Love is a many splendored thing
Do we all seek that which will make us better, or are there some of us who seek those who will worship us as we are, no matter what direction our life courses take us?
This has been a big question for me lately. Oh… yes… it’s been a while since my last update, hasn’t it? Many moons and men ago, in fact. This past fall I dived back into the world of relationship hunting and all of that activity’s concomitant activities after a seven+ year hiatus. It, plus a four-classes-per-term teaching schedule has rather preoccupied me. I think, though, that it’s time I let my LJ buddies in on my adventures.
I’ve been keeping a journal of events that I call “Mary’s Love Update.” Close friends and family members have found it amusing, but that’s probably just because they know me. Still, behind the cut, you will find all the entries.
But back to the original question; I’ve come to the conclusion that men who ‘worship’ me blindly are dreadfully dull, and men who are hyper critical or intimidated to the point of animosity are dreadfully revolting. I’ve run the full gamut in the past few months. The only one who is not chronicled is the guy who said on a date that he could never get a therapeutic massage from a man right before we went to see ‘Borat’. When Sacha Baron Cohen was nosing up to Ken Davitian’s ass, I didn’t know if I was laughing at that, or at the fact that I was sitting next to a man who could not get a massage from a man. In any case, that was the third and final date with that guy.
Mary’s Love Update, Vol. 1. No. 1
Dan is a no-go. OK, well, so much for that one. We don't see eye to eye on the mutability of race and the problematics of the Kennewick Man controversy. Apparently this is a problem, as is my response to being rather aggressively talked over about these things as if I surely know nothing. To think, if only I didn't have an advanced degree in anthropology, we might still be two happy little lovebirds... . And to think I quickly backed down and out of both of those unhappy discussions. Yikes. Bad Mary.
Ultimately, though, while he seemed at first pretty cool and good-humored about having to look up a third of my everyday vocabulary in the dictionary, I think the education/knowledge base thing was the ultimate killer. It dawned on me how tired he was getting when I said something about not subsuming oneself in a relationship, and he sighed deeply, saying, "I don't know what that means," in a tone of voice that suggested he badly needed a long sleep to rest his brain.
So the pluses I got out of that one? I liked the affection, the entertainment (dancing, yay!), the humor, his tidiness, his slightly off-beat sense of adventure, his eyes.. lovely eyes, I will say. I'll put those in my 'good to have' column.
I didn't so much like his general communication style (awkward silences, abruptness); the fact that he seemed uncomfortable 50% of the time; his waistline; his prosaic sense of fashion and personal grooming; his dismissal of anything other than the hardest of the hard sciences and dismissal of academia in general (he once mentioned that he could never date a postmodernist... why I didn't bail at that point is beyond me, but I just bit my tongue); his rigid, formulaic approach toward relationships (out of books and self-help guides and, I learned a couple of day ago, some online snake oil thing called "The System"); and related to the former, surely, his lack of experience with long-term relationships (41 years old, never married, longest GF lasted a year); his rather bitter, bordering on misogynistic sounding attitude toward dating rituals, 'gold-digging' women and feminists (as discovered in an online forum he frequently contributes to); his "liberal" intolerance (the intolerance of a die-hard atheist); and the fact that, because of all of the above, I'd be wary of introducing him to my friends. I probably could have introduced him to my mother, because he's really quiet and she would just talk over him, but woe if she brought up anything about clines that he might disagree with....
::sigh:: The good things were really good, but the bad were absolute killer deal breakers that I was dangerously close to ignoring because I was having so much fun 'falling in love'. ack.
In the past 24 hours, I've shot out feelers to about ten men in the online dating world. Back to the drawing board, as they say. Any of you have any cute friends who might come with the definition of 'subsume' already in their kit bag?
Mary’s Love Update, Vol. 1. No. 2
After the sudden unpleasant turn of events with the Dan, I wasted no time jumping back in. I've been on three dates since then, have another lined up Friday, a tentative on Wednesday and another tentative for weekend after next.
Corvallis is slim pickings. Two last week were with men here -- one a guy who runs a home inspection business and the other with an Associate Dean. The Dean I could probably go out with again if he calls in for another date. Not sure if he's quite what I'm looking for, but I am sure my mother would approve of him. The other is a very nice man, but just not the thing. All said, though, we of Corvallis are seriously disadvantaged. It's not the greatest place to be single. "Great place to raise a family," goes the mantra, but if one is past the young college years and unattached, the dating pool is lamentably limited.
The third last week was with a guy down in Eugene who was just awful. He was a 30 Minute Man who practically leapt from the table, cutting me off in mid-sentence to tell me he wasn't interested. Whoa. Me neither, but golly... The 1952 Esquire Handbook for Hosts says that going out on a date even with a boor is worthwhile, because it allows you the opportunity to practice your social skills under challenging conditions, and this can only make you a better person. He, apparently, wasn't interested in fine tuning any skills he might have had. I was speechless. But bless him, I was hoping for a swift ending, myself.
On Wednesday, a molecular biologist may be coming down from Portland for a dinner. Smart, reasonably good looking, well traveled, but I doubt I'm sufficiently gonzo NW-y for him. He assures me that he isn't looking for someone with whom to kayak Class V rivers, that he would be perfectly content to do that sort of thing on his own while I stroll around with the dog. I'm skeptical. As Son David points out, he likes doing that sort of thing, and he'd like to have someone to do it with. David is 24 and the molecular biologist (also named David) is 52, so maybe by this point in his life, the 52 year old has other priority criteria he's looking for in a mate.
But it's all moot if he doesn't confirm soon. That's the thing about this online social networking. It's easy to act on a change of heart by simply not writing to the would-be date anymore. It's better than being stood up, to be sure, but maybe a little annoying.
Friday's date is with a mondo chess-playing, jazz drumming, former Air Force officer and Air Force Academy history instructor. He's very nerdy in the egg-headed sort of way, as opposed to the techie sort of way. That's pretty appealing. That said, upon googling him, I came across his amazon.com 'wishlist', and there are an awful lot of Trekkie items (including a bronze-handled Star Trek 40th Anniversary Phaser Pistol) and 'Battlestar Galactica' DVDs in the line up, in addition to lots and lots of books on chess. He lives in the Sellwood neighborhood of Portland, so his postal code is quality, but he has two rather substantial tics against him: he's between jobs, having been laid off from his last when the company closed up shop in Portland, and he's *really* young. I put my age range out ten years on either side of me, but eight is probably better. This guy also goes out ten years on either side of himself. That puts him at my lowest point and me at his highest. In fact, given yahoo's system of aging you by year of birth instead of birth date, he is actually 34 not 35 (although, again according to his amazon wishlist, he'll turn 35 on the Ides of March... maybe he's just trying to line up a girlfriend to buy him some of those wishlist items).
Kudos to him, though, for being a male who will go as high as he will low. That's pretty rare. Most men won't go much over 2 to 5 years older than themselves, but have no problem going 10, 15 or 20 years younger, even when they state they are not in the least bit interested in having any/more children. And then there are the blockheads who stop just shy of their own age: man, 50, seeking woman, 25-49. Even fitting within their parameters, I won't touch those dunderheads. That's a big ol' red flag.
So, anyway, of all the blokes I'm in communication with at the moment, Young Theodore is the most appealing, but probably a long shot.
There is also the video editor (another David) in Portland who seems reticent about the distance, so who knows if that will ever happen, and the grumpy writer from San Francisco (another Dan) who went off to Sisters thinking that would be a great place to concentrate on his manuscript, but is now hating it with a vengeance. The tagline on his personal was, "No hiking, please," and he claims to be psychically allergic to polar fleece. Of course I wrote to that guy, even if Sisters is way too off the beaten path for me.
