

I got to the airport terminal about 5 minutes before take off. When I got to the gate the ladies barked, ARE YOU LUEBBERT?

Ah. Yes ma’am, I’m that unidentifiable object next to the Hog Maw, the veal shanks, and the calf pancreas. I rode home and haven’t thought of her much since.