I was ready to break up with him. Actually, I’m not sure it counted so much as a break-up as a “let’s not do this thing where we talk over the food and the drinks anymore” since we’d only been out on a handful of dates. I wanted to like him, but the truth was I just didn’t. And no amount of Hartford, Connecticut lonesomeness could make me look the other way and just go with it.

So when he called at the appointed hour for our fireside phone chat, I was prepared to thank him for all the lovely banter over the past few weeks, for pretending that he actually read the newspaper I worked for, and bid him adieu. But then he led with the David Sedaris tickets. He had a pair for the following week and did I want to go? Did I want to go? Is the Pope Polish? (Well, he was at the time.) But it wouldn’t be right. I couldn’t use this kind gentleman I wasn’t remotely interested in for his tickets. I couldn’t sit through another meal and perform like a trained monkey, smiling and laughing and nodding at all the right points. Could I?

It turns out that yes, yes I could. (Again with the Pope and his level of Polishness.) In the words of Whitney, it’s not right, but it’s okay.

Tonight, when I see him perform in Brooklyn, tickets for which I purchased myself (throw your hands up at me, Beyonce!) I will think about this kind gentleman and say an Our Father or two as penance. If that doesn’t ease my soul, I can always have an audience with my Virgin Mary collection when I get home.