Today I have a guest blog-writer. Everyone, please welcome the inspiration for my last three Wednesday blogs in a row: I'VE BEEN GIVEN REASON / LIFE IS NOT A DRESS REHEARSAL / LESSONS FROM CRUEL SHOES. The italics represent his voice, but you'll just have to imagine the British accent yourself.
S-
How do I start? What to begin with?
First wink, first meeting, first kiss?
Before the firsts?
Before the firsts.
What was my motivation to meet you?
So I post a profile. Knowing full well I don’t dabble with meaningless connections. I am honest, knowing I can’t move on without it. How lucky could I get? The first time I email, you don’t reply. Yet I hoped somehow we would meet. Corny but true. Did my subconscious remember you from a decade earlier? Was my visually fixated brain tuning into that momentary meeting? You never forget a face.
So perhaps I wasn’t aggressive enough. No reply from you. You have thousands of guys checking you out. (I thought I was special getting 300 matchees checking my profile) Why is she winking at me again and not writing? Why won’t she answer? So I decide to brag a little after the cyber ghost phantom wink. So I blab a bit about what I thought you would like to read about. I’m trying to figure out what the designer of an essay exam question reeeaaally wants to hear. What ever it takes, I want to know this woman. I’m selling myself, but being truthful too.
So my commercial catches your eye, thank god something is working right for me. Am I owed some heavy Karma? Are you owed heavy Karma? Is this simple coincidence, or is there another layer?
I knew you would be dangerous. Not “Scary; smack me with a frozen halibut” dangerous, but “Shit, I could really fall for this woman” dangerous. So after meeting you for Thai, I continue. Knowing, once again, full well, the potential I was creating.
First date with anyone…you. Why was unveiling my past so easy? Do I do this with everyone I meet? To certain degree, yes. Especially recently, when all was in turmoil. I was grasping for straws. Some advice, some gem to hold. It takes a lot to hold my ear. You hold mine, and you allow me to talk. Prying open my clam. My crab shell.
The story loses its thread because I’m getting lost in blur of weekend rendezvous. I could write about the first kiss, how our styles and urgency met. I could ponder the curves of your body, the sounds you make. ( I was so tense our first time). Each time I learn more about the way you tick, in and out of bed.
I’ve been in a holding tank for many years. Tentative to make the wrong move. Secure with the glass walls, yet scratching at each corner. Fed with half-truths and baited with responsibility. Seeking unattainable promises. Pushing gravel around to rearrange my base. Trapped inside with a strange species.
I still seek security. But I have a craving for you. A taste I can’t deny. My required ingredients for bread have changed. I know I won’t shirk responsibility. And I still will grieve for the bitter-sweet life I had.
I still have many questions, some of them I don’t know yet. I’m not in a rush to have them answered. I don’t feel rushed with you. You provide acceptance, freedom to check my baggage.
I don’t need to hide my feelings from you, yet I remain reserved. My feet still set in two worlds, sliding slowly toward yours. I feel guilt for my children, hotwired to my own homesick journey. I need to allow myself to believe. To take the proverbial leap of faith. Is this too good to be true? Am I too rebound fresh? Do I really know you yet?
I know for certain: You make me very happy at the very core. You have made me whole again. I would be a fool to deny myself that.
Just be slow with me. I’m classic wounded guy.
-S
It can and did happen! Tell-all blog about dating ... well, tell-most ... tell-some ... regardless, it's TMI.
Monday, January 24, 2005
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
Lessons from Cruel Shoes
In a previous life, everything I ever wanted must've been handed to me and I never appreciated it. In this life, I needed to experience absence to understand fulfillment... and boy, did I deal with a lot of absence.
I spent seven years in an ultimately empty relationship in which I only felt misunderstood. The fit between my ex-husband and myself resembled a longer, more drawn out version of the feeling that I had while being a member of a wedding party in early April 1992.
At that time, everyone in the wedding party lived in Orlando, while I lived in Atlanta and had to drive down. I missed all the fittings for the hideous bridesmaids' dresses and had to be fitted into mine in just a few hours on the day before the event. The front of the dress was cut way lower on me than on the other girls and the seamstress never managed to really fix that. Plus, the puff-ball shoulder thingies seemed to be as large as my head, whereas on the other girls' shoulder puffs seemed more managable.
Then came the shoes... black pumps. Yuck, but I can deal, except that the bride purchased the wrong size for me... 7 1/2. I wear an 8 1/2, same as her sister, who, because she lived nearby, had already grabbed up that pair and started wearing them around to break them in. I was stuck with a pair of shoes that were a whole size too small for me. Not just that, it was a 3 inch heel with a viciously pointed toe. There are no better torture devices known to man or woman than shoes of this variety.
On the day of the wedding, we all had our hair done at a local salon. The inexperienced newbie assigned to do my long, curly locks had no clue how to work with my hair type as he'd only had experience with short hair styles. Everyone else's hair was done and fabulous and we were out of time and there I sat... looking like the love child of Diana Ross and Bozo the Clown.
+ 
Some other pro rushed over, shoved him aside and said something that made him burst into tears, then began to rip through the rats nest in my hair (yet more torture) for the next 20 minutes until she'd created something that looked like a gift box bow on the back of my head... sprayed that until it was rock-hard and sent me on my way with the rest of the girls.
There are pictures of me from this event and I wish they would disappear. I look like a total asshat... a 21-year-old with the youthful face of a teenager, wearing a dress that could make Tara Reid blush, crammed into tiny shoes like Cinderella's step-sisters, and with what looked like a birthday present on the back of my head sandwiched between two growing MANITOUs. Classy. So very classy.
I was also mortified to be walking down the aisle with a white-haired man 35 years my senior. As a dancing partner later on at the reception and with several stiff screw-drivers on his breath (and not enough on mine because I was without my i.d. and the bartenders refused to believe that I was old enough), my dad's buddy insisted on grinding my crotch into his thigh as I kept trying to lean back for some distance, but I realized doing that only gave him a better view down the front of my dress. I'm guessing that as a paired couple, we looked like something straight off the cover of Pedophilia Today. And did I mention I was also being hit upon by a 12-year-old there?
I endured all of that for the longest 10 hour day of my life... even giving birth three times within the ensuing 5 years never erased the agony of that day. Got a good picture yet? Maybe this will clarify things: remember Molly Ringwald in SIXTEEN CANDLES? Think that... only much more fucked up... and with no cute beefcake to drive me away in a Porsche boxster afterwards.
The icing on the cake of this story is that rather than my only experience as a member of a wedding party being something as normal as, say, a sister's wedding, this affair was my damn FATHER's wedding, marrying a woman 15 years younger than himself and just 7 years older than me. Why? Probably because we're talking about something that involves me and my so-called-Jerry-Springer-Show-life.
Added to this, one of her sisters graduated from high school with me and we sat next to each other all of Senior year English Lit class just four years earlier. At that reception, she leaned over and exitedly said, "Sherri, can you believe it? I'm your aunt now! And I'm just 4 days older than you!" All I could think of were lines from BILL & TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE, like: "'Remember when you asked your mom to prom?' 'Shut up, Ted!'" As I looked around at the attendees... many of whom were people that had gone to school with me, but none of them were invited by me... I realized that my life had become a John Hughes version of TWILIGHT ZONE.
My best friend finally arrived to my rescue near the end of the day and luckily had her i.d. with her so that we could finally start pounding a few drinks as I relayed the day's events to her. Suddenly we were yanked up from our bitchy coven as we were told that it was time to catch the bouquet while being forcefully escorted to the dance floor to a throng of desperate, single women. We decided that it would be safest to stand in the back so not to get tackled by some love-starved loser.
The huge bouquet got flung and, of course, headed straight for the back of the crowd. As if performing some synchronized, rehearsed line dance, she and I took one step away from each other and the bouquet landed square between us on the floor, spraying petals everywhere. We just looked at each other and shrugged, as neither of us wanted that hideous thing or the "curse" that came with it. Yes, it was partly fear that made us step out of the way, but we were also both too tipsy to give a fuck at that point. My new step-mother flew into a hissy fit and demanded that I pick up the bouquet and give it back so that she could give the "non-spoil sports" a chance... so I shrugged again and did as she asked, while my friend cackled and rubbed in the fact that I'd "touched it first!"
That one day sums up so much of my life in many ways: an uncomfortable fit, a horrible mess, a forced effort, and a jaded response.
Six months to the day after that wedding, I met my ex-husband. I had been getting to know a truly beautiful Norwegian man at that time, who was already a friend and the sweetest guy ever, but he started talking about marriage and green cards on our very first date and that scared me quite a bit after the whole wedding bouquet thing. So when my roommate from hell set me up with her boyfriend's sad-sack friend, I thought, "Yeah, sure. At least he won't be needing to get married real soon." And with that, I canceled my next date with my beautiful Norwegian friend and scheduled a first date with the sad, lonely friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend. Three months later to the day of our first date, I realized that I was pregnant. Since I had been through an abortion a year earlier, that wasn't an option. I told him that I was continuing with the pregnancy and he just shrugged and went along with my request that he join me in the same way that I shrugged when I was asked to pick up that stupid bunch of flowers.
I never had a wedding myself, not even after getting preggos, so my only experience being in one has come from that wretched freak show that's been permanently etched into my brain. You see... instead of a wedding, my marriage vows were "I-doed" in an oh-so romantic courthouse, because after you've already given birth 3 times, a wedding seems a little anti-climactic. So yup, there we were... squeezed in between some guy from the local grocery with about 500 bounced checks needing to be stamped for collection and an underage Guatemalan couple with their interpreter/guardian who, from what I could piece together in Spanish, wanted them to be married to either start making babies or legitimize the one they already started. I'm not clear on which it was.
Three children and seven years later to the day that we met, I found out that he was having an affair with a co-worker who was 11 years older than him. He said that he had a right to be happy at last and never once apologized for his actions. I used to blame my psycho roommate for the match up, but I could just as easily blame that fucking wedding bouquet incident too.
I tend to fall into things ass-backwards, I suppose. Once upon a time, I really had stopped believing in love. My parents were having the lives that I should have been having... mom going to college and graduating, dad getting married and talking about starting a family... while I was having an abortion and floundering alone in art school. So I decided to settle for less than my ideal fit and live with the dis-ease of being misunderstood just to find some sort of pseudo-comfort in a world that seemed to leave me feeling more and more isolated.
Unfortunately, if you don't really find the right fit and decide to settle for it anyway, you're going to live in pain and have scars for a long time to come. I twisted my face into a smile on a regular basis when people asked me how life was going while I was married to that man, much the same way that I did when I was forced to wear those cruel shoes and smile for the posterity photos all day at my dad's wedding. I tried to take my mind off the pain by distracting myself for years with ideas like, "Who really is fully happy anyway?"
If you've read my blogs this past December, most of you saw that I hit a mental "RESET" button at some point there. I changed my look on life and made a conscious decision to stop wearing the wrong shoes.
I really wasn't sure if it was possible for me to find a good fit because I'm so odd in so many ways. It's not easy being kinda artsy and yet want longevity and family-related stability. The artsy guys are allergic to family stuff and the normal guys all get a little freaked by my inability to toe-the-status-quo-line. But I recently found a great fit by accident. I thought, "No, those shoes still might belong to someone else who doesn't want them right now, but who might demand them back at some point. I should wait it out." However, I realized that I was being drawn to this perfect fit in a way that I'd never been drawn to someone before now. I simply couldn't stay away.
As you've read below, I met someone who seems like he was designed for me in so many ways. The only problem is that he's not free yet to fully be with me in every sense of the word and so we must exist in our own little bubble right now. This is my luck, to get someone made-to-order, who speaks and seems to be pulling sentences straight from my own thoughts, who also comes from a failed marriage, but who still has many hurdles to jump in his own pair of cruel shoes before he can catch up to where I am.
But if he decides that the hurdles look too high or taking off those ill-fitting shoes might be too painful, and he goes back to the starting line out of some form of separation anxiety or possibly a martyr complex, then I will only have had a glimpse of what a perfect fit feels like.
Still, it does give me so much hope, regardless of the timing. It's so easy right now, so comfortable... for the first time, there's no struggle to "make it fit" or feeling of mismatched soles/souls. I wish he could just tap into my heart and experience through me how hard that really is to find... how in five years of meeting people and trying them on, only to discover mismatch after mismatch and feel yet more alienated with each passing person... and that finding such an easy fit doesn't just "happen" like that every day.
This life can be filled with so many lessons from other people, like going through a terrible relationship in order to recognize and appreciate a really good thing when it finally comes along. Walking in the wrong shoes for so many years can leave you with some impressive scars, but it can also teach you to appreciate a comfortable fit when you finally find it. Hopefully, when such a lesson is put to the test, you are able to recognize it and not let the moment get away.
All this talk about shoes and weddings as a metaphor has suddenly jarred another thought loose in my brain. The first weekend of October 2004, I was visiting Chicago to put some closure around a previous visit that had caused a big rift in my life: a very brief and steamy affair with a man whom I'd considered my ideal since my youth... an affair that ended badly on both of our parts in 2001.