I'm still incredibly annoyed about the Dan From Eugene thing. We were really having a good time, but that said, I've known all along that there were some things that made him an unlikely long term prospect, and I was growing perhaps just a little too fond of him in spite of all that. And even though I wanted to keep it going for the sake of the fun and fondness, my esteem for him fell into the toilet on Valentine's when he mentioned -- unashamedly -- that he had spent $100 on one of those snake oil books sold on the internet promising to provide formulas for catching the perfect babe and having the relationship of your dreams, and that he was rather reliant on it for the great insights and advice it provides.
Buying it and buying into it are bad enough. Telling me that he has plugged me and our relationship into some kind of formulaic matrix devised by some skanky looking dude down in Southern California calling himself "Doc Love" is just plain social idiocy. After that, it was bound to end badly sooner or later. No doubt Doc Love would correctly point out that my attitude makes me a highly unsuitable mate for Dan, so maybe there's something to it.
Mary’s Love Update, Vol. 1. No. 3
I don't know how people keep up this kind of pace. My parent's generation says they married for lust. I think they married just to get all the whirlwind dating over and done with. It's exhausting. I don't know how many more dates I can go on before that habit I wore for seven+ years starts to look attractive again and I creep back into my convent. It's feeling likely any day now.
Someone -- a date -- commented to me recently that he has no patience for "power daters." I wasn't quite sure what he meant, but perhaps for some people, the goal is the dating itself. Truth be told, that grey zone of mate selection rituals has never been particularly appealing to me. I don't like doing auditions, either from the perspective of the 'performer' or 'director'. As one of you has pointed out, that is the flaw in this form of social networking. I could meet a very interesting person who I might otherwise have some connection with, but golly, I don't want him as a boyfriend. But, oh well. That's what we're here for, so if I can't cast him as a boyfriend, I can't cast him as anything at all. Next!
Anyway, I would hardly call myself a "power dater." I think one might really need to like going out on dates with strangers in order for that to be sustainable, perhaps getting a rush off of being beguiling. Maybe I'm not sufficiently beguiling, but gad... how exhausting.
All that said, it's a crap shoot, and it might take meeting a lot of people before one finds the potential companion with the zing in all the right places. It is hard, though. When do reasonable expectations of focused and individualized (i.e. exclusive) attention kick in?
Since last writing, I have not heard anything from the Associate Dean, so one presumes lack of interest. Despite the fact that I'm sure my mother would have given him the Gold Star, and he was a nice and engaging enough sort of fellow, I just wasn't feeling it, so I can't say I'm terribly disappointed about him.
Last night I met the molecular biologist/immunologist of whom Mother would also greatly approve, and while there may very well be more dates with that one, I am a bit reticent. He has a lot to recommend him on paper, but he's such an outdoorsy guy. He's some sort of slalom kayaking champion, whitewater kind of dude. But he also likes to travel with other things in mind, and his regular beat includes visiting extremely close friends in Rome, with a casale in Umbria near Orvieto. Hm. But he's also the guy who doesn't like "power daters," and if that means I have to pull in my feelers just to go out with him a second or third time, I smell a problem way more problematic than the x-treme outdoorsiness.
Tomorrow is Young Theodore, who is not as terribly young as I thought he was. He'll be 40 on the Ides of March, and is not the scary 34 that I thought he was. This is the former Air Force officer/Air Force Academy history professor/mondo chess player who is currently "between jobs" because of a company down-sizing. Otherwise, this one seems more my speed and my type, if not as Mother-worthy in terms of income. He's a bit of a Trekkie, and there was some joking suggestion of dressing up and playing Captain Kirk and Nurse Chapel, but he has an interesting story or two to tell and is very funny on paper, even if the professional credentials are not as stunning as the molecular biologist's or the dean's.
I have several others with whom I could line up dates, but I'm beginning to feel the burn. I just need everything to stop a minute.
Ah. Young Theodore is sending me an IM. There goes the next hour.
Mary’s Love Update, Vol. 1. No. 4
I've decided that I max out at three. I may be able to juggle more potential sweeties than that at one time, but it would be far too much work. This weekend I have a third date with Young Theodore, and second date with David the Whitewater Kayaker Molecular Biologist and a first date with Dave the Video Editor. Thankfully they are all in one place, but that place is Portland. Blast Corvallis' limitations.
I'm fairly sure Young Theodore is going to be eliminated from the field eventually. He has a lot to recommend him -- brainy in the historian/chess-playing/egg-headed sort of way, no interest what-so-ever in having children, cooks, is kind and, though not at all what I would call handsome, really rather appealing when set up at his drum kit doing the hot jazz musician thing. That said, he has some fairly critical points against him. He lacks economic ambition, and while I do not require bucket loads of wealth in a partner, one of us has got to be steadily and gainfully employed with a bit of money-making drive. The chances of it being me are not looking so good right now. If he could match me income-wise, that would be quite fine, but being in a position of needing to be supported is just not going to work for me. He is also a self-described "home body," and while he probably wouldn't turn up his nose at the odd trip to Europe, he's probably not quite the super competent travel companion I yearn for.
Finally, I have decided that men who have reached a certain age who have never been married or never been in a relationship lasting more than a year or so really don't have any business being on my Serious List. Perhaps that's not fair. Perhaps the Dan From Eugene specimen was unique fauna, but I'm suspecting that a man who has reached his forties without even an ultimately unsuccessful long-term relationship is likely to be someone who does not know how or is not willing to put in the effort to make a relationship work; someone who is constantly on the look out for me to do something 'wrong', who cannot see his own mistakes, who interprets rough spots as deep fissures and who does not think negotiation is necessary in the "perfect" relationship. That sort will spend his life relationship hopping and tossing, and I'll just be another hop and toss. To his credit, Young Theodore does not seem to have any self-help books on how to get the perfect babe on his shelves, and that's a good sign -- for whatever reason nothing has panned out for him, at least his 'system' and mistakes are his own and not derived from some formula mixed up and spoon-fed to him by Doc Love. Even so, there is that fact that he's 40 and has never been in a relationship lasting longer than 18 months. I don't know all the extenuating circumstances, but there it is.
David the Ambitious (kayaking molecular biologist) has, perhaps, too much drive of one sort or another. He was going to come down here for a date this evening, but he injured his neck messing with his kayak yesterday. I see long absences and many changed plans due to broken limbs in my future with that one. I could take up kayaking (or kite boarding, his next big idea) to help eliminate some of the long absences, but I'm really not that keen. Plus, I'd just as soon not have to deal with injured necks and broken limbs of my own.
There's also something slightly uncomfortable about his intensity and drive. I haven't determined yet if I'm being held up to a standard that I have no interest in being held up to, or if he's the type of person who would try to drive someone to 'measure up' to his expectations, but there's a slight sensation of hairs rising on the back of my neck going on. If his expectations for me and a relationship are the same as my own, fine. I'll just call that drive being supportive. But if they're not, that requires the use of a very different descriptive.
I'm beginning to sound like Goldilocks. Perhaps Dave the Video Editor will be just right, but he thinks the 75 minute commute between Corvallis and Portland is an eternity of thousands of miles, so we would have to hit it off big time rather instantaneously for there to be much likelihood of further exploration after our first date on Sunday.
