Change of heart

By the time Dreamy arrived at my house yesterday, I was thoroughly annoyed with him. Not only did he not email me the whole time he was away, but he also did not phone me after he got back; moreover, he lost his car keys and ended up being THREE HOURS late for our date, leaving me to make my sister's birthday dinner cake alone. As the afternoon progressed I began to feel more and more glad that I had my date with Dreamy II lined up as a backup option.

And then Dreamy arrived, kissed me, told me he'd missed me and it had been way too long since we last saw each other, and within about 30 seconds I had forgiven him everything. He's a space cadet; I know that. He told me a story yesterday about one day when he was a kid and he got confused and thought in the middle of the day that school was over, walked home and sat patiently on his front porch, wondering why the door was locked. At the end of the story he concluded, "I was spacey then, and I'm spacey now." But what can I say, I like him, spaciness and all.

So we went over to my sister's house and celebrated her birthday with fondue dinner, and Dreamy made his debut and liked everyone, and everyone liked Dreamy. And then we went back to my house and he met my soon-to-be-former neighbor the Cat Lady, and then... well, let's just say I have a very red chin once again.

Approximately a year ago, I was sitting outside at the Audubon Center in Boston reading the classic book Difficult Conversations. Specifically, I was reading the chapter about people who refuse to have conversations, and how to work issues out with them. At that point I knew that my relationship with La Moustache was kaput, but I was trying to figure out how to have conversations that would close things in a way that would feel as good as possible to me. He refused to have any conversations, and went so far as to suggest I get anger management therapy when I expressed anger at his treatment of me. My feeling was it would be unhealthy of me NOT to feel angry.

Obviously, difficult conversations happen at the end of relationships or in the middle, not at the very beginning. Still, it feels good to be dating someone who not only doesn't avoid difficult conversations, but is a bit of a difficult conversations guru. He must have read the book at least 20 times, and was quite impressed that most of my friends have read it (yay friends!).

I feel a bit strange going out with Dreamy II at this point, but I'm going to go through with it. I have a feeling it's not going to progress past the one date, though.

Seriously, Men??!

A few months ago, Slinky went on a disastrous date with a man who was full of himself and generally a jerk. Later, it came out that on top of these charming qualities he was also married, or used to be married, or may have been married -- the details were unclear. It also crossed my mind once or twice to wonder whether Le Canadien may have been in a relationship; there was no particular reason for me to think that, but it did occur to me. However, I pooh-poohed the notion because online dating -- especially in a small town like Boston -- is a small, small world. Sooner or later, you WILL see someone you know. They WILL tell your girlfriend, wife, or significant other. It's really not a question of if, but when.

Apparently, that's a risk some sleazy, foolhardy men are willing to take. This evening, the Cat Lady came over and regaled me and Slinky with a tale about a woman she met randomly who started talking about a new man she's dating who she met online. Gradually, as the Cat Lady listened to the details, the man began to sound familiar: it was the husband of an acquaintance of hers. Even worse, the man has OFFSPRING. There are many other sordid details -- the fake name he was using, the unprotected sex (way to bring an extra special gift home to your wife, jerk) -- but really, isn't that enough?

Wow. This opens up a whole new world of unsavory possibilities. How many men out there are doing this? Have I dated married men? How long are they able to get away with it? I think Slinky put it very nicely when we debriefed after the shocking revelation: "Isn't it amazing? They can't even be bothered to send a quick note to let you know that they're not interested, yet they go to such crazy lengths to sneak around, create double lives and cheat on their wives."

And on that depressing note, Persil and I are off on vacation. I won't be blogging for the next week or so; I'll be too busy doing this:

Finding a modality that works for me

During my drive up to Maine on Friday for the holiday weekend, I found myself pondering the events of the last couple of weeks and months, and wondering if perhaps I need to change my approach. Here is a sampling of my thoughts:

• I spent four days crying almost nonstop after I lost my bird, to the point where my contacts became so salt-encrusted that I couldn't see. Even as I was bawling over my little green featherball, I could feel that I was really upset over so much more.
  
• I got my knickers all twisted over a chubby guy with copious backhair who I made out with a few times in March. Why did I care so much?
• Dating has brought me frustration and bitterness, but no husbands.
  
