What's the opposite of 'he's just not that into you'?

I told Mousetrap that it probably isn't a good idea, us going to a show together on Thursday night. He's probably a lot more interested in me than I am in him and I can't muster sustained enthusiasm for new people right now (see: the grad student I should have given a nickname but instead called Jason.)

Zoe suggested that I might be a closer to mustered (mustard?) were it not for my initial assumption that Mousetrap had a British accent. This was perhaps brought on by the loud background (ok, foreground) noises and Mousetrap's tight black jeans. Those jeans should only be worn by gay men and Europeans (who may or may not be gay.) It's just trickery on anyone else. I wasn't even wearing a push-up bra that night so I can't be accused of the same sartorial deception thus negating my indignation.

I also realize I've been pretty quick with the veto lately: too-tight pants, propositions via facebook, using the word tinkle (twice, mind you), being ever so slightly shorter than me, being ever so slightly two decades older than me, working in a shoe store, and quoting My Fair Lady (last two sins were committed by the same person. I'm hoping this newfound discretion does not turn into desperation down the road when men invariably stop asking me out and I wind up latching on to the first one to glance my way in months. I hope I'm learning that not having someone isn't the end of the world. Plenty of people would notice if I went missing and would make every attempt to find me before the I was eaten by Alsatians. As an added bonus, I get to keep the entire bed to myself. This is a double bonus on nights that I get to warm on one side of the bed as I can easily move to the cool half. Bagel is not terrible difficult to shuffle from corner to corner.

This weekend I bought the annotations to a book I have not read (yet) and a double bell alarm clock that is, for all intents and purposes, a paperweight as it cannot keep time and I am not entirely sure how to wind it. Men, even Oscar Wilde, would not understand my desire to purchase an ostensibly useful thing in order only to admire it intensely.

I was reading an article on reader-response criticism earlier today and was reminded what bothers me about that particular school of thought. I actually like the idea that a text is the coming together of author and reader, Barthes suggestion that the destination of a text lies with the reader and not the writer, etc. My problem is this--isn't every reading, every analysis, on some level a reader's response? Is it really possible to separate what's going on in a text from our rendering of it? Even the new critics brought the understanding of the world to each reading. Do you mean to tell me that their fundamental understanding of language did not shape/inform their analysis? No one is that objective. I'll get back to this later. It's late and I don't have to the battery power (in my laptop or my brain) to dig deeper right now.