I do have a fourth one out there in the hopper, but he's a long shot because of distance. That's Dan the Grumpy Writer, the fellow sitting over in Sisters being miserable surrounded by People Who Hike and Mean Christian Ladies in red fleece jackets (who he says look like so many tomatoes wandering the streets). I'll meet him when he comes back from a trip to London, where he will spend two week clearing his head in the pristine, rarefied air of Trafalgar Square. However, not only is Sisters too far away, but he's only even that close temporarily while he finishes his manuscript. Home is actually San Francisco. Not terribly promising.
Mary’s Love Update, Vol. 1. No. 5
I'm really not sure which is worse; the disappointment of not being what the intriguing potential love interest wants, or the unhappy sinking feeling I get when someone is becoming way more interested in me than I will ever be in him. I think this issue must have been discussed before in my lifetime. I'm rather sure of it, in fact.
Last weekend, both David the Ambitious and Dave the Video Editor withdrew from the field. I questioned the former rather closely regarding the level of mutual outdoor activities he might be interested in. If you all will recall, this is the Canadian national champion slalom kayak racer and all-around outdoor adventure sportster molecular biologist. I really have no problem with all that sporty stuff, but if he should ever discover he really does want a woman who can hold her own on the kite board and mountain bike, and what he has instead is me, the tale would have a very unhappy ending.
Upon some consideration (after another kayak race) he recalled that, yes, his girlfriends have routinely been rather more sports inclined than not and that, yes, he probably would like to be with someone who would at least occasionally join him in his reindeer games and be able to keep up. So off the table he goes.
Not that I'm terribly disappointed, really. I felt too much like peculiar fauna around him. Maybe it was a lack of "chemistry" thing, whatever that is. Anyway, it wasn't feeling quite right in general terms.
Dave the Video Editor, who I think I'll rename Small Dave, because he wasn't as tall as he said he was in his profile, was an engaging enough guy, and I would go a second round with him. We exchanged a handful of post-meeting e-mails, one with a link to Mother and Daddy's website showing their stock footage collections, because he asked for it, and I suggested we think about another meet up this weekend.
Enter the topic of how people stop the proceedings, or more precisely, what they say to indicate a lack of interest in further explorations. Some people are very straight forward. One guy wrote to me after the meeting, and very nicely thanked me, but said he didn't think there was any kind of romantic spark between us. I concurred, and that was that. I suspect the most common approach is to just quietly disappear from the airwaves without comment. That could make for an awkward moment should I ever run into the Associate Dean on campus sometime. He did what appears to be the standard no communication after the meeting. Of course, so did I, so I can't dis the tactic too much.
Another way is more of the dodge approach. David the Ambitious used the line, "I think I need to think about this some more," meaning he's thought about it, doesn't want further exploration and I will never hear from him again. Small Dave said, "Gosh - it's just Monday, my poor brain can't think of the weekend yet. ... We'll keep in touch...," meaning we won't keep in touch.
I'm so glad I have such a well-developed understanding of codes, signs and symbols. Otherwise it could be damned confusing.
Young Theodore is still on the field, but only because he's somewhat entertaining to hang out with, not because I have a special romantic interest. Which brings me to that second situation I wrote about in the first paragraph; I'm just not that into him, but he seems to be quite into me. In the case of my experiences with all three of these guys, I would have to say that the situation with Young Theodore is by far the most difficult and unhappy. The other two warrant little more than a shrug. I'm hoping I'm wrong about this and that we are on the same page -- amusing to hang out with, maybe friendly acquaintance material, but not the girl/boy dreams are made of.
So, where all this leaves me is in the middle of an empty field. Clearly I was far too stressed about juggling three at a time, because I only had to do it one weekend. That said, I am meeting a new one tomorrow, a very engaging on paper, well-read, Intel project manager who stays up on things like immigration issues in Europe and post-Wall Eastern and Central European politics. He has broad interests. I'm calling him Mark the Conversant. He lives in Tigard (ick), but perhaps that's not a fixed state of affairs. It's far too early to worry about that, in any case.
There's one other Portland-based specimen that I'm considering, but he looks like Chuck Norris. I am notoriously unpredictable when it comes to what I find attractive. Steve Buscemi, Daniel Craig, Vlad Putin and Sean Bean have all been on my list at one time or another, but Walker, Texas Ranger has not. More on him later, if we set up a meeting.
One of you encouraged me to sign up for eHarmony, yet a third match-making site. This one really does function as a match-maker, with the good people at the home office determining who I should consider meeting and only presenting me with those possibilities. I keep getting matches in their late 50's and early 60's. I did understand that at all until I figured out how to get into the preferred age settings. At 45, eHarmony recommends that I set my age parameters at 43 to 60. What do you want to bet that the recommended search criteria for a 45 year old man is more along the lines of 28 to 47? I have half a mind to write them a strong letter scolding them for their perpetuation of gender ideologies. That said, it gives me lecture material for 'Gender, Family and Generation', a course I'm teaching next term.
Needless to say, they have yet to present me with anything really approaching intriguing. The ones they do send are pretty few and far between, as well, which I suspect has more to do with education level and concomitant characteristics than age (another discussion topic for my class). They also say they match based on looks. Considering most of what they've sent me, I'm close to being downright insulted.
Speaking of that, I met a local one yesterday who said I intimidated him because of my attractiveness. I'm used to intimidating based on brain, but looks? That's a new one. At least, this is the first I've heard of such a strange thing. His age contributed to this, no doubt. He's a 60 year-old prof here. "The Old Guy," he has dubbed himself. I'm not entirely sure why I agreed to meet him, but I was quite upfront about the age gap really being too much. He is a nice enough man, however, and I can always benefit from practicing my social skills. I would be concerned about The Old Guy doing the stars-in-his-eyes Young Theodore thing, however, so I'm going to maintain some unambiguous distance.
Mary’s Love Update, Vol. 1. No. 6
I am getting so tired. They say -- and I know this from personal experience -- that the oppression of culture shock really hits a person hard at about the three or four-month mark of ethnographic field research. Sure enough, when I was in Germany doing my anthropology thing, I got hit by it right on schedule. It was late September or early October when I reached my German language (and German) saturation point. I gathered up some English language books from the Nuremberg city library down the street, shut myself into my studio apartment, and read and read and read in total isolation for about three weeks. I read, among other 19th century classics, Thackeray's Vanity Fair three times in a row (the selection at the Nuremberg city library was limited, although I could have read endless Tom Clancy).
I think one may be able to argue for there being such a high water mark in the world of hard-core online meeting people to maybe date (A.K.A. "online dating'). I really started back in October, but only met one person between that time and getting together with Dan From Eugene in early January, so I like to think I didn't really start the game with any seriousness until about three months ago. I find myself going into these sites with less and less enthusiasm and general interest, as well as more and more of a critical eye. I feel like I'm in a cafeteria line after having eaten a full meal at home.
Last night, eharmony presented to me a man who used the word "spiritual" to describe himself, what is important to him and what he's looking for no less than six times in his 'about me' information. What about "was probably born without the 'god gene' inclining one towards the spiritual" did the good people at the eharmony home office not understand? I'm sure he's a very nice man, but when he starts talking that stuff, I'm going to glaze over.
In any case, I'm feeling the oppressive strains of something akin to culture shock. I'm thinking about how nice it was when I was happily retired into private life and never spent any time thinking about any of this stuff. I want to shut myself back up into my convent and read endless P.G. Wodehouse novels in which the Edwardian British upper classes fall in and out of love at a moment's notice and narrowly escape engagement and marriage at every turn.
