Let's Fly Solo Together

My attempt at convincing champion soccer player Hope Solo to go on one date with me.

I’ll have the wine, Hope will have the Gatorade

This column first appeared in Issue 30, Volume 63 of The Easterner


So I might have created a blog to ask U.S. Women’s National Team goalie Hope Solo out on a date.
Do I think she will respond? No, but that was never the objective.

The idea came after I read an interview in which Hope expressed that she gladly welcomed new love interests. I thought, “Hey. I’m not athletic, good-looking or rich, but why not give it a shot.”

Look at that, I made a pun about taking a shot at a goalie. See Hope, I can be incredibly charming at times.

Given the chances a short, mustachioed male with no college degree has with an Olympic gold medalist, things are not tipping in my favor. But why should that stop me from asking?

I have spent a large number of my 26 years living in fear of being turned down or unaccepted. Whether it was a job I was afraid to apply for or that karate class I ran out of in tears when I was in third grade, I let fear take the wheel.

It is exhausting. I am constantly figuring out ways to not reach for what I want. Every opportunity feels like another promised failure. If there is a chance I might lose, I do not want to play at all.

My mother was diagnosed with cancer in November of 2011. In March, 2012, I sat in a hospital room for two weeks, fortifying my heart for the goodbye I knew was coming.

On May 22, we found out the chemotherapy was working and the cancer was shrinking.
My mother had a snowball’s chance in hell, so all she could do was swing for the fences. She is not in perfect health; the cancer still takes up a large part of her lungs. And the fear has never left. She just decided to stop letting it drive.

I decided I wanted to live like that: no more shying away from a chance at happiness, no more cowering in terror that I may fail. Of course I will fail. I will probably fail a million times.

I will take classes that land me right on my face. I will apply for and be rejected from countless jobs. I will take my first fly-tying class and end up in the emergency room with a fish hook stuck through my pinky. It is inevitable.

But maybe that fishing hook ends up on a line instead of in my flesh. Maybe I snag a perch by the pinky, instead. OK, so I know absolutely nothing about fishing.

And yes, Hope Solo is going to reject my request for a date. I will get an extremely polite form letter from her publicist telling me to “cease and desist” and “understand there is legal precedence that says I could face charges,” and all that other playful stuff.

When I get rejected, I will curl into a ball and cry while eating cookie dough and drinking bourbon. I will spend all day watching “Law and Order” marathons, questioning the meaning of life.

When the bourbon runs out, I will turn off the TV, take a shower, and find a new celebrity to ask out over the internet.

And Hope, if you are reading, I am willing to go on just about any adventure you can think up. But I will still never go to a karate class.

  1. kurtosolo posted this