It was three years later and the weekend of his wedding celebrations, which I gracefully declined to attend out of respect for his new bride's joy and comfort... and I didn't want him to feel like he needed to apologize to me in person, even though we'd already put that to rest in email form. I just know what kind of good person he is and he'd take time away from his 250 guests just to make me feel better.
Anyway, I went to Chicago to just be there in the same city at that same moment when he was moving into a new phase of his life, with my own hopes that I could feel that kind of energy... moving forward, full of hope. And amazingly, it really was palpable.
My friend and Chi-town tour guide for the weekend took me into her favorite shoe store on my first day there, which was awesome, because I'd always admired Fluevogs on other people and wondered where those stores were located. While feeling full of energy and at probably the very same moment that my former flame was saying his I-do's in front of friends and family, I cheerily walked past pair upon pair of beautifully crafted footwear.
Suddenly, I stopped in front of a pair that I simply had to have... they were bright red with a pink flame swooshing down the length of them and part of the Fluevog "Angels" sole family... imagine bowling shoes, only much, much, much cooler. And they were on sale, marked down about $50, making my heart skip a beat even more and adding to the whole "kismet" feeling. (I know, I'm a dork.)
I asked a clerk if I could try on a pair in 8 1/2 and she said, "Mmm, well, all of these that you see marked down right here are limited editions and only one of each size was made. So what you see is all that we have, which means this is the only pair left, and it's ...[pause as she picked up the shoe]... um, incredible, it's an 8 1/2 exactly." I put them on immediately and they felt like they were made for me and are still my favorite pair of shoes today, getting me compliments and comments on a regular basis.
So on the day of an ex-lover's wedding vows, and exactly 5 years from the moment that I found out of my ex-husband's affair, and 7 years from the moment that we shared our own vows in the courthouse, and exactly 12 years from the moment that he and I met... there I stood in the only size left of a limited edition pair of shoes that felt like they'd been waiting for me to find them, right there in the city of my birth no less!
There is no key to finding happiness or to unlocking the mysteries of the heart, that's why it's a mystery. But everyone knows when they see two people cut from the same cloth and how beautiful they look together... it makes you want to spend time with them in the hopes to unravel some of that mystery for yourself. I used to look at those couples that make everything look so easy and wish I could be like that one day.
It occurred to me that I've finally stopped wishing for that day. It has arrived at last.
I know that I said that I wouldn't write about my muse again and I've tried to stay as far from our current musings as I could, but just like my feelings for the man himself, I can't seem to stay away for long. In my future life, I'll talk more openly about all the things I've come to appreciate in this great fit. But for now, I'll just express it all in one syllable:
*sigh*
I spent seven years in an ultimately empty relationship in which I only felt misunderstood. The fit between my ex-husband and myself resembled a longer, more drawn out version of the feeling that I had while being a member of a wedding party in early April 1992.
At that time, everyone in the wedding party lived in Orlando, while I lived in Atlanta and had to drive down. I missed all the fittings for the hideous bridesmaids' dresses and had to be fitted into mine in just a few hours on the day before the event. The front of the dress was cut way lower on me than on the other girls and the seamstress never managed to really fix that. Plus, the puff-ball shoulder thingies seemed to be as large as my head, whereas on the other girls' shoulder puffs seemed more managable.
Then came the shoes... black pumps. Yuck, but I can deal, except that the bride purchased the wrong size for me... 7 1/2. I wear an 8 1/2, same as her sister, who, because she lived nearby, had already grabbed up that pair and started wearing them around to break them in. I was stuck with a pair of shoes that were a whole size too small for me. Not just that, it was a 3 inch heel with a viciously pointed toe. There are no better torture devices known to man or woman than shoes of this variety.
On the day of the wedding, we all had our hair done at a local salon. The inexperienced newbie assigned to do my long, curly locks had no clue how to work with my hair type as he'd only had experience with short hair styles. Everyone else's hair was done and fabulous and we were out of time and there I sat... looking like the love child of Diana Ross and Bozo the Clown.
+ Some other pro rushed over, shoved him aside and said something that made him burst into tears, then began to rip through the rats nest in my hair (yet more torture) for the next 20 minutes until she'd created something that looked like a gift box bow on the back of my head... sprayed that until it was rock-hard and sent me on my way with the rest of the girls.
There are pictures of me from this event and I wish they would disappear. I look like a total asshat... a 21-year-old with the youthful face of a teenager, wearing a dress that could make Tara Reid blush, crammed into tiny shoes like Cinderella's step-sisters, and with what looked like a birthday present on the back of my head sandwiched between two growing MANITOUs. Classy. So very classy.
I was also mortified to be walking down the aisle with a white-haired man 35 years my senior. As a dancing partner later on at the reception and with several stiff screw-drivers on his breath (and not enough on mine because I was without my i.d. and the bartenders refused to believe that I was old enough), my dad's buddy insisted on grinding my crotch into his thigh as I kept trying to lean back for some distance, but I realized doing that only gave him a better view down the front of my dress. I'm guessing that as a paired couple, we looked like something straight off the cover of Pedophilia Today. And did I mention I was also being hit upon by a 12-year-old there?
I endured all of that for the longest 10 hour day of my life... even giving birth three times within the ensuing 5 years never erased the agony of that day. Got a good picture yet? Maybe this will clarify things: remember Molly Ringwald in SIXTEEN CANDLES? Think that... only much more fucked up... and with no cute beefcake to drive me away in a Porsche boxster afterwards.
The icing on the cake of this story is that rather than my only experience as a member of a wedding party being something as normal as, say, a sister's wedding, this affair was my damn FATHER's wedding, marrying a woman 15 years younger than himself and just 7 years older than me. Why? Probably because we're talking about something that involves me and my so-called-Jerry-Springer-Show-life.
Added to this, one of her sisters graduated from high school with me and we sat next to each other all of Senior year English Lit class just four years earlier. At that reception, she leaned over and exitedly said, "Sherri, can you believe it? I'm your aunt now! And I'm just 4 days older than you!" All I could think of were lines from BILL & TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE, like: "'Remember when you asked your mom to prom?' 'Shut up, Ted!'" As I looked around at the attendees... many of whom were people that had gone to school with me, but none of them were invited by me... I realized that my life had become a John Hughes version of TWILIGHT ZONE.
My best friend finally arrived to my rescue near the end of the day and luckily had her i.d. with her so that we could finally start pounding a few drinks as I relayed the day's events to her. Suddenly we were yanked up from our bitchy coven as we were told that it was time to catch the bouquet while being forcefully escorted to the dance floor to a throng of desperate, single women. We decided that it would be safest to stand in the back so not to get tackled by some love-starved loser.
The huge bouquet got flung and, of course, headed straight for the back of the crowd. As if performing some synchronized, rehearsed line dance, she and I took one step away from each other and the bouquet landed square between us on the floor, spraying petals everywhere. We just looked at each other and shrugged, as neither of us wanted that hideous thing or the "curse" that came with it. Yes, it was partly fear that made us step out of the way, but we were also both too tipsy to give a fuck at that point. My new step-mother flew into a hissy fit and demanded that I pick up the bouquet and give it back so that she could give the "non-spoil sports" a chance... so I shrugged again and did as she asked, while my friend cackled and rubbed in the fact that I'd "touched it first!"
That one day sums up so much of my life in many ways: an uncomfortable fit, a horrible mess, a forced effort, and a jaded response.
Six months to the day after that wedding, I met my ex-husband. I had been getting to know a truly beautiful Norwegian man at that time, who was already a friend and the sweetest guy ever, but he started talking about marriage and green cards on our very first date and that scared me quite a bit after the whole wedding bouquet thing. So when my roommate from hell set me up with her boyfriend's sad-sack friend, I thought, "Yeah, sure. At least he won't be needing to get married real soon." And with that, I canceled my next date with my beautiful Norwegian friend and scheduled a first date with the sad, lonely friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend. Three months later to the day of our first date, I realized that I was pregnant. Since I had been through an abortion a year earlier, that wasn't an option. I told him that I was continuing with the pregnancy and he just shrugged and went along with my request that he join me in the same way that I shrugged when I was asked to pick up that stupid bunch of flowers.
I never had a wedding myself, not even after getting preggos, so my only experience being in one has come from that wretched freak show that's been permanently etched into my brain. You see... instead of a wedding, my marriage vows were "I-doed" in an oh-so romantic courthouse, because after you've already given birth 3 times, a wedding seems a little anti-climactic. So yup, there we were... squeezed in between some guy from the local grocery with about 500 bounced checks needing to be stamped for collection and an underage Guatemalan couple with their interpreter/guardian who, from what I could piece together in Spanish, wanted them to be married to either start making babies or legitimize the one they already started. I'm not clear on which it was.
Three children and seven years later to the day that we met, I found out that he was having an affair with a co-worker who was 11 years older than him. He said that he had a right to be happy at last and never once apologized for his actions. I used to blame my psycho roommate for the match up, but I could just as easily blame that fucking wedding bouquet incident too.
I tend to fall into things ass-backwards, I suppose. Once upon a time, I really had stopped believing in love. My parents were having the lives that I should have been having... mom going to college and graduating, dad getting married and talking about starting a family... while I was having an abortion and floundering alone in art school. So I decided to settle for less than my ideal fit and live with the dis-ease of being misunderstood just to find some sort of pseudo-comfort in a world that seemed to leave me feeling more and more isolated.
Unfortunately, if you don't really find the right fit and decide to settle for it anyway, you're going to live in pain and have scars for a long time to come. I twisted my face into a smile on a regular basis when people asked me how life was going while I was married to that man, much the same way that I did when I was forced to wear those cruel shoes and smile for the posterity photos all day at my dad's wedding. I tried to take my mind off the pain by distracting myself for years with ideas like, "Who really is fully happy anyway?"
If you've read my blogs this past December, most of you saw that I hit a mental "RESET" button at some point there. I changed my look on life and made a conscious decision to stop wearing the wrong shoes.
I really wasn't sure if it was possible for me to find a good fit because I'm so odd in so many ways. It's not easy being kinda artsy and yet want longevity and family-related stability. The artsy guys are allergic to family stuff and the normal guys all get a little freaked by my inability to toe-the-status-quo-line. But I recently found a great fit by accident. I thought, "No, those shoes still might belong to someone else who doesn't want them right now, but who might demand them back at some point. I should wait it out." However, I realized that I was being drawn to this perfect fit in a way that I'd never been drawn to someone before now. I simply couldn't stay away.
As you've read below, I met someone who seems like he was designed for me in so many ways. The only problem is that he's not free yet to fully be with me in every sense of the word and so we must exist in our own little bubble right now. This is my luck, to get someone made-to-order, who speaks and seems to be pulling sentences straight from my own thoughts, who also comes from a failed marriage, but who still has many hurdles to jump in his own pair of cruel shoes before he can catch up to where I am.
But if he decides that the hurdles look too high or taking off those ill-fitting shoes might be too painful, and he goes back to the starting line out of some form of separation anxiety or possibly a martyr complex, then I will only have had a glimpse of what a perfect fit feels like.
Still, it does give me so much hope, regardless of the timing. It's so easy right now, so comfortable... for the first time, there's no struggle to "make it fit" or feeling of mismatched soles/souls. I wish he could just tap into my heart and experience through me how hard that really is to find... how in five years of meeting people and trying them on, only to discover mismatch after mismatch and feel yet more alienated with each passing person... and that finding such an easy fit doesn't just "happen" like that every day.
This life can be filled with so many lessons from other people, like going through a terrible relationship in order to recognize and appreciate a really good thing when it finally comes along. Walking in the wrong shoes for so many years can leave you with some impressive scars, but it can also teach you to appreciate a comfortable fit when you finally find it. Hopefully, when such a lesson is put to the test, you are able to recognize it and not let the moment get away.
All this talk about shoes and weddings as a metaphor has suddenly jarred another thought loose in my brain. The first weekend of October 2004, I was visiting Chicago to put some closure around a previous visit that had caused a big rift in my life: a very brief and steamy affair with a man whom I'd considered my ideal since my youth... an affair that ended badly on both of our parts in 2001.
It was three years later and the weekend of his wedding celebrations, which I gracefully declined to attend out of respect for his new bride's joy and comfort... and I didn't want him to feel like he needed to apologize to me in person, even though we'd already put that to rest in email form. I just know what kind of good person he is and he'd take time away from his 250 guests just to make me feel better.
Anyway, I went to Chicago to just be there in the same city at that same moment when he was moving into a new phase of his life, with my own hopes that I could feel that kind of energy... moving forward, full of hope. And amazingly, it really was palpable.
My friend and Chi-town tour guide for the weekend took me into her favorite shoe store on my first day there, which was awesome, because I'd always admired Fluevogs on other people and wondered where those stores were located. While feeling full of energy and at probably the very same moment that my former flame was saying his I-do's in front of friends and family, I cheerily walked past pair upon pair of beautifully crafted footwear.