But I trudge onward. What ho.
Last weekend I met surely the most interesting one I've come across, yet. Mark the Conversant (or Mark the Ukrainian) met me outside Powell's Books in Portland Saturday afternoon. First thing I notice is that he is quite a bit darker in real life than in his pictures. Second, he who said in his profile that he only speaks English had a vaguely familiar accent. He suggested I guess where he was from -- well, I pondered, mid-latitudes, anywhere from Morocco to Western China. Further north, he says, and as I was about to say something along the lines of the former Soviet Union, like around about Uzbekistan or so, he says Ukraine.
Really? I say, thinking to myself that he doesn't look Ukrainian. "I don't look Ukrainian," he says. No, you don't, I reply. "I'm Jewish," he explains. With a German name. From western Ukraine. Oh, I say. From the Transcarpatians, then? Stunned silence. "Yes! From the main city in that area." Oh, Liviv, I say. Stunned silence. "Yes. Have you been?" He left in 1988. Classic. He says he does not list Russian as one of his languages because he doesn't want women from the local Russian Pentecostal community contacting him.
So we had a very interesting conversation during which he came awfully close to -- but did not quite reach -- expressing a level of concern about the Islamicization of Europe that reminded me of batshit insane Bat Ye'or's Eurabia conspiracy theory (the EU officialdom is in cahoots with the Muslim world
to compel everyone in Europe to convert to Islam and turn it into part of the Caliphate). I cut him some slack, because, like I said, he didn't quite reach that level of insanity and I kept thinking that if I were a rather Sephardic looking Ukrainian Jew whose family had somehow managed to survive the Holocaust in situ and who had been beaten up a couple of times by the KGB, I might be a little paranoid in these times, too.
He was interesting enough -- and not at all crazy -- in other ways that I would have definitely gone out with him again, but he never has responded to my post-date e-mail thanking him for the lovely time and suggesting another get together. Oh well.
Sunday evening I had dinner with the president of a printing company, a transplant from Boston and a second generation immigrant who got his undergrad at Jerusalem and Masters at MIT. I see a pattern, and it's not what you're thinking. I'm beginning to understand that I'm in the market for men who want me, in part, for my status and social capital as an academic type. If a man doesn't appreciate the egg-headedness, this could be a problem.
Social scientists -- especially adjunct, fixed-term professors -- don't make huge amounts of money. Our social capital, such as it is, is all we have. So, this means I'll most likely be attractive to men who have a fair amount of economic capital, and who like the academic "prestige" I bring to the table, or to other academics who generally place brain booty over economic, but who don't want career booty that surpasses theirs. I think that the field of serious suitors is definitely refining itself to just these sorts -- well-educated rich men and university professors/research scientists. This should make my mother happy.
That's just speculation, of course. It's frankly too early to tell what the field is refining itself to, because it clears as quickly as it fills. But Boston Boy is still in the field. He's the only one standing at this point, except for Dan the Grumpy Writer who is back from London at the end of this week and who I will meet sometime next week if plans still hold.
In the meantime, Young Theodore is teaching me to play Go. I really am going to have to do something about him soon.
Mary’s Love Update, Vol. 2. No. 1
And the search for Mary's Perfect Companion continues... .
About the time of Spring Break, the burn out hit quite hard, and while I've kept up the dating, I have slowed down. My amusement in the whole thing has plummeted. Consequently, I haven't been able to bring myself to write about it. I don't know if I can honestly say I'm feeling amused again, but the mood to write is back.
Since my last update, I went on another date with Boston Boy (successful company president, degrees from Jerusalem and MIT). He was keen on seeing me again, but on our way to dinner, he ran through two stop signs and turned the wrong way down a one-way street. In a subsequent phone conversation after he had returned from a ski weekend, he mentioned that he had gotten two speeding tickets on that little trip. I guess that means I should add 'safe driver' to my list of must-haves. One of his passions is his BMW motorcycle, so I figure this guy's days on earth are probably limited. I wouldn't want mine to be similarly limited through association.
Furthermore, while his profile had him as 49, he's actually 55. "Because 50 sounds so old," he explained when I asked him why the lie. Yes, well, I guess, then, that 55 sounds even older.
I did start out with a range going as high as 55, but I've brought it down to within 8 years of me -- eHarmony's argument that relationships between older men and younger women are ideal, not withstanding. The first and biggest reason is that, as a woman, my life expectancy is 5.3 years longer than that of men. Presumably, I will want to eventually settle down with someone whom I would just as soon not live without, and if he's a much older man, the odds are that I will eventually have to live without him for a rather long time. If I marry someone even 'just' ten years older, I could be facing 15 years or more of being a widow. That's fine if I have been looking forward to his death, but I have no intention of going into that sort of arrangement. Not unless he stands a good chance of handing in his dinner pail while I am still reasonable young, boosted by the enormous wealth he would leave me.
I've asked a couple of the men I've dated who state a preference for younger women why they do (for both, yes, I was in their younger range). "I'm really active, so I need a partner who can keep up," they both explained using those exact words.
I don't buy that for a minute. If they aren't just pulling it out as a line that seems less offensive than what they really think, they are delusional. Given that women live longer, one might presume that they generally stay healthy and active longer, so a man of 52, as David the Ambitious was, should do just fine with a woman of 52 in terms of activity level. That's an individual thing, not an age thing. If a 52 year old man can and does race kayaks down Class V whitewater, why does he automatically presume that no 52 year old woman can and does? And why would he think that at 45, such a thing would come naturally to me? I have absolutely no interest in doing that sort of thing and never have, not even when I was 25 or 15, but I do know women who are ten years or more older than me who are very much into extreme whitewater.
Boston Boy, at age 55, has a definition of "active" that is more related to travel in a variety of different locales, some marginally challenging. Mother and Daddy were in their 60's when they went to West Africa and are tootling around god knows where right now -- the Panama Canal, I think -- in their 70's.
The clencher with Boston Boy, however, was not the terrifying driving or the age thing, but the moment he emailed me a 'funny'; it was a picture of a control console like a stereo amplifier divided in half with one button on the *top* half labeled "Man," and a complex maze of wheels and buttons and dials on the *bottom* half labeled "Woman." It was all I could do to keep myself from firing back an angry message deconstructing his ass. I'll show him complicated... Next!
Speaking of age deceptions, I was feeling rather hopeful about the director of a Salem-based non-profit, but when I met him, it was apparent that his picture on his profile was somewhat dated. I didn't recognize him at all. He was pleasant enough, but it's hard to get sparked by someone who has started the whole thing off with a deception. That's the second time I've encountered the blatant past perfect picture thing. Dan From Eugene used a picture that was probably 20-30 pounds ago. The sense of humor and lovely eyes were enough to distract me from the fact that he looked about ready to give birth to a case of beer, which just goes to show that aspects of personality can be just as blinding as physical appearance, if one has a weakness for them.
I continue to hang out with Young Theodore. I would consider him a friend at this point. He's amusing, learning Go is entertaining, he can hold up his end of a conversation and there are some common interests, but he's just not sweetheart material. We seem to have come to a mutual understanding on that regard.
On the horizon is another non-profit director down in Eugene and a psychologist up in Portland. I'm meeting the psychologist this weekend, as things are currently planned, but in his last e-mail to me, he went on at some length about how sad and tired and depressed he is whenever he goes over to his parents' house, because they don't ever seem to be that interested in what he has to say and he just feels so discarded and unloved. Well, you know what they say about psychologists... they went into the field because they felt badly in need of counseling. A problematic relationship with one's parents is one thing; whining about it in correspondence with someone you haven't even met yet is quite another. I'm sensing a lack of social intelligence, and I've come to the conclusion that social intelligence is a very desirable thing. But it was late and he was tired and I was feeling irritable, so I'm going to assume a miscued interpretation on my part.
