Freethinking

The summer semester ended last Thursday, so I have almost two weeks off. I have a lot planned for this break. In addition to small errands like getting my oil changed, my license renewed, getting a tennis lesson in, or signing my divorce papers, I have many social events planned. I'm visiting a friend out of town, I'm going to a social event for my mixed doubles tennis team, I'm diving into internet dating (more in a later post), and I've discovered a new social outlet.

I was at a cafe last week and saw a sign on a bulletin board about a "new friends meeting group." I was intrigued and thought, "Sure, I could join their cult." I took an information tab and looked them up on the web. It's an entire website of people who want to meet up. There are lots of differently-themed groups, so I joined three: the generic "friends" one, a writers' group, and a group of "freethinkers."

This last one, also known as secular humanists, brights, skeptics, or nonbelievers, is essentially a group of atheists. I was a little weary of joining them, because organized atheists scare me almost as much as fundamentalists. They're usually just as arrogant and dogmatic. But I've been wanting to meet people who are areligious, and I thought this might be a good way to do that. It couldn't hurt, could it?

The meeting was supposed to take place at 12:30 today at the local public library. When I got there, I noticed a large circle of people standing around in the parking lot. I tried to walk into the library, but it was locked-- it doesn't open until 1:00 pm on Sundays. Shit, I thought, I'll bet that group in the parking lot was my secular humanists. This wasn't what I had expected. I expected that we'd meet in the library, in a meeting room or something. Maybe there'd be a sign: Welcome Atheists! Why were they all standing around loitering in the library parking lot? Is this what they do? How do you go up to a group of strangers, who all seem to know each other, and ask them, "Hey, are you guys the 'freethinkers'?" I couldn't bring myself to do it. When I overheard one of them say something about Star Trek, I decided I couldn't do it. I got in my car and drove away.

(I did something eerily similar with the Unitarian church at the beginning of June. I see a pattern here.)

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I decided to go for a walk at the sculpture park where I used to walk with Snarkwife. This would be the first time I'd been there since she left. I'd asked TennisGrrrl to go walk with me there a few times, but it never worked out. So this would be my first solitary walk, signifying, like, closure & shit.

I took some pictures with my new camera phone, and visited with the big stone bunny. It was in front of the big stone bunny that I proposed to Snarkwife over four years ago. I even incorporated the bunny into my proposal, telling Snarkgirlfriend that the bunny and I "had been talking." Yeah, it was sweet and charming and she loved it.

Today, I told the bunny that she left me. He was stoic.


I imagined what I would do if I could go back in time and re-live that moment when I proposed to her in front of the bunny. I would like to say something like, "Well, I was going to propose to you, but since I know that, in four years, you will break our matrimonial vows and leave me, I think we should end it now."

How's that for "freethinking?"