Suddenly, I stopped in front of a pair that I simply had to have... they were bright red with a pink flame swooshing down the length of them and part of the Fluevog "Angels" sole family... imagine bowling shoes, only much, much, much cooler. And they were on sale, marked down about $50, making my heart skip a beat even more and adding to the whole "kismet" feeling. (I know, I'm a dork.)
I asked a clerk if I could try on a pair in 8 1/2 and she said, "Mmm, well, all of these that you see marked down right here are limited editions and only one of each size was made. So what you see is all that we have, which means this is the only pair left, and it's ...[pause as she picked up the shoe]... um, incredible, it's an 8 1/2 exactly." I put them on immediately and they felt like they were made for me and are still my favorite pair of shoes today, getting me compliments and comments on a regular basis.
So on the day of an ex-lover's wedding vows, and exactly 5 years from the moment that I found out of my ex-husband's affair, and 7 years from the moment that we shared our own vows in the courthouse, and exactly 12 years from the moment that he and I met... there I stood in the only size left of a limited edition pair of shoes that felt like they'd been waiting for me to find them, right there in the city of my birth no less!
There is no key to finding happiness or to unlocking the mysteries of the heart, that's why it's a mystery. But everyone knows when they see two people cut from the same cloth and how beautiful they look together... it makes you want to spend time with them in the hopes to unravel some of that mystery for yourself. I used to look at those couples that make everything look so easy and wish I could be like that one day.
It occurred to me that I've finally stopped wishing for that day. It has arrived at last.
I know that I said that I wouldn't write about my muse again and I've tried to stay as far from our current musings as I could, but just like my feelings for the man himself, I can't seem to stay away for long. In my future life, I'll talk more openly about all the things I've come to appreciate in this great fit. But for now, I'll just express it all in one syllable:
*sigh*
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
Life Is Not a Dress Rehearsal
Reason. Season. Treason. Pleasin'. Hmm. I sense a song coming on...
There's no good reason or right season to commit treason for some pleasin'.
I'm rambling. This is my "to be continued" to the I'VE BEEN GIVEN REASON entry below that you've all been waiting for and I'm rambling. I have a lot of thoughts... some are filled with mere opinion, some are filled with pure emotion, but some are also filled with solid logic and reason. I'll try to give them all attention here.
It's only been one week since I last wrote about this subject that has taken up a large part of my heart and mind... the "subject" being a certain man and his situation in life right now. I still have to speak cryptically about the details that do not involve me, because of precisely that... they do not involve me. I know to anyone else reading this, this is just a story that has them wanting more detail, but instead you'll just have to settle for the feelings rather than the facts.
The weekend brought more change. We connected again. Deeper. Our friendship has grown by leaps and bounds even though we haven't known each other for more than 10 days now. Seems so much longer.
We talked and talked and talked, all with the same ease and pleasure as our first evening together, but this time I think we both were waiting for that moment when we might kiss. And then we did.
It was natural. No, not natural. It was supernatural. There was a sense that I was kissing myself, if I could clone myself into a man. You know how rare it is to find someone that well suited to your own style. I felt myself get wetter with every touch of his hands or lips.
I suggested to him that we not go too far, because he wasn't ready for that... I think I may have suggested it twice, without insisting. I already knew we were beyond that at the moment his lips had first touched mine.
We never stopped and the clothing came off slowly, but surely. I'd made public declarations that I would not sleep with this man, I'd told friends and I'd told myself that I wouldn't... that I could and would resist.
I couldn't and I didn't.
He showed no hesitation. He is the reason why I withdrew my public declarations. He was ready and his readiness left me without doubt. I was the first new woman that he'd been with in nearly a score of years and I knew what he had to have been feeling... how different things are and how the same they are, but the twinges of guilt that you are doing it at all. I let him lead.
We talked after. All manner of things, but of course we talked about his estranged wife as well. I listened mostly... it's what I do, I listen until I feel compelled to speak my opinion.
We slept. Not very well, but we tried. And when we woke, he made us tea. We talked more. I sensed his sadness creeping in again.
We went out again two days later and drove around looking for places that were open. Everything seemed closed. It was Sunday, but still, you'd think there'd be a place to find lunch pretty easily. We did finally eat and I talked more than he did this time. I told him more and more of my stories from my five years of dating post-divorce. I don't want him to feel that I'm just playing his counselor. I want him to know me and I want to be his friend.
At that point, we'd only known each other for exactly one week. Perhaps it's because we feel so natural together that it makes it difficult for us to believe how little time we've actually spent together.
We went back to my house this time and made love again... and again, I have to call it supernatural... or "spiritual" as he later called it. I knew by the intensity of my own experience that afterward it would probably open some floodgates of emotions. I tried to talk about sex as a distraction, but I could tell he was thinking about his emotions.
I reached over and held him and let him mourn. It made me want to cry with him, but I held back so that I could just be there for him. I kissed his tears and wished I could take away the pain, but I can't.
I worry now about writing of this moment, because I simply cannot find words to do it justice. I've been accused of being cold or uncomfortable with intense emotions by others in the past. But with this man, I feel that I have to reach out to him... it feels natural and so easy with him. Maybe because he is me in so many ways. He holds his emotions in and only lets them slip out when it's safe. His exterior shows a quiet, stoic man... but with my X-ray vision I see a crushed, shattered soul trapped inside.
I understand.
I feel that I give him small moments of safety, where he can be himself and express himself without judgment. I hope he feels that I do this for him, because that's all I want for him... to be able to find his own self-expression again. I have no other motivation.
He worries that he's reaping all the rewards of this scenario, that he gets to work out his troubles and his pain while being able to offer me nothing, not even a promise of any future, in return.
He doesn't know that I am gaining so much from this. I've been unable to reach out for probably 13 years now. I walled myself into an internal cocoon that protected me from the crushing pain of the world outside. As a result, I never connected to anyone else. I was told by people that I was "a tough read" and "hard to get to know" even after I thought I had been open and bared my soul. It hurt hearing them tell me that, but I didn't know how to fix it or reach out at all.
I've never found emotions easy, but there was a time when I could love openly and did so rather well. It was before my marriage and I cut that part of me off probably when I decided to have an abortion at the age of 21.
I stopped writing about myself back then too. I used to keep a journal and filled it with my nightly dreams as well as my hopes for the future. Then after the abortion, I wrote my last entry that said simply to the matter of, "I had an abortion yesterday. What a strange thing to say." After that, silence and empty pages. I just walled up the feelings and created a dam so strong that it took more than a decade to dismantle.
If I ever find that last journal of mine lying around here somewhere, I may post the entries. You'll see, it's so obvious to me now. I fortified that damn cocoon of mine by then getting involved and having kids with a man completely incapable of expressing any emotion other than anger or fear. He most certainly has Asperger's Syndrome (mild autism), but that is really no excuse for the levels of disrespect that he gave me. And I took it all, because I was so cut off from my real feelings that I couldn't even tell when I was being hurt anymore. I was one of the walking wounded.
It's true. I was suffering from post-traumatic stress and walking around completely unaware of the internal injuries, making excuses and rationalizations for my situation that were being fed to me by the person doing the most damage to me at the time: my then husband. I think of the state of mind as being similar to Stockholm Syndrome.
Strike that. Take two: responsibility. I was the person doing the most damage to me. I built the impenetrable dam. I lost many years of happiness thanks to living that way... I've lost a few years since ending that just trying to tear down the figurative walls.
Inside my literal walls, I live in a house in which every room is under construction. It's been this way since shortly after my ex-husband and I moved in 9 years ago... 9 years this February 1st.
Nine years. Nearly a decade of disrepair.
About 3 months ago, I was supposed to head downtown for some meeting that I was required to attend, but before doing so, I sat down on my couch in my living room to have a cup of tea. The tv was off and in the reflection of the black screen I could see me sitting there, framed on either side by two doorways that are still under construction. I then looked around my house with my eyes fully aware and I began to cry.
I talk a lot lately about crying in these blogs, yet I'm really not as depressed as this would represent me to be... not anymore. But I do feel things very deeply, which is why I had to build that dam back in 1992. When I cried three months ago, it was because I realized that my interior rooms of my soul were just like my house... left unfinished for years and untended.
I sat motionless on that couch with the tea in my hands for 4 hours... the tea long gone cold... the meeting that I was supposed to attend was over... and there I sat. "The long, dark tea-time of the soul," indeed. Actually, I'd come to be reminded of Great Expectations. How did I become Miss Havisham? An imprisoned state of mind. A prison of my own making.
That sentence had created a somnambulist -- catatonic and unresponsive for one-third of my adult life.
Not anymore. I've felt the last bits of the cocoon breaking away this past year and now suddenly as I stand poised to take flight without a clue where to go, a man comes along and he's exactly where I was. "I can help if you let me!" I call out, hoping he can really hear me.
I want to change my prison into something else. Gone are the blockades and the cobwebs and the fear... up comes a new state of mind. It's not a prison if you put yourself there in the first place and hold the key in your hand.
Shift. Change. Switch. New point-of-view. New perspective. Open the gate and suddenly the safety of your prison becomes a quiet oasis.
We were together again last night. No tears this time, just discussion of things again, sprinkled with momentary bliss. I may not yet have the lush oasis that I've imagined, but it's growing. And by comparison to where this man is right now after walking towards a mirage for the last decade or so, my little safe haven is a very real oasis. As far as I'm concerned, he can stay and drink from it as long as he wishes. I enjoy the company.
And more than that, I enjoy feeling deeply again.
Post-Script:
This will be my last entry on this subject that has been the muse for such eloquent prose. The subject matter is far too deep and complex to present in such a flippant forum. I shall keep the rest of this experience close to the breast until further notice. Back to more trivial blogging pursuits, I go... at least for the nonce!
Post-Post-Script:
Regardless of my secrecy, I still appreciate your feedback.
--She...
There's no good reason or right season to commit treason for some pleasin'.
I'm rambling. This is my "to be continued" to the I'VE BEEN GIVEN REASON entry below that you've all been waiting for and I'm rambling. I have a lot of thoughts... some are filled with mere opinion, some are filled with pure emotion, but some are also filled with solid logic and reason. I'll try to give them all attention here.
It's only been one week since I last wrote about this subject that has taken up a large part of my heart and mind... the "subject" being a certain man and his situation in life right now. I still have to speak cryptically about the details that do not involve me, because of precisely that... they do not involve me. I know to anyone else reading this, this is just a story that has them wanting more detail, but instead you'll just have to settle for the feelings rather than the facts.
The weekend brought more change. We connected again. Deeper. Our friendship has grown by leaps and bounds even though we haven't known each other for more than 10 days now. Seems so much longer.
We talked and talked and talked, all with the same ease and pleasure as our first evening together, but this time I think we both were waiting for that moment when we might kiss. And then we did.
It was natural. No, not natural. It was supernatural. There was a sense that I was kissing myself, if I could clone myself into a man. You know how rare it is to find someone that well suited to your own style. I felt myself get wetter with every touch of his hands or lips.
I suggested to him that we not go too far, because he wasn't ready for that... I think I may have suggested it twice, without insisting. I already knew we were beyond that at the moment his lips had first touched mine.
We never stopped and the clothing came off slowly, but surely. I'd made public declarations that I would not sleep with this man, I'd told friends and I'd told myself that I wouldn't... that I could and would resist.
I couldn't and I didn't.
He showed no hesitation. He is the reason why I withdrew my public declarations. He was ready and his readiness left me without doubt. I was the first new woman that he'd been with in nearly a score of years and I knew what he had to have been feeling... how different things are and how the same they are, but the twinges of guilt that you are doing it at all. I let him lead.
We talked after. All manner of things, but of course we talked about his estranged wife as well. I listened mostly... it's what I do, I listen until I feel compelled to speak my opinion.
We slept. Not very well, but we tried. And when we woke, he made us tea. We talked more. I sensed his sadness creeping in again.
We went out again two days later and drove around looking for places that were open. Everything seemed closed. It was Sunday, but still, you'd think there'd be a place to find lunch pretty easily. We did finally eat and I talked more than he did this time. I told him more and more of my stories from my five years of dating post-divorce. I don't want him to feel that I'm just playing his counselor. I want him to know me and I want to be his friend.
At that point, we'd only known each other for exactly one week. Perhaps it's because we feel so natural together that it makes it difficult for us to believe how little time we've actually spent together.
We went back to my house this time and made love again... and again, I have to call it supernatural... or "spiritual" as he later called it. I knew by the intensity of my own experience that afterward it would probably open some floodgates of emotions. I tried to talk about sex as a distraction, but I could tell he was thinking about his emotions.
I reached over and held him and let him mourn. It made me want to cry with him, but I held back so that I could just be there for him. I kissed his tears and wished I could take away the pain, but I can't.
I worry now about writing of this moment, because I simply cannot find words to do it justice. I've been accused of being cold or uncomfortable with intense emotions by others in the past. But with this man, I feel that I have to reach out to him... it feels natural and so easy with him. Maybe because he is me in so many ways. He holds his emotions in and only lets them slip out when it's safe. His exterior shows a quiet, stoic man... but with my X-ray vision I see a crushed, shattered soul trapped inside.
