Would You Like to Buy My RA a Drink?

Finally, over his shoulder I spied a table opening up outside.  I practically cut him off mid-sentence and made a mad dash to sit down, all the while trying to keep up my ever-so-charming façade.  I wasn’t sure how well it was working, but I figured there was no turning back now. When he asked me if I was feeling all right, I lied through my teeth and said I was fine, just feeling a little run down from a busy week.  Sometimes, honesty is overrated.

He seemed to buy this as a plausible reason for my lack of energy and concentration, and so the evening went on.  The cold air outside began to help me feel a little more like myself, and somehow or another, I rallied and one drink turned into two. Before I knew it, he was asking me if I wanted to head out to his friend’s party. I was feeling a little better, but decided I should be smart and quit while I was still ahead.  I told him I’d had a great time, but that I was really tired and should probably call it a night. 

And that’s when he got the best of me. He made a pretty persuasive argument about how it was only one stop each way on the subway, and that he really wanted me to come along with him. Even though the voice in my head was telling me I should turn around and head home, I found myself walking onto the Brooklyn bound platform of the #2 train instead. 

I don’t know if it was through sheer will or luck, but I managed to pull through the entire evening. At 3am, I stumbled through the door to my apartment and collapsed into bed feeling feeble and exhausted. I paid dearly for my date by having to spend the entire next day at home nursing my poor immune system.  Clearly, faking good health was not going to work as a long-term dating strategy. What had I been trying to prove, anyway? It’s not like I was going to win some kind of Tough Girl RA award for making it through my date.

As I sat there on my couch watching sappy movies, I felt a flurry of different feelings - resentment that I had to deal with this imposition on top of everything else, foolishness for going to such great lengths over a guy I didn’t even know that well, and extreme self-consciousness about the fact that one day, like it or not, I would eventually have to face telling someone new that I have RA.  I know that anyone worth two cents will be fine with it and see me for who I really am, blah blah blah. But what feels particularly hard and a little bit cruel about having to tell someone else is that it removes one more layer of denial that my life has truly changed. What used to be simple isn’t so much anymore and so on and so forth. For better or for worse, I have to face the fact that having RA is now a part of my bargain.

(Oh, and if you’re wondering, the guy ended up not being worth it; he was seeing someone else the whole time.)

Sara is the author of the blog, The Single Gal's Guide to Rheumatoid Arthritis.