• I spent Friday morning drinking bloody marys, watching the Netherlands/Brazil soccer game and flirting with the cute bartender with a tattoo of JFK on his wrist, who commiserated with me on my loss of Haricot by telling me how sad he was when his pet python escaped.
  
• I dismissed the cute, nice French Canadian who is the only good communicator of all the men I've dated since my breakup because he told me he's not looking for a wife at this time.

A piece of advice that my neighbor, the Cat Lady, gave me several months ago popped into my mind. "Maybe," she said (she prefaces all her advice this way because, as a single lesbian in her fifties, she doesn't feel totally qualified to give me advice), "you should just relax and have fun. You're young and attractive. Just see guys casually, and don't look at it as auditioning to find your next boyfriend."

When my sister, Ms. Swamp, began online dating a couple of years ago, her goal was to find a husband, and she did. Well, they're not quite married yet, but to all intents and purposes she did. As I sifted through my feelings, I wondered if perhaps what I need right now is not a husband, but a Mr. White Pants (or several Mr. White Pants). Pants was the guy I dated for four months after I broke up with my ex-ex-boyfriend, l'Artista. He took me to the opera and drove me around Manhattan in his convertible and bought me nice dinners and generally entertained me and distracted me, and when I was ready to be emotionally connected to someone again, I moved on.

So I'm going to try the Cat Lady's approach. I'm just going to relax and enjoy the summer and give myself time to get over my traumas of the past year. I sent Le Canadien a message and asked if he wants to get a beer, and within three hours we had a date set up, because that's the kind of communicator he is. And I'll probably swing by and visit my bartender this afternoon to watch the game and maybe hear more about his python.

Rude Awakening

I woke up yesterday morning to the sound of my clock radio playing Ludacris at 5:40, groggy as usual but feeling unusually euphoric for a Monday morning. As my dream came slowly back to me, my euphoria transformed into sadness and disillusionment: I dreamed that, several weeks into the round-the-world trip that my ex-boyfriend, La Moustache, left me to undertake, he called to tell me it was a huge mistake and begged me to take him back. And I was thrilled.

Usually when couples break up after several happy years together they miss each other. They have other emotions too, of course – anger, bitterness, relief – but there is some level of missing someone who you once loved and who was an important part of your life. Not so in my breakup, at least from my point of view. I was too furious with Moustache to miss him, and in any case, our last weeks together – while he prepared his Land Cruiser for the drive around the world and I moped around and frequently demanded “How could you?” of him – were so miserable that it was a relief to finally be out of each others' presence. If he ever felt a moment of nostalgia for me he did not give me any indication of it, and I can honestly say that the scenario that occurred in my dream never once crossed my conscious mind before. I did hope for some level of atonement for his abandonment of me at what was already the lowest point in my life, but I never hoped that he would give up on his mission and return to the life we shared.

Recently my neighbor, the Cat Lady, and I were discussing the Brazilian, and she presented a hypothesis: “Maybe some of your disappointment about the Brazilian is actually misplaced sadness about the end of your relationship with La Moustache,” she suggested. I nodded politely, but inside I poo-pooed her idea: I had done my mourning, and it was over and done with.

My dream called all of that into question. My disappointment when I woke up that it hadn't been real made me experience the loss all over again, even as I was furious with my subconscious self for wanting him to come back. I even burst into tears in my car on the way home from work. And I wondered: What would I have done if it really had happened? Even if I hadn't taken him back, would I have been tempted to?

Really, of course, what I most wanted when we broke up was for him to be the person I thought he was: the funny, caring man who I used to cuddle with on the couch as we watched movies, who adored our pet lovebird and who I was always excited to see when he came home from work in the evenings. And the hard part is that that IS who he is, at least in part. He didn't spend our three years together playing a role. But he is also the other part, the part I didn't see until things started to go badly between us: the person who selfishly told me he still loved me and wanted to be with me and hoped I would wait for him to travel around the world. The person who tried to convince me that it's normal for a couple to spend some time apart before getting married and starting a family. The person who thoughtlessly wrote in an article that was published all over the world that he had to choose between using his savings to buy a house with me or to travel the world, and he chose the latter. People are complicated, and are rarely the simplistic villains or heroes we sometimes paint them as.

Still, I like to think that I wouldn't have taken him back if my dream had actually come to pass. I probably would have been tempted to. But even if he does have some redeeming qualities, he is certainly NOT a quality life partner. Far from it.