I understand.
I feel that I give him small moments of safety, where he can be himself and express himself without judgment. I hope he feels that I do this for him, because that's all I want for him... to be able to find his own self-expression again. I have no other motivation.
He worries that he's reaping all the rewards of this scenario, that he gets to work out his troubles and his pain while being able to offer me nothing, not even a promise of any future, in return.
He doesn't know that I am gaining so much from this. I've been unable to reach out for probably 13 years now. I walled myself into an internal cocoon that protected me from the crushing pain of the world outside. As a result, I never connected to anyone else. I was told by people that I was "a tough read" and "hard to get to know" even after I thought I had been open and bared my soul. It hurt hearing them tell me that, but I didn't know how to fix it or reach out at all.
I've never found emotions easy, but there was a time when I could love openly and did so rather well. It was before my marriage and I cut that part of me off probably when I decided to have an abortion at the age of 21.
I stopped writing about myself back then too. I used to keep a journal and filled it with my nightly dreams as well as my hopes for the future. Then after the abortion, I wrote my last entry that said simply to the matter of, "I had an abortion yesterday. What a strange thing to say." After that, silence and empty pages. I just walled up the feelings and created a dam so strong that it took more than a decade to dismantle.
If I ever find that last journal of mine lying around here somewhere, I may post the entries. You'll see, it's so obvious to me now. I fortified that damn cocoon of mine by then getting involved and having kids with a man completely incapable of expressing any emotion other than anger or fear. He most certainly has Asperger's Syndrome (mild autism), but that is really no excuse for the levels of disrespect that he gave me. And I took it all, because I was so cut off from my real feelings that I couldn't even tell when I was being hurt anymore. I was one of the walking wounded.
It's true. I was suffering from post-traumatic stress and walking around completely unaware of the internal injuries, making excuses and rationalizations for my situation that were being fed to me by the person doing the most damage to me at the time: my then husband. I think of the state of mind as being similar to Stockholm Syndrome.
Strike that. Take two: responsibility. I was the person doing the most damage to me. I built the impenetrable dam. I lost many years of happiness thanks to living that way... I've lost a few years since ending that just trying to tear down the figurative walls.
Inside my literal walls, I live in a house in which every room is under construction. It's been this way since shortly after my ex-husband and I moved in 9 years ago... 9 years this February 1st.
Nine years. Nearly a decade of disrepair.
About 3 months ago, I was supposed to head downtown for some meeting that I was required to attend, but before doing so, I sat down on my couch in my living room to have a cup of tea. The tv was off and in the reflection of the black screen I could see me sitting there, framed on either side by two doorways that are still under construction. I then looked around my house with my eyes fully aware and I began to cry.
I talk a lot lately about crying in these blogs, yet I'm really not as depressed as this would represent me to be... not anymore. But I do feel things very deeply, which is why I had to build that dam back in 1992. When I cried three months ago, it was because I realized that my interior rooms of my soul were just like my house... left unfinished for years and untended.
I sat motionless on that couch with the tea in my hands for 4 hours... the tea long gone cold... the meeting that I was supposed to attend was over... and there I sat. "The long, dark tea-time of the soul," indeed. Actually, I'd come to be reminded of Great Expectations. How did I become Miss Havisham? An imprisoned state of mind. A prison of my own making.
That sentence had created a somnambulist -- catatonic and unresponsive for one-third of my adult life.
Not anymore. I've felt the last bits of the cocoon breaking away this past year and now suddenly as I stand poised to take flight without a clue where to go, a man comes along and he's exactly where I was. "I can help if you let me!" I call out, hoping he can really hear me.
I want to change my prison into something else. Gone are the blockades and the cobwebs and the fear... up comes a new state of mind. It's not a prison if you put yourself there in the first place and hold the key in your hand.
Shift. Change. Switch. New point-of-view. New perspective. Open the gate and suddenly the safety of your prison becomes a quiet oasis.
We were together again last night. No tears this time, just discussion of things again, sprinkled with momentary bliss. I may not yet have the lush oasis that I've imagined, but it's growing. And by comparison to where this man is right now after walking towards a mirage for the last decade or so, my little safe haven is a very real oasis. As far as I'm concerned, he can stay and drink from it as long as he wishes. I enjoy the company.
And more than that, I enjoy feeling deeply again.
Post-Script:
This will be my last entry on this subject that has been the muse for such eloquent prose. The subject matter is far too deep and complex to present in such a flippant forum. I shall keep the rest of this experience close to the breast until further notice. Back to more trivial blogging pursuits, I go... at least for the nonce!
Post-Post-Script:
Regardless of my secrecy, I still appreciate your feedback.
--She...
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
I've Been Given Reason
I've been quiet for a few days... I've been thinking...
Everyone who comes into our lives changes us in some way, whether profound or subtle, there is change. You can even break this down to a chemical level and say that when a person has a new thought, electrical impulses shoot through the brain, causing a new chemical reaction to store that thought in short term memory, later to possibly be processed into long term memory while we sleep or else meshed into other similar experiences in a less accessible area.
That's the technical way of looking at it. In a metaphysical sense, everyone comes into our lives for a reason. You've heard that before, but who can argue against it? We see it happening all the time, as people's lives are changed, enhanced, or affected in some way or another (better/worse) by another person.
Usually these effects are too subtle to notice. We're too busy in our day-to-day grind to really have time to notice all the minute signs of change occurring within and around us... unless it's something huge, like a new Super Wal-Mart going up just around the corner.
Where are these thoughts leading, you wonder? Well, I'm about to do something I rarely do: write about someone I only just met.
I don't do this because it usually takes me a while of getting to know someone to finally be inspired to write about them in blog form... and that is usually after my relationship to them has run its course. This is a new turn for me, but I feel that I must write about this now because I was profoundly affected by someone in a span of just a few short hours this past Sunday.
Despite my ability to speak freely in digital form, it usually takes me quite a while to know how I feel about someone after I meet them in person, and some of those people make great stories because of their quirks. Add to that equation the fact that if I do meet someone I'm truly attracted to, I usually clam up and appear to not like them because of my damned shyness. If I am truly intrigued by you, I am not the cyber slut you've read about in these pages... instead, I'm quiet and quite proper.
Is this a Jekyll and Hyde persona thing? A bit, yes. My true self is painfully shy, but I've taught myself to be social... trained myself in various ways, whether assisted through social lubricants or just relying upon acting classes or cognitive training.
On a few, very rare occasions in my painfully shy past though, I've encountered people who made me flee out of fear that I would do or say something so embarrassing that I'd never be able to show my face again. These lucky souls usually think that I hate them, when in fact I was actually attracted to them to a degree that I became mute. I can count these number of people (all men, of course) on one hand: three.
The funny thing is that I later befriended two of them. I never dated either of these men, but I feel a deep kinship to both of them that goes beyond the physical and I'm thankful for their friendship. Dating them would never have worked, as they were both men who could not be tied down by a woman with children, and that's okay. They're both good people and I consider myself blessed to call either of them "friend."
Until now, I thought these men were the only two that existed. But I've just recalled the third man. I'll get to that story shortly.
On to this Sunday: I re-upped on that dating site mentioned previously as "snatch rot bomb" due to a glitch in their system. Despite my deleting my profile from their system a few weeks back, I received some alerts that I had brand new messages there last Thursday. So I signed in again to see what this was all about and it turned out to be a mirage. There were no messages at all. I didn't realize that just signing in would reactivate an account, however, and so I signed out that night unaware.
By late the next day, I was getting a couple of new "winks" and messages, so I thought I might go delete myself from there again, but not before I got another message from a man with whom I had "winked" back and forth with weeks earlier and he'd then sent me a message, to which I couldn't respond because I refused to pay for membership there.
His new message subject line stated that I'd just "re-winked" at him. This was impossible, because you can't do that twice in one month's time and because I hadn't actually done that at all this time. It was yet another glitch in the system. I felt compelled to write to him and tell him about this glitch, so I did something that I'd never done in the history of my online dating experience: I paid for membership at "snatch rot bomb."
It was New Years Eve and I wrote him to befriend him, but that's all. His profile said he's currently separated, and I simply don't interfere with married men. But I guess befriending one is interfering, isn't it smarty pants? Yes, I know. Aaaaaanyway, I gave him my direct email info in case he wanted to have a new friend and we both live in the same circle of suburban hell, so I figured that we could commiserate together on the crap of divorce or what have you.
I immediately left for an exciting night of time spent at my mother's house for New Year's Eve... she bought me green apple martini mix and vodka. So about 6 hours and 5 martinis later, I returned home at the oh-so late time of 12:30. Yeah, woohoo! Party girl here! I thought it would be a good time to ethernet my 4 home computers together, despite the fact that (1) I was tipsy and (2) I don't know how to do that while sober.
I also thought that since I was now home, it would be a good idea to first guzzle the 2 small bottles of crappy Spumanti down that my mom let me take home. After those were in my gullet, I then had the good idea to write yet another message to the cupid-glitch-match man and give him my cell phone number. I never do that sober or drunk anywhere, yet I did it that night anyway. I hadn't even heard back from him yet, but there I was doling out my digits.
By Sunday I was sure that my second drunken email to the man had scared him away, since I hadn't heard from him yet, so for some reason I was compelled to send a third email apologizing for showing any signs of foot-in-mouth disease before. I usually have better patience than that, but I really wanted to talk to this guy... and his message to me had said that he reeeeeaaaaalllly wanted to talk to me too. Really.
Little did I know that while I was off dealing with the chitlins here in other parts of the house, he emailed me at last and apologized for the delay that came because of the holidays. I never saw those emails: one to my direct email account and one reply to my "snatch rot bomb" profile.
At around 3:30, my cell phone rang with a number I didn't recognize. Usually, I let those go to voicemail, but I'd hoped it might be this mysterious guy I'd been waiting to hear back from and... it was indeed.
At this point, I'd like to say how glad I was to hear his accent... or rather, to not hear any form of an accent that sounded like I was getting a call from Gomer Pyle. I cannot tell you how many times that I've met or talked to people who sound like the twangiest twangers to ever live in the Bible Belt and my "inability to relate" barrier instantly goes up. Alabama accents are the worst. Shut up, y'all know it's true.
My mystery man turned out to be a Brit and I couldn't have been more pleasantly surprised... like the first musical notes heard to a deaf ear after a cochlear implant.
In less than an hour of conversation, I knew I had to meet this guy. We discovered that both of our now 11 year old sons had attended the same day care center and had been in the same 1-year-old room a decade earlier. And that wasn't the end of the crossovers.
The details of why he was separated now mirrored the details of my divorce 5 years ago in a way that was eerily similar. I felt an instant kinship with him... and here I'd jokingly said in my first email to him:
"As for you and your sitch, I know that when I winked the first time I thought, "Wow, cute guy... too bad he's gonna be a head case for a while thanks to the impending divorce." I say that with all warmth and sympathy though, as I know first hand what it takes to get over a failed marriage... and you're still only in the separation stage. You've got MILES and MILES ahead of you on the recovery path, my friend. I hope for your sake that it isn't a vicious one like mine was. I'm now exactly 5 years post-divorce and I'm FINALLY ready to have a real relationship after all this time.
My ex, however, started dating someone right off the bat and has been married to ex.2 (as I lovingly call her) ever since.
Regardless of any baggage, you do seem like a swell guy, and we're here in the same town and seem to like a lot of the same things... it couldn't hurt to have a fellow pal who can commiserate with you and know where you've been, right? Plus, I have 2 boys as well (11 and 9) and a girl (7)... maybe both of our oldests know each other already. That would be funny."
I said all that with nothing at all to go on and days before I found out how true that might be. Uncanny, I tell you. Simply uncanny.
He asked me to meet him and I looked at my schedule: I was free that night, which is a miracle in and of itself. It was like everything just lined up for me to be prepared to meet him... my ex had even scheduled in advance for taking the kids out for dinner that night... something he hardly ever does on a Sunday night.
We agreed on one location (Thai) but reconsidered due to high costs, so changed the plan to right down the way from there (Mexican). I arrived first, just before 7pm, and the place was closed for the holidays! It took him a few minutes more and then he walked up.
Now you're all used to me commenting on people's drastic difference between how they represent themselves online and actually look in person. Not this time, people. He looked exactly like his photo and description and I probably could have picked him out of a crowded room.
We wound up having to walk over to the Thai place because they were at least open. Dinner went well. It was so easy to talk to him, though I'll admit that when I looked directly into his eyes, I'd get some butterflies. But I'd stated before we went out that this was a NON-date... I would pay my own way, we would only be hanging out as new friends... all because he's in no position to be dating at the moment. I could hear it in his voice over the phone and wasn't at all surprised to see him still wearing his wedding band when he arrived.
Still, despite my attempt to label it as a NON-date, it felt like one anyway.
But before you readers get your hopes up for some smut here, there was absolutely none that. Stop reading now if that's all you're waiting for.