Finally, at the encouragement of my mother, I checked out another outfit called 'It's Just Lunch.' They function as a true match making service; you meet with the match makers in person, and they arrange dates for you. The only time the 'online' element comes into play is when you make initial contact with the company and when they subsequently e-mail you fix ups. They even make the restaurant reservations for you. You have no communication with the match until you meet on your date, if I understand the procedure correctly. I talked to the Portland office; it costs $1,500 for a year, guaranteeing 16 dates in that period. I'm afraid that's just not in my budget, although it would be interesting to see how that price point acts as a filter.
Mary’s Love Update, Vol. 2. No. 2
Meeting someone local -- that being in Corvallis, rather than Eugene or Salem or Portland -- seems like such a luxury, but it has its downside. As I was sitting at Interzone the other evening having a cup of tea on a first date with a Match match, son David comes trickling in and over to the table. After a couple of preliminary "hi's" and what not, he looks at the poor fellow and asks, "So... which one are you?" David's days on this mailing list might be numbered.
Following that, an old high school buddy of both sons wanders in and informs me that Bryan will be home in two or three weeks. The reason I did not hear this from Bryan is because his plan is to hitchhike back from Toronto. Sam spilled the beans. I turned into A Mother, which I figure can't make me smokin' hot to a date, but apparently that combined with the "which one are you" were not enough to drive this poor fellow off. We have date #3 on Tuesday.
Maybe I sell all the men I'm meeting short, but even though I'm up to the third date with this guy, he's not quite what I'm looking for. I couldn't tell you what, precisely, that is, but it's not an awkward, gnomish, outdoorsy computer geek with no college degree and a hobby writing protest songs. That's not a terrible hobby, mind you, but he's no Phil Ochs. He does have photography as a hobby, as well, and he's quite good, plus, even though he has no degree in hand, he seems to make a comfortable living as a consultant (one of Corvallis' multitude). And I have to say, he's impressively well-read. He most definitely does not have to look up in the dictionary a third of everything that falls out of my mouth. He's even quite well-traveled, mostly in conjunction with his business. He also has the distinction of having been largely raised by a Francophone Swiss grandmother, making him more or less bi-lingual, which is a relatively rare find in monolingual America. To look at him, you'd never know. He just doesn't seem like the sort you'd expect to be fluent in French. As I say about what I'm supposedly looking for in a man, I'm not quite sure what I would expect in the way of a fluent French speaker, but it's not him.
Before some of you jump all over me about being too 'picky', let me just say that he lacks charisma. I think I need a little charisma. Not oodles, mind you, but just a titch. All that said, we have highly compatible tastes in movies, so he does make a good movie-going/DVD renting buddy.
Not-Phil-Ochs is not the only person I've met since my last update. A couple of weeks ago I went on a Sauvie Island canoe paddle with a decidedly good looking -- Carib Black from Belize with the most unusual blue eyes -- educated, and all around pleasant fellow, but he's way more outdoorsy than I am and not really the most engaging conversationalist. There's the charisma thing again. He's a financial analyst. Perhaps that's the handicap.
He also did one of those homophobic freak-outs that tend to have a dampening effect on my interest level. We were walking back to our cars from a post-canoe early supper, when a mini-skirted woman stepped up on the sidewalk. It struck me that there was something that didn't quite add up about her from behind, and sure enough, as she turned to go into a bar, she turned her face in our direction. Yes, it is sometimes a little surprising to see a man where you thought there was a woman, but my date was visibly shaken. He even inched away from the bar as we walked past. I mean, really.
People have said, "Well, maybe it's a cultural thing." That would be the excuse of your run-of-the-mill homophobic frat boy or Great Basin rancher, too, would it not? I wouldn't date one of them, either.
The Angst-Ridden Psychologist I was on my way to meeting last update has been met. He was not nearly as angst-ridden in person as he came across in writing, but there was no buzz.
There was another one last weekend -- Saturday lunch at a rather prosaic joint in Beaverton called The Stockpot adjacent to a golf course where we had French onion soup. Nice man, but not really my thing, nor am I his. He's the sort of man I might have met while working at the Chamber. I probably would have gone out with him again if he had asked -- especially if he had suggested a horseback riding excursion, him being a horseman of four years -- but he didn't feel the buzz, so he tells me. Likewise. I'm perhaps more sceptical of "the buzz" or "chemistry" or "butterflies" as it's also called, than many of the men I've met, but if they're going to go on the buzz factor, what can I say?
Finally -- and I don't think I've left anyone out, but it's possible... it's all such a blur -- I met an educational outreach administrator this weekend. Of all of them, I probably had with him the most natural feeling initial conversation. He's an old, thankfully reformed, New Age guy (think drum circles, Robert Bly, sweat lodges in Southern California, etc.). We talked about my Master's research, and because of his personal reformation and generally being an all around smart sort, he gets the problematics of his past spiritual interests. I'm not sure if I felt "the buzz" this time, but I could definitely see pursuing an acquaintance with him. Anyone who used to be into Robert Bly and can now dis him right and proper is going to earn some points in my book.
Then there's Young Theodore. Yes, he's still in the picture. He's comfortable. I'm going to be really pissed with myself one of these days over Young Theodore, come what may. He's surely not The One, but he is charming in a misanthropic, "cute" Steve Buscemi sort of way. Those of you familiar with my predictably unpredictable taste in men and male aesthetics will understand.
For those of you who want a diversion from my love escapades, you can join me in stressing out over Bryan and his hitch hiking adventure:
http://saintbryan.livejournal.com/
Mary’s Love Update, Vol. 2. No. 3
I wiped the slate or table or whatever type of surface imagery you want to use clean this weekend. I have said no more dates to Not Phil Ochs and am taking a hiatus from Young Theodore which will probably become permanent. It feels crappy to cut them off, but I'm feeling a certain lightness of being now that I've done so.
There is another one coming up, however, and I'm stewing mightily over it. He's seemingly too good to be true: sharp, witty, very successful -- partner and executive director of one of Oregon's top two advertising agencies... I can't even begin to describe how absolutely inadequate I'm feeling. Unless he turns out to be a 300 lb Quasimodo pretending he's this Mr. Fabulous, I'm in for a challenge. Our email banter -- our written chemistry -- is spot on, but I think he has me constructed as some sort of larger-than-life Molly Ivins type character, no doubt with the body of Sophia Loren, circa 1958.
I met this one via another of the online matchmaking tools, this one called Chemistry put out by the match.com people as their answer to e-harmony. The people at Chemistry present one with potential matches and guide the two through a communication process only leading to open communication via email after a couple of layers of 'formal' questioning and survey type stuff. As a last step, one of the participants can send an invitation for a First-Meeting (TM). Yes, they've trademarked the first meeting.
It's ridiculous, of course. Why not just ask in an email about meeting? But they have a process set up for moving to that next step, and it involves clicking on a "Request First-Meeting (TM)" button. It's hard to resist -- that candy-like button, that 'What's a First-Meeting (TM)" link, that flow chart (1. contact, 2. email, 3. meet)... One has to see what sort of fairy dust magic happens when one follows all The Steps, or perhaps more appropriately to this forum, what sort of chemical reaction it will set off.
