Last night I got stood up for a dinner date. I wasn’t surprised. To be honest, I was glad.

Back in August, I had lunch with this guy I’d met in a chat room. He was relatively handsome, and masculine, and Jewish — all pluses. On the other hand, he kept taking work-related calls on his cell phone, and we had nothing in common. At first I wondered if maybe we’d have some postprandial passion, but he mentioned several times that he didn’t like casual sex and he implied that there was something wrong with people who did, so I stifled those hopes. After lunch, he drove me back to my apartment, and before I got out of his car, he said it would be really great to get together again.

We never got together again.

I left him a message about a week after our date, just for the heck of it, but he never called back.

The next time I saw him online was about two months later. He initiated a chat with me. He apologized for not getting together again and said that he’d been really busy with moving and with transitioning into his new job and that he really wanted to get together again. (I hate it when an excuse is simultaneously doubtful but totally plausible and irrefutable.) He told me he’d call.

He never called.

The next time I saw him online was Saturday afternoon.

He said hi to me. At first I didn’t even know who he was. Then he told me, and I remembered. He asked how I’d been, and he apologized and said he really wanted to get together again. I expressed doubt, given what had happened before. So he said this time we should set a definite date. We chose Wednesday night. He said we should talk again Tuesday to confirm our plans. I suggested we talk right then. So I called him, and we decided he’d come by my apartment on Wednesday night and I’d choose a restaurant. Once again, he suggested that we confirm on Tuesday.

After the short phone call, I went back online, and he told me that he had a secret: he’d thought I was really, really cute and had wanted to give me a goodbye kiss after our date, but he hadn’t thought I was interested. He’d even hoped I would invite him up to my apartment.

I responded that I hadn’t thought he wasn’t into that sort of thing. He said he usually isn’t, that he’d only hooked up once after a first date, but that he’d hoped I would be the second one. He said maybe our second date could end differently than our first. He said he was really looking forward to Wednesday and wished Wednesday were tomorrow.

After we finished chatting, I thought about it, and I realized I wasn’t all that interested in seeing him again. Nevertheless, I called him on Tuesday to confirm our plans. I left him a message during the day.

He didn’t call back on Tuesday.

I wasn’t surprised.

While I figured he still could call on Wednesday, I actually hoped he wouldn’t, because my alternative plans were seeming more and more appealing: staying in, watching “Angel.”

He didn’t call yesterday, and he never showed up. Of course not.

And I had a perfectly enjoyable date with a take-out sandwich and the WB.

Tomorrow I’m heading down to Virginia for a long weekend, because my old college a cappella group, the University of Virginia Academical Village People, is celebrating its 10th anniversary with a couple of concerts. It’ll be a blast.

While I’m gone, I present a special guest blogger: nobody.

See you on Monday!

I had a strange therapy session last night.

I haven’t really been into therapy lately. For the last few weeks I’ve been bored. I’ve realized that I’ve been talking about the same things over and over — the lack of a boyfriend, career dissatisfaction. And the thing is, these issues are external, not internal. A boyfriend will happen when it happens, and I’m committed to my job for another year and a half (and anyway, the economy sucks right now). These things have not changed in at least a year. Meanwhile, I’m making efforts in other areas — I’m writing, I’m volunteering, I’m meeting new people. I’m doing what I need to do.

I’ve been in therapy on and off since I was 17. I don’t know what more there is to learn about myself.

So I basically spent 45 minutes last night talking about all of this with my therapist, and also about how annoyed I was at her for certain things.

It wasn’t until the final five minutes that I had a revelation. It was a revelation that made my eyes well up with fearful tears. And yet now it doesn’t seem like such a revelation, because I already knew it.

The revelation is this. Nobody is right. Not therapists, not doctors, not parents, not my friends, not me, not my boss, not the president, not the president’s opponents, not Gandhi. We’re all human beings. We’re all as clueless as the next person. We’re standing on sand. Humanity awoke to find itself in an environment of forests and lakes and deserts, and it took an eternity for us to realize that we were on a big ball revolving around a star in a vast darkness. And for all we know, that could be wrong, too.

There are no absolutes. There’s nobody judging me, and if there is, they have no more power than I do. I’m all alone. In being annoyed at my therapist for certain things, I’ve been imagining, without realizing it, that there’s some big Board of Therapists out there with gavels that’s going to reprimand her for starting sessions five minutes late and for not being absolutely perfect. But she’s alone, too. I’ve realized it’s my job to point out when she says something I disagree with, when I think she’s doing something wrong. Which I do, 70 percent of the time, but it’s not enough.

There are no certainties. My uncle’s funeral was six years ago yesterday. He died of cancer, leaving my 56-year-old aunt behind as a widow. I have no idea what’s going to happen to me. I have no idea if I’m right or wrong or whatever. There’s absolutely no way to know. How do I know the inches on this ruler are marked correctly? How do I know how long a second is? Does everyone see green the same way I do?

All I can do is listen to myself. Set my goals and try to achieve them. All I can do — in fact, what I must do — is take ownership of my life. The critics, those who would judge me, those who I trick myself into thinking will judge me, have no power over me. There’s nothing they can do.

I’m alone. It’s scary-powerful to be alone.

And the dumb thing is, at 7:15 last night it seemed like this big holy revelation, but 10 minutes later, walking up Sixth Avenue, I thought, Yeah? And? I already knew this. I know it, and yet I can’t seem to apply it. My instincts to listen to others, to let others judge me, to seek their approval, are so strong and embedded in me.

I’m just as clueless and clueful as I was last night.

On Saturday afternoon I saw “Bend It Like Beckham.” If you’re in the U.K., you’ve probably already seen it. If it’s currently playing in the U.S. where you are, run out and see it yesterday. I hate to use a cliché such as “feel-good movie,” but it’s a terrifically wonderful feel-good movie. It’s also the best movie with a big Indian wedding that I’ve seen since last year’s “Monsoon Wedding.” (Also the only movie with a big Indian wedding that I’ve seen since last year’s “Monsoon Wedding,” but that’s beside the point.)

I love you Brits, innit? (Am I using that correctly?) I don’t know what it is about you guys, but I love you. And that’s good, because — U.K. bloggers take note — I plan to visit London sometime this summer, as a friend of mine will be living there for six months. I’ll visit, that is, if I can get over my post-9/11 fear of flying, which I pretty much was over, until I saw yesterday’s Times article about the threat of shoulder-launched missiles being fired at airplanes.

Yay.

In other news, my love life sucks. More accurately, it’s nonexistent, which is usually (but not always) the same thing. It’s a common story: I’m interested in him but he’s not interested in me, or vice versa. The thing is, I know that getting a boyfriend isn’t going to solve the other issues in my life — in fact, it might complicate them — so while getting a boyfriend seems to be a priority for me in theory, when push comes to shove I don’t seem to be willing to lower my expectations just yet.

And then yesterday I watched Woody Allen’s “Husbands and Wives,” which is about how romance is hard and how sometimes you have to lower your expectations. And that’s for straight people, who have a dating pool 20 times larger than we do. It kind of depressed me.

You know, last night, for the second time in less than a week, I dreamed that my family’s old dog was still alive. We put her to sleep almost two years ago, and I’ve dreamed about her from time to time. And now twice in one week.

And I think I know why.

I think it’s related to my recent glumness in the romance department.

Basically, I think it says a lot about my capacity for a relationship that other than a family member, the only being whom I’ve ever been able to love unconditionally is a dog.

Innit?