Dinner didn't seem like enough time, so we walked over to Starbucks to continue talking. The conversation flowed really effortlessly. We talked about everything and anything... our marriages came up a bit, so did our kids, but we also briefly discussed science, religion, politics, movies, our parents, and all the details in-between.
Yet another weird coincidence: his father is a scientist (entomologist) and his mother took nursing courses before she started raising her children; my mother's career is a nurse and my father has a degree in biology, taught science at the h.s. level for a while, now is a laboratory equipment salesman. His family moved around frequently due to his dad's career; so did mine... although, admittedly, his father's career was far more interesting than my father's and they lived in far off places all over the globe, while I lived in suburban places all over the States.
We didn't even realize that 10pm had rolled around and they were closing the place and needing us to leave. Neither of us were ready for the NON-date to end, but here in Larryville on a Sunday night, the only thing left is the movie theater. He agreed, I called for times, and BINGO... next one started in just 5 minutes, so we zipped over in my minivan... we had our choice of two, his or mine.
I took him to see CLOSER. Yes, I'd seen it already, but it's a damn good movie and something that I knew he really needed to see... if only just to feel connected to something else because of what was happening in his life right now. I was apprehensive though. Movies can unlock some floodgates, like LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL did for me back in early 1999. Again, don't laugh. There was an element that touched a chord in me that resonated so deeply at that moment in time, I sobbed for the last hour or so of the movie and for 2 hours afterward.
I also recalled moments for me during the darkest and last months of my marriage when acquaintances said something that impacted me in a way that it was like a light bulb turning on for me at last. Actually, those comments were more like a lighthouse in the distance... with me adrift out at sea and not knowing where the shoreline could be.
Shit, there's that torch/looking out to sea analogy that came out in the German date. Dammit, maybe he was right in saying that he was actually me in this dream. Sorry, I'm digressing again.
Back to this past Sunday night. I felt the whole time that I was with him that I already knew him. When I looked at his face, I could see the sadness that he was hiding just behind the smiles... the way that I did 5 years ago. I was looking at him and seeing myself and wishing I could let him change positions with me for a brief moment so that he could see his current self from years down the road.
But I can't do that. All I can do is be a lighthouse for him, but he has to decide which direction he's going to steer the ship.
During the course of our evening, I also realized that I did in fact remember his son from the daycare center a decade earlier and that I could picture him as well, but for some reason I felt that we had some interaction... I was picturing the space and look of the moment, but not the words or the details.
Anyway, I brought him back to his car and we chatted a bit more about his situation. I told him a few more things that I haven't admitted to anyone else in 5 years, because who would've understood. I knew he would though.
Before he got out, he sweetly asked if he could just kiss my cheek. Of course I agreed, and I actually felt myself blush as he did it. I've done things on other first actual dates that could've made a call girl blush, but this sweet peck on the cheek actually made me a little dizzy.
As I drove away with no music on, only my thoughts and still blushing from the moment, that's when it hit me... our interaction a decade earlier. He was the third man.
I was in the Toddler I observatory/coat room where you could stand behind a two-way mirror and watch the goings on in the classroom. I don't know what I was watching, maybe they were just napping, and that's when HE walked into the room... perhaps to pick up his son. He stopped to look in the classroom too and he spoke to me. It was brief and friendly, I don't even remember the words at all now, probably just "which one is yours?" But I remember vividly what happened with me physically: I froze and became mute and blushed bright red. I know I got out of there quickly then, because even though the room was darkened, I was sure he'd see how red I'd turned.
I remember feeling not only the usual embarrassment of this thing, but also upset with myself for feeling that kind of intense and instant attraction for another man while I was married. I had to avoid him at all cost from then on out of fear that my secret would get discovered. I had no way to turn this feeling off once it happened like that, but I certainly could keep it at bay by running away from it.
Five years later, my husband didn't give me the same kind of courtesy. In his moment, he ran with it and began an affair with a co-worker. The movie CLOSER has a line about that moment where you have a choice... and it's really a long moment when you think about it... the initial attraction, the decision to get closer to that person, the decision to cross that line into intimacy or not... there's a place to stop anywhere before that. What allows us to overcome an urge? Strength of character, that's what. Integrity. Respect. Loyalty. Pick one. They all work.
When I got home that night from the NON-date, I began to cry. Not for myself, but for this man that I just met. For the place he's been forced into right now... for the decisions about his future that will affect him and his children... and for how unfair all of that is, really.
And tonight I found myself having a cry again. What's wrong with me, I wondered? Empathy, that's what. I felt connected to this man in just the span of 9 hours of getting to know each other. I feel intrinsically connected to him now and though I don't want to have any influence over his decisions right now, the fact that he knows me is changing him. Anything I say or do is changing him now.
What I blurted out earlier tonight in IM to my bestest gal pal Nadine maybe sums it up best:
"I honestly don't know how anyone forms lasting relationships anymore.
There are too many choices, too many reasons to keep from committing to any decision at all.
Nothing seems grounded to me anymore.
I feel like a dot on a gigantic grid... just one of many hundreds of thousands like me in my quadrant...
and then suddenly, for the first time in years and years... decades possibly... I could look at this man and see myself so easily and yet he's just out of reach and still lost... it all comes to that one moment, where I could be filled with so much compassion for one person that I just met that it makes my eyes well up...
...to see the pain he's hiding right behind the mask of a smile that he's using to "get by" in his daily life... trying to hide the pain of his confusion and loneliness... trying to keep people who already know what's going on from coming up and saying in that patronizing tone, "Are you doing okay today?"
He didn't have to tell me any of it. I just saw it all there.
And when I came home from our non-date that night, I cried for him. I couldn't help it. I know exactly where he is because I've been there.
And then the thought hit me that that might be the closest I get to truly feeling connected to another person ever.
So as I sat here tonight looking at all these women who "snatch rot bomb" says are "like me"... reading their profiles and seeing that yes, in fact, they are just variations of me... I realized that I might be the only person who sees this grid for what it is.
And that everyone else is playing that game without seeing the grid at all and never understanding why they're not connecting... because if they can't see the grid, they can't step off of it either... or won't, whichever.
And I think of this man, who is standing on the precipice of either going back to what he knows, or falling headlong into this grid that I've been on for 5 years and fading into disillusionment like the rest of us... and I see myself 5 years ago and sometimes I wonder if I could talk to me then, would I tell me to turn back?"
Last week, the answer would have been "perhaps." But all that changed this Sunday, when I realized by meeting this new person what all these past 5 years have been for: so that I can just be here in this moment to understand him. If that's all that it's been for, then it's been worth it. And if that's all there is beyond it, so be it. I would not tell me to turn back.
Everyone comes into your life for a reason, and usually right at that moment that you needed them to step in. The obvious would be to say that he needed to befriend someone like me right now, someone who's been there. But the less obvious would be that I needed to befriend someone like him... someone who is holding a mirror up and showing me where I came from at a time when I'm feeling jaded about where I am now.
Everything makes sense right now. Perhaps there really is a grander method to the madness after all.
Everyone who comes into our lives changes us in some way, whether profound or subtle, there is change. You can even break this down to a chemical level and say that when a person has a new thought, electrical impulses shoot through the brain, causing a new chemical reaction to store that thought in short term memory, later to possibly be processed into long term memory while we sleep or else meshed into other similar experiences in a less accessible area.
That's the technical way of looking at it. In a metaphysical sense, everyone comes into our lives for a reason. You've heard that before, but who can argue against it? We see it happening all the time, as people's lives are changed, enhanced, or affected in some way or another (better/worse) by another person.
Usually these effects are too subtle to notice. We're too busy in our day-to-day grind to really have time to notice all the minute signs of change occurring within and around us... unless it's something huge, like a new Super Wal-Mart going up just around the corner.
Where are these thoughts leading, you wonder? Well, I'm about to do something I rarely do: write about someone I only just met.
I don't do this because it usually takes me a while of getting to know someone to finally be inspired to write about them in blog form... and that is usually after my relationship to them has run its course. This is a new turn for me, but I feel that I must write about this now because I was profoundly affected by someone in a span of just a few short hours this past Sunday.
Despite my ability to speak freely in digital form, it usually takes me quite a while to know how I feel about someone after I meet them in person, and some of those people make great stories because of their quirks. Add to that equation the fact that if I do meet someone I'm truly attracted to, I usually clam up and appear to not like them because of my damned shyness. If I am truly intrigued by you, I am not the cyber slut you've read about in these pages... instead, I'm quiet and quite proper.
Is this a Jekyll and Hyde persona thing? A bit, yes. My true self is painfully shy, but I've taught myself to be social... trained myself in various ways, whether assisted through social lubricants or just relying upon acting classes or cognitive training.
On a few, very rare occasions in my painfully shy past though, I've encountered people who made me flee out of fear that I would do or say something so embarrassing that I'd never be able to show my face again. These lucky souls usually think that I hate them, when in fact I was actually attracted to them to a degree that I became mute. I can count these number of people (all men, of course) on one hand: three.
The funny thing is that I later befriended two of them. I never dated either of these men, but I feel a deep kinship to both of them that goes beyond the physical and I'm thankful for their friendship. Dating them would never have worked, as they were both men who could not be tied down by a woman with children, and that's okay. They're both good people and I consider myself blessed to call either of them "friend."
Until now, I thought these men were the only two that existed. But I've just recalled the third man. I'll get to that story shortly.
On to this Sunday: I re-upped on that dating site mentioned previously as "snatch rot bomb" due to a glitch in their system. Despite my deleting my profile from their system a few weeks back, I received some alerts that I had brand new messages there last Thursday. So I signed in again to see what this was all about and it turned out to be a mirage. There were no messages at all. I didn't realize that just signing in would reactivate an account, however, and so I signed out that night unaware.
By late the next day, I was getting a couple of new "winks" and messages, so I thought I might go delete myself from there again, but not before I got another message from a man with whom I had "winked" back and forth with weeks earlier and he'd then sent me a message, to which I couldn't respond because I refused to pay for membership there.
His new message subject line stated that I'd just "re-winked" at him. This was impossible, because you can't do that twice in one month's time and because I hadn't actually done that at all this time. It was yet another glitch in the system. I felt compelled to write to him and tell him about this glitch, so I did something that I'd never done in the history of my online dating experience: I paid for membership at "snatch rot bomb."
It was New Years Eve and I wrote him to befriend him, but that's all. His profile said he's currently separated, and I simply don't interfere with married men. But I guess befriending one is interfering, isn't it smarty pants? Yes, I know. Aaaaaanyway, I gave him my direct email info in case he wanted to have a new friend and we both live in the same circle of suburban hell, so I figured that we could commiserate together on the crap of divorce or what have you.
I immediately left for an exciting night of time spent at my mother's house for New Year's Eve... she bought me green apple martini mix and vodka. So about 6 hours and 5 martinis later, I returned home at the oh-so late time of 12:30. Yeah, woohoo! Party girl here! I thought it would be a good time to ethernet my 4 home computers together, despite the fact that (1) I was tipsy and (2) I don't know how to do that while sober.
I also thought that since I was now home, it would be a good idea to first guzzle the 2 small bottles of crappy Spumanti down that my mom let me take home. After those were in my gullet, I then had the good idea to write yet another message to the cupid-glitch-match man and give him my cell phone number. I never do that sober or drunk anywhere, yet I did it that night anyway. I hadn't even heard back from him yet, but there I was doling out my digits.
By Sunday I was sure that my second drunken email to the man had scared him away, since I hadn't heard from him yet, so for some reason I was compelled to send a third email apologizing for showing any signs of foot-in-mouth disease before. I usually have better patience than that, but I really wanted to talk to this guy... and his message to me had said that he reeeeeaaaaalllly wanted to talk to me too. Really.
Little did I know that while I was off dealing with the chitlins here in other parts of the house, he emailed me at last and apologized for the delay that came because of the holidays. I never saw those emails: one to my direct email account and one reply to my "snatch rot bomb" profile.
At around 3:30, my cell phone rang with a number I didn't recognize. Usually, I let those go to voicemail, but I'd hoped it might be this mysterious guy I'd been waiting to hear back from and... it was indeed.
At this point, I'd like to say how glad I was to hear his accent... or rather, to not hear any form of an accent that sounded like I was getting a call from Gomer Pyle. I cannot tell you how many times that I've met or talked to people who sound like the twangiest twangers to ever live in the Bible Belt and my "inability to relate" barrier instantly goes up. Alabama accents are the worst. Shut up, y'all know it's true.
My mystery man turned out to be a Brit and I couldn't have been more pleasantly surprised... like the first musical notes heard to a deaf ear after a cochlear implant.
In less than an hour of conversation, I knew I had to meet this guy. We discovered that both of our now 11 year old sons had attended the same day care center and had been in the same 1-year-old room a decade earlier. And that wasn't the end of the crossovers.