What a disappointment. All I got were safety tips, pre-written text ("Hi XXXXX, I've enjoyed getting to know you. I'd really like to meet you in person for a First-Meeting. Hope we can find a time to get together soon. -Mary"), a selection of themes (roses, coffee or marigold), and the choice of only one venue (Starbucks). I felt like I was being herded into the Camp Prosaic detention center.
Mr. Fabulous, is hardly prosaic. He's about as close as I'm ever going to get to a 'Sex and the City' Mr. Big sort of character. The pressure is killing me. Fortunately, we are subjecting each other to our mutual appraisal tomorrow over lunch. It will all be over with soon.
Mary’s Love Update, Vol. 2. No. 3, Part 2
Oh yeah. That's what I'm talkin' about. This Mr. Fabulous guy is precisely the sort of thing I'm looking for. I have no idea if the feeling is mutual, but now that I've seen what it is, I know what it is.
We had lunch today. Funny, quick-witted, engaged and engaging, successful, uncommon, great conversationalist -- he assured me before meeting that he asks good questions, and he did not disappoint -- presentable, if not drop-dead gorgeous... Just right.
But he did let on that his schedule for the next month is booked up with business-related travel, and in my experience thus far, that sort of thing is frequently code for 'well, that was nice and all, but I'm not feelin' the love.'
::sigh::
This weekend I'm off to a Scottish clan gathering up in Bellingham, Washington in order to push bagpipes (I've been staying up late practicing my fist shaking at the Bastard Queen), which means a dateless weekend for a change. I'm rather looking forward to it. Bryan, it turns out, may intersect with me at that point, which means we (me and biz partner Rob) could be the last hitch on his epic journey. I promise not to mug him and leave him dead in a ditch.
This has been a big question for me lately. Oh… yes… it’s been a while since my last update, hasn’t it? Many moons and men ago, in fact. This past fall I dived back into the world of relationship hunting and all of that activity’s concomitant activities after a seven+ year hiatus. It, plus a four-classes-per-term teaching schedule has rather preoccupied me. I think, though, that it’s time I let my LJ buddies in on my adventures.
I’ve been keeping a journal of events that I call “Mary’s Love Update.” Close friends and family members have found it amusing, but that’s probably just because they know me. Still, behind the cut, you will find all the entries.
But back to the original question; I’ve come to the conclusion that men who ‘worship’ me blindly are dreadfully dull, and men who are hyper critical or intimidated to the point of animosity are dreadfully revolting. I’ve run the full gamut in the past few months. The only one who is not chronicled is the guy who said on a date that he could never get a therapeutic massage from a man right before we went to see ‘Borat’. When Sacha Baron Cohen was nosing up to Ken Davitian’s ass, I didn’t know if I was laughing at that, or at the fact that I was sitting next to a man who could not get a massage from a man. In any case, that was the third and final date with that guy.
Mary’s Love Update, Vol. 1. No. 1
Dan is a no-go. OK, well, so much for that one. We don't see eye to eye on the mutability of race and the problematics of the Kennewick Man controversy. Apparently this is a problem, as is my response to being rather aggressively talked over about these things as if I surely know nothing. To think, if only I didn't have an advanced degree in anthropology, we might still be two happy little lovebirds... . And to think I quickly backed down and out of both of those unhappy discussions. Yikes. Bad Mary.
Ultimately, though, while he seemed at first pretty cool and good-humored about having to look up a third of my everyday vocabulary in the dictionary, I think the education/knowledge base thing was the ultimate killer. It dawned on me how tired he was getting when I said something about not subsuming oneself in a relationship, and he sighed deeply, saying, "I don't know what that means," in a tone of voice that suggested he badly needed a long sleep to rest his brain.
So the pluses I got out of that one? I liked the affection, the entertainment (dancing, yay!), the humor, his tidiness, his slightly off-beat sense of adventure, his eyes.. lovely eyes, I will say. I'll put those in my 'good to have' column.
I didn't so much like his general communication style (awkward silences, abruptness); the fact that he seemed uncomfortable 50% of the time; his waistline; his prosaic sense of fashion and personal grooming; his dismissal of anything other than the hardest of the hard sciences and dismissal of academia in general (he once mentioned that he could never date a postmodernist... why I didn't bail at that point is beyond me, but I just bit my tongue); his rigid, formulaic approach toward relationships (out of books and self-help guides and, I learned a couple of day ago, some online snake oil thing called "The System"); and related to the former, surely, his lack of experience with long-term relationships (41 years old, never married, longest GF lasted a year); his rather bitter, bordering on misogynistic sounding attitude toward dating rituals, 'gold-digging' women and feminists (as discovered in an online forum he frequently contributes to); his "liberal" intolerance (the intolerance of a die-hard atheist); and the fact that, because of all of the above, I'd be wary of introducing him to my friends. I probably could have introduced him to my mother, because he's really quiet and she would just talk over him, but woe if she brought up anything about clines that he might disagree with....
::sigh:: The good things were really good, but the bad were absolute killer deal breakers that I was dangerously close to ignoring because I was having so much fun 'falling in love'. ack.
In the past 24 hours, I've shot out feelers to about ten men in the online dating world. Back to the drawing board, as they say. Any of you have any cute friends who might come with the definition of 'subsume' already in their kit bag?
Mary’s Love Update, Vol. 1. No. 2
After the sudden unpleasant turn of events with the Dan, I wasted no time jumping back in. I've been on three dates since then, have another lined up Friday, a tentative on Wednesday and another tentative for weekend after next.
Corvallis is slim pickings. Two last week were with men here -- one a guy who runs a home inspection business and the other with an Associate Dean. The Dean I could probably go out with again if he calls in for another date. Not sure if he's quite what I'm looking for, but I am sure my mother would approve of him. The other is a very nice man, but just not the thing. All said, though, we of Corvallis are seriously disadvantaged. It's not the greatest place to be single. "Great place to raise a family," goes the mantra, but if one is past the young college years and unattached, the dating pool is lamentably limited.
The third last week was with a guy down in Eugene who was just awful. He was a 30 Minute Man who practically leapt from the table, cutting me off in mid-sentence to tell me he wasn't interested. Whoa. Me neither, but golly... The 1952 Esquire Handbook for Hosts says that going out on a date even with a boor is worthwhile, because it allows you the opportunity to practice your social skills under challenging conditions, and this can only make you a better person. He, apparently, wasn't interested in fine tuning any skills he might have had. I was speechless. But bless him, I was hoping for a swift ending, myself.
On Wednesday, a molecular biologist may be coming down from Portland for a dinner. Smart, reasonably good looking, well traveled, but I doubt I'm sufficiently gonzo NW-y for him. He assures me that he isn't looking for someone with whom to kayak Class V rivers, that he would be perfectly content to do that sort of thing on his own while I stroll around with the dog. I'm skeptical. As Son David points out, he likes doing that sort of thing, and he'd like to have someone to do it with. David is 24 and the molecular biologist (also named David) is 52, so maybe by this point in his life, the 52 year old has other priority criteria he's looking for in a mate.
But it's all moot if he doesn't confirm soon. That's the thing about this online social networking. It's easy to act on a change of heart by simply not writing to the would-be date anymore. It's better than being stood up, to be sure, but maybe a little annoying.