The details of why he was separated now mirrored the details of my divorce 5 years ago in a way that was eerily similar. I felt an instant kinship with him... and here I'd jokingly said in my first email to him:
"As for you and your sitch, I know that when I winked the first time I thought, "Wow, cute guy... too bad he's gonna be a head case for a while thanks to the impending divorce." I say that with all warmth and sympathy though, as I know first hand what it takes to get over a failed marriage... and you're still only in the separation stage. You've got MILES and MILES ahead of you on the recovery path, my friend. I hope for your sake that it isn't a vicious one like mine was. I'm now exactly 5 years post-divorce and I'm FINALLY ready to have a real relationship after all this time.
My ex, however, started dating someone right off the bat and has been married to ex.2 (as I lovingly call her) ever since.
Regardless of any baggage, you do seem like a swell guy, and we're here in the same town and seem to like a lot of the same things... it couldn't hurt to have a fellow pal who can commiserate with you and know where you've been, right? Plus, I have 2 boys as well (11 and 9) and a girl (7)... maybe both of our oldests know each other already. That would be funny."
I said all that with nothing at all to go on and days before I found out how true that might be. Uncanny, I tell you. Simply uncanny.
He asked me to meet him and I looked at my schedule: I was free that night, which is a miracle in and of itself. It was like everything just lined up for me to be prepared to meet him... my ex had even scheduled in advance for taking the kids out for dinner that night... something he hardly ever does on a Sunday night.
We agreed on one location (Thai) but reconsidered due to high costs, so changed the plan to right down the way from there (Mexican). I arrived first, just before 7pm, and the place was closed for the holidays! It took him a few minutes more and then he walked up.
Now you're all used to me commenting on people's drastic difference between how they represent themselves online and actually look in person. Not this time, people. He looked exactly like his photo and description and I probably could have picked him out of a crowded room.
We wound up having to walk over to the Thai place because they were at least open. Dinner went well. It was so easy to talk to him, though I'll admit that when I looked directly into his eyes, I'd get some butterflies. But I'd stated before we went out that this was a NON-date... I would pay my own way, we would only be hanging out as new friends... all because he's in no position to be dating at the moment. I could hear it in his voice over the phone and wasn't at all surprised to see him still wearing his wedding band when he arrived.
Still, despite my attempt to label it as a NON-date, it felt like one anyway.
But before you readers get your hopes up for some smut here, there was absolutely none that. Stop reading now if that's all you're waiting for.
Dinner didn't seem like enough time, so we walked over to Starbucks to continue talking. The conversation flowed really effortlessly. We talked about everything and anything... our marriages came up a bit, so did our kids, but we also briefly discussed science, religion, politics, movies, our parents, and all the details in-between.
Yet another weird coincidence: his father is a scientist (entomologist) and his mother took nursing courses before she started raising her children; my mother's career is a nurse and my father has a degree in biology, taught science at the h.s. level for a while, now is a laboratory equipment salesman. His family moved around frequently due to his dad's career; so did mine... although, admittedly, his father's career was far more interesting than my father's and they lived in far off places all over the globe, while I lived in suburban places all over the States.
We didn't even realize that 10pm had rolled around and they were closing the place and needing us to leave. Neither of us were ready for the NON-date to end, but here in Larryville on a Sunday night, the only thing left is the movie theater. He agreed, I called for times, and BINGO... next one started in just 5 minutes, so we zipped over in my minivan... we had our choice of two, his or mine.
I took him to see CLOSER. Yes, I'd seen it already, but it's a damn good movie and something that I knew he really needed to see... if only just to feel connected to something else because of what was happening in his life right now. I was apprehensive though. Movies can unlock some floodgates, like LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL did for me back in early 1999. Again, don't laugh. There was an element that touched a chord in me that resonated so deeply at that moment in time, I sobbed for the last hour or so of the movie and for 2 hours afterward.
I also recalled moments for me during the darkest and last months of my marriage when acquaintances said something that impacted me in a way that it was like a light bulb turning on for me at last. Actually, those comments were more like a lighthouse in the distance... with me adrift out at sea and not knowing where the shoreline could be.
Shit, there's that torch/looking out to sea analogy that came out in the German date. Dammit, maybe he was right in saying that he was actually me in this dream. Sorry, I'm digressing again.
Back to this past Sunday night. I felt the whole time that I was with him that I already knew him. When I looked at his face, I could see the sadness that he was hiding just behind the smiles... the way that I did 5 years ago. I was looking at him and seeing myself and wishing I could let him change positions with me for a brief moment so that he could see his current self from years down the road.
But I can't do that. All I can do is be a lighthouse for him, but he has to decide which direction he's going to steer the ship.
During the course of our evening, I also realized that I did in fact remember his son from the daycare center a decade earlier and that I could picture him as well, but for some reason I felt that we had some interaction... I was picturing the space and look of the moment, but not the words or the details.
Anyway, I brought him back to his car and we chatted a bit more about his situation. I told him a few more things that I haven't admitted to anyone else in 5 years, because who would've understood. I knew he would though.
Before he got out, he sweetly asked if he could just kiss my cheek. Of course I agreed, and I actually felt myself blush as he did it. I've done things on other first actual dates that could've made a call girl blush, but this sweet peck on the cheek actually made me a little dizzy.
As I drove away with no music on, only my thoughts and still blushing from the moment, that's when it hit me... our interaction a decade earlier. He was the third man.
I was in the Toddler I observatory/coat room where you could stand behind a two-way mirror and watch the goings on in the classroom. I don't know what I was watching, maybe they were just napping, and that's when HE walked into the room... perhaps to pick up his son. He stopped to look in the classroom too and he spoke to me. It was brief and friendly, I don't even remember the words at all now, probably just "which one is yours?" But I remember vividly what happened with me physically: I froze and became mute and blushed bright red. I know I got out of there quickly then, because even though the room was darkened, I was sure he'd see how red I'd turned.
I remember feeling not only the usual embarrassment of this thing, but also upset with myself for feeling that kind of intense and instant attraction for another man while I was married. I had to avoid him at all cost from then on out of fear that my secret would get discovered. I had no way to turn this feeling off once it happened like that, but I certainly could keep it at bay by running away from it.
Five years later, my husband didn't give me the same kind of courtesy. In his moment, he ran with it and began an affair with a co-worker. The movie CLOSER has a line about that moment where you have a choice... and it's really a long moment when you think about it... the initial attraction, the decision to get closer to that person, the decision to cross that line into intimacy or not... there's a place to stop anywhere before that. What allows us to overcome an urge? Strength of character, that's what. Integrity. Respect. Loyalty. Pick one. They all work.
When I got home that night from the NON-date, I began to cry. Not for myself, but for this man that I just met. For the place he's been forced into right now... for the decisions about his future that will affect him and his children... and for how unfair all of that is, really.
And tonight I found myself having a cry again. What's wrong with me, I wondered? Empathy, that's what. I felt connected to this man in just the span of 9 hours of getting to know each other. I feel intrinsically connected to him now and though I don't want to have any influence over his decisions right now, the fact that he knows me is changing him. Anything I say or do is changing him now.
What I blurted out earlier tonight in IM to my bestest gal pal Nadine maybe sums it up best:
"I honestly don't know how anyone forms lasting relationships anymore.
There are too many choices, too many reasons to keep from committing to any decision at all.
Nothing seems grounded to me anymore.
I feel like a dot on a gigantic grid... just one of many hundreds of thousands like me in my quadrant...
and then suddenly, for the first time in years and years... decades possibly... I could look at this man and see myself so easily and yet he's just out of reach and still lost... it all comes to that one moment, where I could be filled with so much compassion for one person that I just met that it makes my eyes well up...
...to see the pain he's hiding right behind the mask of a smile that he's using to "get by" in his daily life... trying to hide the pain of his confusion and loneliness... trying to keep people who already know what's going on from coming up and saying in that patronizing tone, "Are you doing okay today?"
He didn't have to tell me any of it. I just saw it all there.
And when I came home from our non-date that night, I cried for him. I couldn't help it. I know exactly where he is because I've been there.
And then the thought hit me that that might be the closest I get to truly feeling connected to another person ever.
So as I sat here tonight looking at all these women who "snatch rot bomb" says are "like me"... reading their profiles and seeing that yes, in fact, they are just variations of me... I realized that I might be the only person who sees this grid for what it is.
And that everyone else is playing that game without seeing the grid at all and never understanding why they're not connecting... because if they can't see the grid, they can't step off of it either... or won't, whichever.
And I think of this man, who is standing on the precipice of either going back to what he knows, or falling headlong into this grid that I've been on for 5 years and fading into disillusionment like the rest of us... and I see myself 5 years ago and sometimes I wonder if I could talk to me then, would I tell me to turn back?"
Last week, the answer would have been "perhaps." But all that changed this Sunday, when I realized by meeting this new person what all these past 5 years have been for: so that I can just be here in this moment to understand him. If that's all that it's been for, then it's been worth it. And if that's all there is beyond it, so be it. I would not tell me to turn back.
Everyone comes into your life for a reason, and usually right at that moment that you needed them to step in. The obvious would be to say that he needed to befriend someone like me right now, someone who's been there. But the less obvious would be that I needed to befriend someone like him... someone who is holding a mirror up and showing me where I came from at a time when I'm feeling jaded about where I am now.
Everything makes sense right now. Perhaps there really is a grander method to the madness after all.
Friday, December 24, 2004
And To All a Good Night
"Dear Santa,
Please bring me the following:
Men... all shapes and sizes. Preferably the emotionally unavailable type. Make sure they have some sort of blame of their mother/idol worship of their father. Alcoholism, drug usage, criminal record... with or without an anti-depressant prescription... all good. Please-oh-please-oh-please find me the kind still obsessing over an ex-wife/girlfriend, who talks about her ALL the time, even while having sex with me. Or better yet, make sure they don't want to have sex with me at all... that would be absolutely PERFECT. Oh, and if he does want to have sex, how about if he either keeps his eyes closed the WHOLE time, or talks the WHOLE way through, or only wants it a couple of times a month, or fucks like he learned how from looking at porn? That would be totally RAD! Workaholism? YAY! An all-consuming addiction to video games with no real job at all? Be still my heart! All conversations revolve around job/sports/another country? Fabulous! Wants to keep dating other women while having sex with me? Awesome! Owns just one pet and it's a cat? Please make sure he's also a commitment phobic, anally-retentive, obsessive-compulsive, minimalist... cuz then I've hit the JACKPOT! Owns more than one cat without any dogs to balance that out? I don't care how gay anyone else thinks that is, bring that mother on!
Thanks Santa, I know you'll pull through for me. You always do!
Sincerely,
Sherri (Dec 2003)"
Yes, I do think I may have imbibed too much nog and written that letter to Santa last year. Or, shit, maybe I addressed it to Satan? Fuck me and my fucking typos.
Anyway, that was last year. This year, I'm asking only for an internship that turns into a job. That's it, nothing else. And I don't really blame Santa/Satan for the men of 2004 either. I don't seem to have any trouble attracting males. My problem is not saying no to the defective ones. I guess it all boils down to my attraction to quirky men, and the fact that quirky men come with some really great reasons why they're still single.
You may point out the fact that I'M still single and have been for the last 5 years. So what's my damage? Well, my reason is simple: I chose this life. Yup.
While going through a traumatic divorce at the end of 1999, I vowed to myself that I would remain single for no less than 5 years while I finished my Master's Degree and tied up loose ends from a train-wreck of a marriage that had taken away the best 7 years of my twenties and replaced them with responsibility, strife, and general assholery. I was in absolutely no hurry to experience that again, so I kept my heart removed (most of the time) yet somehow I didn't manage to stay out of the fray.
First I didn't date, then I over-dated, then I didn't date for a LONG time again, then I way over-dated again. It's what I like to call the "all-or-nothing" approach to dating in the 21st Century. I'm not saying that it was healthy. I'm just admitting that's what I did, doubtlessly as a sub-conscious means to keeping my promise to myself.
The 5-year contract that I made will be up as of January 1, 2005. I blamed my choices before on "the ring of doom" that I found and gave back to my ex last month, but that was just one step on the way out of a long, dark tunnel.
But the good thing that I can say about me is that when I set a goal, I sure do keep it! My degree will be finalized with the completion of my thesis film this April... a film that I received a fellowship to finish... a fellowship that I was able to win thanks to the focus and intensity that I threw into research during the second LONG dating abstinence that I took.
Seeing goals come to a conclusion is kind of a scary time. Suddenly, you're faced with a moment when you have to choose a new path... set new goals. This is part of the "be careful what you wish for" thing that I sometimes mention in my blogs... and I'm facing that moment right now.
I tend to set five-year plans for some reason, so here's my new plan:
For the very short term...
-I will attain that internship that turns into a job right away.
-I will finish all three films that I'm currently working on now.
For the long term...
-I will, in 5 years time, move from this city to someplace far away (NYC? LA?)
-I will NOT waste any more of my precious time or energy on damaged men.
That's not to say that I won't have to kiss a few more frogs along the way... I can't control that part of the plan. But what I am saying is that they will be identified as such and become but a tiny footnote on my way to bigger and better things.
That's not a threat. That's a promise to myself that I intend to keep. And when I set my mind to something, nothing can stop me.
So I stand on the precipice of a new age for me. I don't mean to make it sound so overly dramatic, but those of you who really know what my last 5 years have been like will understand that, if anything, I'm understating the drama here.
In the last 5 years, I also put out 2 torches that I'd held for well over a decade. They were high school crushes, both of them, and they were the only 2 torches that I'd ever clung to before or since. I'm thankful that I got to find out what it would be like with each of those men in recent years, as fully-formed adults. I'm also glad that the torches have since been completely extinguished and that I still converse with both of those men on occasion, despite any weirdness or friction that occurred after the fact. Thank you, boys. I realized that you were each one-half of my ideal man... neither of you were the whole thing... and thanks to my experiences with you, I've since decided to abandon any thoughts of an "ideal" at all, because it keeps me from seeing the whole person for whom he is. And I don't hesitate to say that I'm sure I turned out to be only one-half of an ideal in reality to each of you as well. I still thank you both, all the same.
All of this heady thought comes at the end of a perfect night. My children went off to have Christmas with their father and I decided to take in a movie, as I'm known to do as soon as they leave the house. It was 8pm when I pulled into the multiplex parking lot and I saw such a great sight: it was nearly empty. I guess Xmas Eve night is a time for families to stay home and wrap. Joy to the World, indeed!
When I purchased my ticket with my Movie Watcher card that has seen MANY MANY slides through the scanner, I was given a free "Large Drink & Popcorn" coupon for having been my 150th credit. Am I dreaming? I asked the girl behind the snack counter to pinch me... she just stared blankly at me and asked what drink I'd like and said "That'll be zero dollars and zero cents." MY FAVORITE PRICE! And at a movie snack counter to boot! Fuck yeah!
I then went into the theater and sat down in my favorite seat: 5th row from the front, dead center. I propped my feet up on the armrests in front of me, looked around to see only 2 other couples in the entire theater sitting waaaaaaaay in the very back, and within seconds, the lights dimmed and the movie started.
Did I die and go to heaven? Someone was giving me the best Christmas present ever! And guess what else? The movie didn't suck! I was seeing CLOSER and despite this being a Julia Roberts movie, I loved it* ... the soundtrack is beautiful too, but I'd been listening to that for the last couple of weeks... the film opens with the first half of Damien Rice's "Blower's Daughter" and ends its last scene with the last half of the song. I actually applauded when it was over. Well, okay... not audible clapping... just motioned it so no one would think I was loony toons.
As I stepped out into the halls of the multiplex, the music being piped through the speakers was Peter Gabriel's "Solsbury Hill." I fell in love for the second time this evening. And with that feeling having firmly taken hold, I walked out of the building with an extra swagger in my step, like I'd just been fucked senseless by a man who then fed me sushi in bed while offering to clean my house.
I'm listening to the song again here while I finish this. Apparently Gabriel wrote the words while contemplating his break up with Genesis, and in 1986 he said that "It's about being prepared to lose what you have for what you might get, or what you are for what you might be. It's about letting go." I couldn't have picked a more perfect song to end my evening, so I think I'll also use the lyrics to end this entry...
Climbing up on Solsbury Hill
I could see the city light
Wind was blowing, time stood still
Eagle flew out of the night
He was something to observe
Came in close, I heard a voice
Standing stretching every nerve
Had to listen had no choice
I did not believe the information
(I) just had to trust imagination
My heart going boom boom boom
"Son," he said "Grab your things,
I've come to take you home."
To keep in silence I resigned
My friends would think I was a nut
Turning water into wine
Open doors would soon be shut
So I went from day to day
Tho' my life was in a rut
'Til I thought of what I'd say
Which connection I should cut
I was feeling part of the scenery
I walked right out of the machinery
My heart going boom boom boom
"Hey" he said "Grab your things
I've come to take you home."
(Back home.)
When illusion spin her net
I'm never where I want to be
And liberty she pirouette
When I think that I am free
Watched by empty silhouettes
Who close their eyes but still can see
No one taught them etiquette
I will show another me
Today I don't need a replacement
I'll tell them what the smile on my face meant
My heart going boom boom boom
"Hey" I said "You can keep my things,
they've come to take me home."
*Author's note: It's been years since this was written. I no longer have the dating problems mentioned above. And I no longer enjoy that film CLOSER, for that matter. Peter Gabriel is still pretty cool, however.
Tuesday, December 21, 2004
The new 2005 model is in!
That's right, people... please take note:
The filmmaker formerly known as The She-Creature (well, okay, I still am) has done away with her red locks of the past 3 years and is now back to her natural color (thanks to a store-bought box called "Hot Cocoa").
Don't be alarmed by this new twist. Unlike New Coke --which was really old Coke, repackaged and subpar to regular Coke-- the current model still has all the same features of the previous model: glasses, artsy/creative streaks, geek-grrl accessories, ample front "airbags," junk in the trunk, zero onboard navigational skills, twisted logic. But now she also comes with a new, darker exterior color to match her dark interior humor.
Act now and date her again for the first time!
The filmmaker formerly known as The She-Creature (well, okay, I still am) has done away with her red locks of the past 3 years and is now back to her natural color (thanks to a store-bought box called "Hot Cocoa").
Don't be alarmed by this new twist. Unlike New Coke --which was really old Coke, repackaged and subpar to regular Coke-- the current model still has all the same features of the previous model: glasses, artsy/creative streaks, geek-grrl accessories, ample front "airbags," junk in the trunk, zero onboard navigational skills, twisted logic. But now she also comes with a new, darker exterior color to match her dark interior humor.
Act now and date her again for the first time!
Saturday, December 18, 2004
My Dinner With Adolf
Once upon a time, in a magical land known as "The City Too Busy to Hate," I met a wonderful, funny, brilliant, sexy man who was equally as blown away by our great chemistry as I was and who then swept me off my feet so we could live happily ever after. Forever. The end.
I wish.
C'mon, give me a break. I'm a girl, and as such, I've been sold that tripe since I was in diapers. Some of it was bound to stick. Not much, but some, yes.
Anyway, this is not that story.
This is the yet another example of how good I've gotten at "Name That Goon" and this time I said "I can name that goon in 3 dates." I'm hoping that one of these entries, perhaps in the new year of 2005, I might be blogging about the wonders of happy, blissful discoveries while ensconced in the perfect romance. But for now, I just continue to share my dismal anecdotes in humorously cantankerous ways.
At this point, some of you are probably labeling me as "picky" and I'd say you are right, I am a bit picky. I'm picky about not wanting to date alcoholics in denial. I'm picky when it comes to not dating men who want to also date other women rather than let me meet their friends. And call me petty too, but I'm picky about not wanting to date felons who are registered sex offenders.
Yes, I'm picky all right.
I'm also picky about certain personality flaws and these are the ones that I usually eliminate early on in the "Name That Goon" game. The latest installment of this game came to a head very abruptly when the red flags were waiving so fast and high that I thought they might cause gale force winds from all their flapping.
It started innocently enough: a brief message to me on YES a very crappy dating site that rhymes with "snatch rot bomb" ... the message said "You're perfect." I beg to disagree. I'm far from that. And if someone labels me that upon reading the silly things that I say about myself without taking the time to do a lot more research into what makes me tick, then I should always be suspicious. This time, I wasn't.
The procedure was the usual email/phone/coffee progression of getting to know someone via this online daters market... a practice that I liken to sending in your hard saved allowance as a kid to get those super cool sea monkeys you saw in the back of the comic book, only to get them, pour them in water and watch the water turn cloudy, full of bits of floating crap. Yes, online dating is the sea monkeys of the social strata.
And this experience was par for the course.
He was a man 9 years my senior, which is fine... I'm open-minded about age within reasonable limits. He was 100 percent American, born and raised in the South, but had lived just under 2 decades in Germany. He had been back in the States for over 5 years, but you'd never have known it from his conversations. He was OBSESSED with Germany. Every single topic got steered to how much better life is over there. Again, I'm open-minded and I've never been there, so I listened avidly and asked many questions to show my interest. In the less than 2 weeks that I spent getting to know him, he was never at a loss for another German anecdote.
About one week into our dating process, Colonel Klink asked me to meet him for coffee.
I wish.
C'mon, give me a break. I'm a girl, and as such, I've been sold that tripe since I was in diapers. Some of it was bound to stick. Not much, but some, yes.
Anyway, this is not that story.
This is the yet another example of how good I've gotten at "Name That Goon" and this time I said "I can name that goon in 3 dates." I'm hoping that one of these entries, perhaps in the new year of 2005, I might be blogging about the wonders of happy, blissful discoveries while ensconced in the perfect romance. But for now, I just continue to share my dismal anecdotes in humorously cantankerous ways.
At this point, some of you are probably labeling me as "picky" and I'd say you are right, I am a bit picky. I'm picky about not wanting to date alcoholics in denial. I'm picky when it comes to not dating men who want to also date other women rather than let me meet their friends. And call me petty too, but I'm picky about not wanting to date felons who are registered sex offenders.
Yes, I'm picky all right.
I'm also picky about certain personality flaws and these are the ones that I usually eliminate early on in the "Name That Goon" game. The latest installment of this game came to a head very abruptly when the red flags were waiving so fast and high that I thought they might cause gale force winds from all their flapping.
It started innocently enough: a brief message to me on YES a very crappy dating site that rhymes with "snatch rot bomb" ... the message said "You're perfect." I beg to disagree. I'm far from that. And if someone labels me that upon reading the silly things that I say about myself without taking the time to do a lot more research into what makes me tick, then I should always be suspicious. This time, I wasn't.
The procedure was the usual email/phone/coffee progression of getting to know someone via this online daters market... a practice that I liken to sending in your hard saved allowance as a kid to get those super cool sea monkeys you saw in the back of the comic book, only to get them, pour them in water and watch the water turn cloudy, full of bits of floating crap. Yes, online dating is the sea monkeys of the social strata.
And this experience was par for the course.
He was a man 9 years my senior, which is fine... I'm open-minded about age within reasonable limits. He was 100 percent American, born and raised in the South, but had lived just under 2 decades in Germany. He had been back in the States for over 5 years, but you'd never have known it from his conversations. He was OBSESSED with Germany. Every single topic got steered to how much better life is over there. Again, I'm open-minded and I've never been there, so I listened avidly and asked many questions to show my interest. In the less than 2 weeks that I spent getting to know him, he was never at a loss for another German anecdote.
About one week into our dating process, Colonel Klink asked me to meet him for coffee.
The first thing that I noticed about him was that either he was nowhere near 5'11" as he'd claimed in his profile, or I had magically grown several inches during my sleep. Granted, I was wearing 2" heels, but I'm only 5'5" on a good day without them. So I must've added a couple of extra inches to my height when I walked through the door of the coffee house, because when he stood up, we were looking nearly eye-to-eye.
Experience has taught me that men who lie about their height, without thinking that anyone will notice the discrepancy, generally have built themselves up in their own minds in other ways too. There are a few red flags that I take note of when meeting people in this fashion, and they are: shorter than they say they are, older than they say they are, heavier than they say they are... though that last one has more room to slide, as some people may not have noticed that they gained 15-20 pounds since their last doctor's appointment. However, last I checked, height and birth date are pretty much a fixed thing. Why lie?
Anyway, this set the mood for me to "Crap, not another one of these," which I tried to cheerily brush off and I think I did a pretty good job. Hell, I gave him a second date... most men don't get that far at all.
On our second date, Erich Von Stroheim won me over by the end, though the beginning and middle were pretty rocky... he spent those hours talking MORE about Germany and about women he fell deeply in love with and about how he thinks it's okay for people to stray sexually when in a committed relationship.
Experience has taught me that men who lie about their height, without thinking that anyone will notice the discrepancy, generally have built themselves up in their own minds in other ways too. There are a few red flags that I take note of when meeting people in this fashion, and they are: shorter than they say they are, older than they say they are, heavier than they say they are... though that last one has more room to slide, as some people may not have noticed that they gained 15-20 pounds since their last doctor's appointment. However, last I checked, height and birth date are pretty much a fixed thing. Why lie?
Anyway, this set the mood for me to "Crap, not another one of these," which I tried to cheerily brush off and I think I did a pretty good job. Hell, I gave him a second date... most men don't get that far at all.
On our second date, Erich Von Stroheim won me over by the end, though the beginning and middle were pretty rocky... he spent those hours talking MORE about Germany and about women he fell deeply in love with and about how he thinks it's okay for people to stray sexually when in a committed relationship.
Why that wasn't a red flag to me right away, I don't know... but it sure did seem like he was laying some groundwork for a future confrontation where he could say, "Remember our dinner date when I TOLD YOU that I don't have a problem with these indiscretions? Why are you shocked that I've gone ahead and done it now?"
The part of the conversation that won me over was the amount of time that he spent in trying to get to the meaning of a dream that I'd had about him the night before. In this dream, I saw him holding a torch and looking out to the distance, just past me. I interpreted this literally as "Look: he's holding a torch for a past lover/relationship." He'd said some things in email form that suggested just that sort of thing and my bestest gal pal picked up on that bit right away when I ran it past her. So for the sake of conversation, I told him about this dream to see if he really did hold a torch, even though he swore that he didn't.