Friday's date is with a mondo chess-playing, jazz drumming, former Air Force officer and Air Force Academy history instructor. He's very nerdy in the egg-headed sort of way, as opposed to the techie sort of way. That's pretty appealing. That said, upon googling him, I came across his amazon.com 'wishlist', and there are an awful lot of Trekkie items (including a bronze-handled Star Trek 40th Anniversary Phaser Pistol) and 'Battlestar Galactica' DVDs in the line up, in addition to lots and lots of books on chess. He lives in the Sellwood neighborhood of Portland, so his postal code is quality, but he has two rather substantial tics against him: he's between jobs, having been laid off from his last when the company closed up shop in Portland, and he's *really* young. I put my age range out ten years on either side of me, but eight is probably better. This guy also goes out ten years on either side of himself. That puts him at my lowest point and me at his highest. In fact, given yahoo's system of aging you by year of birth instead of birth date, he is actually 34 not 35 (although, again according to his amazon wishlist, he'll turn 35 on the Ides of March... maybe he's just trying to line up a girlfriend to buy him some of those wishlist items).
Kudos to him, though, for being a male who will go as high as he will low. That's pretty rare. Most men won't go much over 2 to 5 years older than themselves, but have no problem going 10, 15 or 20 years younger, even when they state they are not in the least bit interested in having any/more children. And then there are the blockheads who stop just shy of their own age: man, 50, seeking woman, 25-49. Even fitting within their parameters, I won't touch those dunderheads. That's a big ol' red flag.
So, anyway, of all the blokes I'm in communication with at the moment, Young Theodore is the most appealing, but probably a long shot.
There is also the video editor (another David) in Portland who seems reticent about the distance, so who knows if that will ever happen, and the grumpy writer from San Francisco (another Dan) who went off to Sisters thinking that would be a great place to concentrate on his manuscript, but is now hating it with a vengeance. The tagline on his personal was, "No hiking, please," and he claims to be psychically allergic to polar fleece. Of course I wrote to that guy, even if Sisters is way too off the beaten path for me.
I'm still incredibly annoyed about the Dan From Eugene thing. We were really having a good time, but that said, I've known all along that there were some things that made him an unlikely long term prospect, and I was growing perhaps just a little too fond of him in spite of all that. And even though I wanted to keep it going for the sake of the fun and fondness, my esteem for him fell into the toilet on Valentine's when he mentioned -- unashamedly -- that he had spent $100 on one of those snake oil books sold on the internet promising to provide formulas for catching the perfect babe and having the relationship of your dreams, and that he was rather reliant on it for the great insights and advice it provides.
Buying it and buying into it are bad enough. Telling me that he has plugged me and our relationship into some kind of formulaic matrix devised by some skanky looking dude down in Southern California calling himself "Doc Love" is just plain social idiocy. After that, it was bound to end badly sooner or later. No doubt Doc Love would correctly point out that my attitude makes me a highly unsuitable mate for Dan, so maybe there's something to it.
Mary’s Love Update, Vol. 1. No. 3
I don't know how people keep up this kind of pace. My parent's generation says they married for lust. I think they married just to get all the whirlwind dating over and done with. It's exhausting. I don't know how many more dates I can go on before that habit I wore for seven+ years starts to look attractive again and I creep back into my convent. It's feeling likely any day now.
Someone -- a date -- commented to me recently that he has no patience for "power daters." I wasn't quite sure what he meant, but perhaps for some people, the goal is the dating itself. Truth be told, that grey zone of mate selection rituals has never been particularly appealing to me. I don't like doing auditions, either from the perspective of the 'performer' or 'director'. As one of you has pointed out, that is the flaw in this form of social networking. I could meet a very interesting person who I might otherwise have some connection with, but golly, I don't want him as a boyfriend. But, oh well. That's what we're here for, so if I can't cast him as a boyfriend, I can't cast him as anything at all. Next!
Anyway, I would hardly call myself a "power dater." I think one might really need to like going out on dates with strangers in order for that to be sustainable, perhaps getting a rush off of being beguiling. Maybe I'm not sufficiently beguiling, but gad... how exhausting.
All that said, it's a crap shoot, and it might take meeting a lot of people before one finds the potential companion with the zing in all the right places. It is hard, though. When do reasonable expectations of focused and individualized (i.e. exclusive) attention kick in?
Since last writing, I have not heard anything from the Associate Dean, so one presumes lack of interest. Despite the fact that I'm sure my mother would have given him the Gold Star, and he was a nice and engaging enough sort of fellow, I just wasn't feeling it, so I can't say I'm terribly disappointed about him.
Last night I met the molecular biologist/immunologist of whom Mother would also greatly approve, and while there may very well be more dates with that one, I am a bit reticent. He has a lot to recommend him on paper, but he's such an outdoorsy guy. He's some sort of slalom kayaking champion, whitewater kind of dude. But he also likes to travel with other things in mind, and his regular beat includes visiting extremely close friends in Rome, with a casale in Umbria near Orvieto. Hm. But he's also the guy who doesn't like "power daters," and if that means I have to pull in my feelers just to go out with him a second or third time, I smell a problem way more problematic than the x-treme outdoorsiness.
Tomorrow is Young Theodore, who is not as terribly young as I thought he was. He'll be 40 on the Ides of March, and is not the scary 34 that I thought he was. This is the former Air Force officer/Air Force Academy history professor/mondo chess player who is currently "between jobs" because of a company down-sizing. Otherwise, this one seems more my speed and my type, if not as Mother-worthy in terms of income. He's a bit of a Trekkie, and there was some joking suggestion of dressing up and playing Captain Kirk and Nurse Chapel, but he has an interesting story or two to tell and is very funny on paper, even if the professional credentials are not as stunning as the molecular biologist's or the dean's.
I have several others with whom I could line up dates, but I'm beginning to feel the burn. I just need everything to stop a minute.
Ah. Young Theodore is sending me an IM. There goes the next hour.
Mary’s Love Update, Vol. 1. No. 4
I've decided that I max out at three. I may be able to juggle more potential sweeties than that at one time, but it would be far too much work. This weekend I have a third date with Young Theodore, and second date with David the Whitewater Kayaker Molecular Biologist and a first date with Dave the Video Editor. Thankfully they are all in one place, but that place is Portland. Blast Corvallis' limitations.
I'm fairly sure Young Theodore is going to be eliminated from the field eventually. He has a lot to recommend him -- brainy in the historian/chess-playing/egg-headed sort of way, no interest what-so-ever in having children, cooks, is kind and, though not at all what I would call handsome, really rather appealing when set up at his drum kit doing the hot jazz musician thing. That said, he has some fairly critical points against him. He lacks economic ambition, and while I do not require bucket loads of wealth in a partner, one of us has got to be steadily and gainfully employed with a bit of money-making drive. The chances of it being me are not looking so good right now. If he could match me income-wise, that would be quite fine, but being in a position of needing to be supported is just not going to work for me. He is also a self-described "home body," and while he probably wouldn't turn up his nose at the odd trip to Europe, he's probably not quite the super competent travel companion I yearn for.
Finally, I have decided that men who have reached a certain age who have never been married or never been in a relationship lasting more than a year or so really don't have any business being on my Serious List. Perhaps that's not fair. Perhaps the Dan From Eugene specimen was unique fauna, but I'm suspecting that a man who has reached his forties without even an ultimately unsuccessful long-term relationship is likely to be someone who does not know how or is not willing to put in the effort to make a relationship work; someone who is constantly on the look out for me to do something 'wrong', who cannot see his own mistakes, who interprets rough spots as deep fissures and who does not think negotiation is necessary in the "perfect" relationship. That sort will spend his life relationship hopping and tossing, and I'll just be another hop and toss. To his credit, Young Theodore does not seem to have any self-help books on how to get the perfect babe on his shelves, and that's a good sign -- for whatever reason nothing has panned out for him, at least his 'system' and mistakes are his own and not derived from some formula mixed up and spoon-fed to him by Doc Love. Even so, there is that fact that he's 40 and has never been in a relationship lasting longer than 18 months. I don't know all the extenuating circumstances, but there it is.