Otto Von Bismarck wanted not to believe that this image of him had anything to do with himself and how I saw him, but rather how I saw myself and asked me to put myself in his place and see what it is that he/I was looking at out in the distance.
The part of the conversation that won me over was the amount of time that he spent in trying to get to the meaning of a dream that I'd had about him the night before. In this dream, I saw him holding a torch and looking out to the distance, just past me. I interpreted this literally as "Look: he's holding a torch for a past lover/relationship." He'd said some things in email form that suggested just that sort of thing and my bestest gal pal picked up on that bit right away when I ran it past her. So for the sake of conversation, I told him about this dream to see if he really did hold a torch, even though he swore that he didn't.
Otto Von Bismarck wanted not to believe that this image of him had anything to do with himself and how I saw him, but rather how I saw myself and asked me to put myself in his place and see what it is that he/I was looking at out in the distance.
He had a Master's degree in psychobabble, so I bet he just loves pulling this shit on everyone he dates. I refused to do such a thing, because consciously stepping into another character's shoes and looking at something that your subconscious isn't showing you doesn't make it the real explanation... it's forced and feels as silly as role playing games do. He persisted tenaciously, so off the top of my head I listed "ocean, house, dog, football game, car" and of course he stopped me with "Why did you say 'ocean' first in that list?"
Eventually Siggy Freud deduced that I was seeing him as looking at a sea of online dating potentials with a single torch lighting the way and that was because he still had an ad up and so did I.
Eventually Siggy Freud deduced that I was seeing him as looking at a sea of online dating potentials with a single torch lighting the way and that was because he still had an ad up and so did I.
I told him that I would buy that just to get him to drop it. It was rational enough that I didn't feel he was stretching with the interpretation and I let it lie, feeling tired after an hour and a half of this silly banter. He still swore up and down that he wasn't holding any torch in reality.
Did I sleep with him? Okay, some of my guy friends are going to hate me for this (especially those that I didn't admit this to already), but yes, I did. Why? Maybe he wore me down with that psychoanalytical crap, I don't know. Or maybe I just wanted him to stop talking about Germany for a change. Even though I sort of broke what I promised in my other last dating diatribe, this was technically our second date, so I wasn't doing the "fuck on the first date" thing, not that I'm trying to justify it. I guess I was having a hard time trying to tell if there really was any chemistry and I reverted to my old habit of diving in head first without looking to find out.
I don't normally kiss-and-blog beyond the fact that there was sex and that's that... but can I say this: the man WOULD NOT SHUT UP during sex. I'm serious. He talked the whole damn time like we were role playing, he wanted to pretend we were teenagers who were still virgins and he didn't break character for a moment. This made me laugh on several occasions, especially since I thought he might laugh along with me, but he was totally serious the whole damn time. Afterward, I was quite concerned that this was his "thing" and wondered if I really wanted to look forward to fucking a wannabe dramaturge every freakin' time.
Luckily, that never came to pass.
He took me out for brunch 2 days later and again talked all about Germany for 2 hours. At some point I finally asked him if he loved it so much, why did he leave there 5 years ago. He shot me this really quick look that said "Oh, there it is...THAT question again," and proceeded to tell me what sounded like a pat answer that he'd been restating for years about Germany's age discrimination in the work force and that he left when he was approaching the upper end of their new hire age bracket. I nodded in understanding and shortly after that part of the talk, we both fell silent. While sitting there for what seemed like 20 minutes with no words, I realized that I had been the only person to keep our conversations afloat all this time by asking questions, and realizing that he was not coming up with any questions of interest towards me at that time, I took the initiative yet again.
"So you seem to know exactly what you want and don't want in your life, what are you looking for out of a relationship?" I thought it was a good question, especially for two people trying to get to know each other through dating... seemed topical. Apparently, he didn't think so. He rolled his eyes and threw back his head in this over-dramatic (almost queer) gesture and said, "Do we HAVE to talk about this now?"
"Um, well, not if you don't want to. I just thought I'd ask because we're trying to get to know one another and..." I said; as he interrupted with, "I mean, I was TRYING to enjoy the beautiful day, the nice atmosphere here, you, the quiet between us, then you go and ask me this. Forcing me to talk about that now is like forcing a relationship to happen through words rather than actions."
"I see," I replied. However, when I say the words "I see" rather than "I understand" when I'm getting to know a potential boyfriend, it doesn't mean that I understand. What those words mean is that I've just put a mental marker down in the conversation to come back to re-evaluate it later in private. It's my built in "red flag checker."
I apologized (why, I don't know) and said he didn't have to answer. But then he proceeded to talk for about 5 minutes anyway about his lack of career direction at the moment and wrapped up that topic with about 5 words about what he wants out of a relationship. I no longer remember what that was, because I was glazed over by all the job talk.
After the brunch, we went for a walk in the crisp air where he proceeded to talk yet some more about Germany, about the bane of modern digital cameras (something about making everyone think they're an artist just because they can take a couple hundred pictures of garbage without thinking twice), and about Porches being his favorite car that he would buy if he were to become rich. (BTW, he drives a Volkswagen Jetta, of course.)
I made a slight funny observation while we walked about the fact that he was wearing black jeans, black leather shoes, a black leather jacket, black wrap-around sun glasses, and a black knit cap, which made him look "very German" because of it. He snapped back at me with, "That's a stereotype that simply isn't true and hasn't been since the 80s. Most Germans today don't wear black at all."
"I see," I said for maybe the forth time that day, as well as making a mental note to myself: don't follow that up with monkeys or dancing or Sprockets.
Adolf and I parted ways that day and things seemed okay, but I was feeling a bit bruised from being beaten over the head with red flags. I kind of liked him because he was fairly attractive, but why did he have to be such a tool? I found out why the next day...
Did I sleep with him? Okay, some of my guy friends are going to hate me for this (especially those that I didn't admit this to already), but yes, I did. Why? Maybe he wore me down with that psychoanalytical crap, I don't know. Or maybe I just wanted him to stop talking about Germany for a change. Even though I sort of broke what I promised in my other last dating diatribe, this was technically our second date, so I wasn't doing the "fuck on the first date" thing, not that I'm trying to justify it. I guess I was having a hard time trying to tell if there really was any chemistry and I reverted to my old habit of diving in head first without looking to find out.
I don't normally kiss-and-blog beyond the fact that there was sex and that's that... but can I say this: the man WOULD NOT SHUT UP during sex. I'm serious. He talked the whole damn time like we were role playing, he wanted to pretend we were teenagers who were still virgins and he didn't break character for a moment. This made me laugh on several occasions, especially since I thought he might laugh along with me, but he was totally serious the whole damn time. Afterward, I was quite concerned that this was his "thing" and wondered if I really wanted to look forward to fucking a wannabe dramaturge every freakin' time.
Luckily, that never came to pass.
He took me out for brunch 2 days later and again talked all about Germany for 2 hours. At some point I finally asked him if he loved it so much, why did he leave there 5 years ago. He shot me this really quick look that said "Oh, there it is...THAT question again," and proceeded to tell me what sounded like a pat answer that he'd been restating for years about Germany's age discrimination in the work force and that he left when he was approaching the upper end of their new hire age bracket. I nodded in understanding and shortly after that part of the talk, we both fell silent. While sitting there for what seemed like 20 minutes with no words, I realized that I had been the only person to keep our conversations afloat all this time by asking questions, and realizing that he was not coming up with any questions of interest towards me at that time, I took the initiative yet again.
"So you seem to know exactly what you want and don't want in your life, what are you looking for out of a relationship?" I thought it was a good question, especially for two people trying to get to know each other through dating... seemed topical. Apparently, he didn't think so. He rolled his eyes and threw back his head in this over-dramatic (almost queer) gesture and said, "Do we HAVE to talk about this now?"
"Um, well, not if you don't want to. I just thought I'd ask because we're trying to get to know one another and..." I said; as he interrupted with, "I mean, I was TRYING to enjoy the beautiful day, the nice atmosphere here, you, the quiet between us, then you go and ask me this. Forcing me to talk about that now is like forcing a relationship to happen through words rather than actions."
"I see," I replied. However, when I say the words "I see" rather than "I understand" when I'm getting to know a potential boyfriend, it doesn't mean that I understand. What those words mean is that I've just put a mental marker down in the conversation to come back to re-evaluate it later in private. It's my built in "red flag checker."
I apologized (why, I don't know) and said he didn't have to answer. But then he proceeded to talk for about 5 minutes anyway about his lack of career direction at the moment and wrapped up that topic with about 5 words about what he wants out of a relationship. I no longer remember what that was, because I was glazed over by all the job talk.
After the brunch, we went for a walk in the crisp air where he proceeded to talk yet some more about Germany, about the bane of modern digital cameras (something about making everyone think they're an artist just because they can take a couple hundred pictures of garbage without thinking twice), and about Porches being his favorite car that he would buy if he were to become rich. (BTW, he drives a Volkswagen Jetta, of course.)
I made a slight funny observation while we walked about the fact that he was wearing black jeans, black leather shoes, a black leather jacket, black wrap-around sun glasses, and a black knit cap, which made him look "very German" because of it. He snapped back at me with, "That's a stereotype that simply isn't true and hasn't been since the 80s. Most Germans today don't wear black at all."
"I see," I said for maybe the forth time that day, as well as making a mental note to myself: don't follow that up with monkeys or dancing or Sprockets.
Adolf and I parted ways that day and things seemed okay, but I was feeling a bit bruised from being beaten over the head with red flags. I kind of liked him because he was fairly attractive, but why did he have to be such a tool? I found out why the next day...
While talking to him on the phone the next day, he went on and on about how he'd just applied for a job with Green Peace in Hamburg, even though he was looking to buy a house here in Atlanta and had never yet mentioned going back to Germany for good. He then talked on and on about Germany again, and then somehow started talking about things that bother him. That's when he brought up my relationship question. He said that he thought we'd gotten that out of the way in our profiles and first couple of emails and wouldn't have to talk about it anymore, freeing us up to get to know each other in some other way. You know, rather than talking. He thought we could communicate on some other level.
I said, "But you and I only just started to get to know each other 2 weeks ago. How do you find out what's in a person's head without talking? If you have ideas about that, share them with me and I'll gladly go along! I'm flexible, really." He insisted there are other ways of falling in love. I asked him if I was supposed to read his mind and just know these ways. Then he began to recall the moment in his life when he fell the most deeply in love with a woman.
"We were sitting in a cafe, each of us with our individual newspapers open, silently reading and not saying a word, just enjoying each other's company... that's when I knew I was in love."
And there it was. The torch in my dream.
Not only that, but WHAT THE FUCK??? No talking? I said to him, "I see." Followed by, "Whenever I spot couples sitting at tables together reading and not making any attempt at communicating with one another, I think to myself, 'Damn, how much do those two hate each other that they can't even look at each other and talk any more?'" He said, "Maybe they've found another way of communicating." I said, "What? Telepathy? Sonar? What?"
But what I really wanted to say was, "Oh yeah? Well see if you can guess what I'm saying to you right now." I held my tongue instead.
I talked to him just one more time after that. The very next night he called and again started talking about his job hunt in German want ads. After about 20 minutes or so of silently listening with just an occasional "Uh huh" or "I see," I finally said, "Oh, look at the time. I've got to get to work. Good luck with the search. Night." Click.
I named that goon in 3 dates, which reminds me of a joke someone told me recently:
"Knock! Knock!"
"Who's there?"
"Control freak...NOW YOU SAY 'CONTROL FREAK WHO?'"
I said, "But you and I only just started to get to know each other 2 weeks ago. How do you find out what's in a person's head without talking? If you have ideas about that, share them with me and I'll gladly go along! I'm flexible, really." He insisted there are other ways of falling in love. I asked him if I was supposed to read his mind and just know these ways. Then he began to recall the moment in his life when he fell the most deeply in love with a woman.
"We were sitting in a cafe, each of us with our individual newspapers open, silently reading and not saying a word, just enjoying each other's company... that's when I knew I was in love."
And there it was. The torch in my dream.
Not only that, but WHAT THE FUCK??? No talking? I said to him, "I see." Followed by, "Whenever I spot couples sitting at tables together reading and not making any attempt at communicating with one another, I think to myself, 'Damn, how much do those two hate each other that they can't even look at each other and talk any more?'" He said, "Maybe they've found another way of communicating." I said, "What? Telepathy? Sonar? What?"
But what I really wanted to say was, "Oh yeah? Well see if you can guess what I'm saying to you right now." I held my tongue instead.
I talked to him just one more time after that. The very next night he called and again started talking about his job hunt in German want ads. After about 20 minutes or so of silently listening with just an occasional "Uh huh" or "I see," I finally said, "Oh, look at the time. I've got to get to work. Good luck with the search. Night." Click.
I named that goon in 3 dates, which reminds me of a joke someone told me recently:
"Knock! Knock!"
"Who's there?"
"Control freak...NOW YOU SAY 'CONTROL FREAK WHO?'"
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