David the Ambitious (kayaking molecular biologist) has, perhaps, too much drive of one sort or another. He was going to come down here for a date this evening, but he injured his neck messing with his kayak yesterday. I see long absences and many changed plans due to broken limbs in my future with that one. I could take up kayaking (or kite boarding, his next big idea) to help eliminate some of the long absences, but I'm really not that keen. Plus, I'd just as soon not have to deal with injured necks and broken limbs of my own.
There's also something slightly uncomfortable about his intensity and drive. I haven't determined yet if I'm being held up to a standard that I have no interest in being held up to, or if he's the type of person who would try to drive someone to 'measure up' to his expectations, but there's a slight sensation of hairs rising on the back of my neck going on. If his expectations for me and a relationship are the same as my own, fine. I'll just call that drive being supportive. But if they're not, that requires the use of a very different descriptive.
I'm beginning to sound like Goldilocks. Perhaps Dave the Video Editor will be just right, but he thinks the 75 minute commute between Corvallis and Portland is an eternity of thousands of miles, so we would have to hit it off big time rather instantaneously for there to be much likelihood of further exploration after our first date on Sunday.
I do have a fourth one out there in the hopper, but he's a long shot because of distance. That's Dan the Grumpy Writer, the fellow sitting over in Sisters being miserable surrounded by People Who Hike and Mean Christian Ladies in red fleece jackets (who he says look like so many tomatoes wandering the streets). I'll meet him when he comes back from a trip to London, where he will spend two week clearing his head in the pristine, rarefied air of Trafalgar Square. However, not only is Sisters too far away, but he's only even that close temporarily while he finishes his manuscript. Home is actually San Francisco. Not terribly promising.
Mary’s Love Update, Vol. 1. No. 5
I'm really not sure which is worse; the disappointment of not being what the intriguing potential love interest wants, or the unhappy sinking feeling I get when someone is becoming way more interested in me than I will ever be in him. I think this issue must have been discussed before in my lifetime. I'm rather sure of it, in fact.
Last weekend, both David the Ambitious and Dave the Video Editor withdrew from the field. I questioned the former rather closely regarding the level of mutual outdoor activities he might be interested in. If you all will recall, this is the Canadian national champion slalom kayak racer and all-around outdoor adventure sportster molecular biologist. I really have no problem with all that sporty stuff, but if he should ever discover he really does want a woman who can hold her own on the kite board and mountain bike, and what he has instead is me, the tale would have a very unhappy ending.
Upon some consideration (after another kayak race) he recalled that, yes, his girlfriends have routinely been rather more sports inclined than not and that, yes, he probably would like to be with someone who would at least occasionally join him in his reindeer games and be able to keep up. So off the table he goes.
Not that I'm terribly disappointed, really. I felt too much like peculiar fauna around him. Maybe it was a lack of "chemistry" thing, whatever that is. Anyway, it wasn't feeling quite right in general terms.
Dave the Video Editor, who I think I'll rename Small Dave, because he wasn't as tall as he said he was in his profile, was an engaging enough guy, and I would go a second round with him. We exchanged a handful of post-meeting e-mails, one with a link to Mother and Daddy's website showing their stock footage collections, because he asked for it, and I suggested we think about another meet up this weekend.
Enter the topic of how people stop the proceedings, or more precisely, what they say to indicate a lack of interest in further explorations. Some people are very straight forward. One guy wrote to me after the meeting, and very nicely thanked me, but said he didn't think there was any kind of romantic spark between us. I concurred, and that was that. I suspect the most common approach is to just quietly disappear from the airwaves without comment. That could make for an awkward moment should I ever run into the Associate Dean on campus sometime. He did what appears to be the standard no communication after the meeting. Of course, so did I, so I can't dis the tactic too much.
Another way is more of the dodge approach. David the Ambitious used the line, "I think I need to think about this some more," meaning he's thought about it, doesn't want further exploration and I will never hear from him again. Small Dave said, "Gosh - it's just Monday, my poor brain can't think of the weekend yet. ... We'll keep in touch...," meaning we won't keep in touch.
I'm so glad I have such a well-developed understanding of codes, signs and symbols. Otherwise it could be damned confusing.
Young Theodore is still on the field, but only because he's somewhat entertaining to hang out with, not because I have a special romantic interest. Which brings me to that second situation I wrote about in the first paragraph; I'm just not that into him, but he seems to be quite into me. In the case of my experiences with all three of these guys, I would have to say that the situation with Young Theodore is by far the most difficult and unhappy. The other two warrant little more than a shrug. I'm hoping I'm wrong about this and that we are on the same page -- amusing to hang out with, maybe friendly acquaintance material, but not the girl/boy dreams are made of.
So, where all this leaves me is in the middle of an empty field. Clearly I was far too stressed about juggling three at a time, because I only had to do it one weekend. That said, I am meeting a new one tomorrow, a very engaging on paper, well-read, Intel project manager who stays up on things like immigration issues in Europe and post-Wall Eastern and Central European politics. He has broad interests. I'm calling him Mark the Conversant. He lives in Tigard (ick), but perhaps that's not a fixed state of affairs. It's far too early to worry about that, in any case.
There's one other Portland-based specimen that I'm considering, but he looks like Chuck Norris. I am notoriously unpredictable when it comes to what I find attractive. Steve Buscemi, Daniel Craig, Vlad Putin and Sean Bean have all been on my list at one time or another, but Walker, Texas Ranger has not. More on him later, if we set up a meeting.
One of you encouraged me to sign up for eHarmony, yet a third match-making site. This one really does function as a match-maker, with the good people at the home office determining who I should consider meeting and only presenting me with those possibilities. I keep getting matches in their late 50's and early 60's. I did understand that at all until I figured out how to get into the preferred age settings. At 45, eHarmony recommends that I set my age parameters at 43 to 60. What do you want to bet that the recommended search criteria for a 45 year old man is more along the lines of 28 to 47? I have half a mind to write them a strong letter scolding them for their perpetuation of gender ideologies. That said, it gives me lecture material for 'Gender, Family and Generation', a course I'm teaching next term.
Needless to say, they have yet to present me with anything really approaching intriguing. The ones they do send are pretty few and far between, as well, which I suspect has more to do with education level and concomitant characteristics than age (another discussion topic for my class). They also say they match based on looks. Considering most of what they've sent me, I'm close to being downright insulted.
Speaking of that, I met a local one yesterday who said I intimidated him because of my attractiveness. I'm used to intimidating based on brain, but looks? That's a new one. At least, this is the first I've heard of such a strange thing. His age contributed to this, no doubt. He's a 60 year-old prof here. "The Old Guy," he has dubbed himself. I'm not entirely sure why I agreed to meet him, but I was quite upfront about the age gap really being too much. He is a nice enough man, however, and I can always benefit from practicing my social skills. I would be concerned about The Old Guy doing the stars-in-his-eyes Young Theodore thing, however, so I'm going to maintain some unambiguous distance.
Mary’s Love Update, Vol. 1. No. 6
I am getting so tired. They say -- and I know this from personal experience -- that the oppression of culture shock really hits a person hard at about the three or four-month mark of ethnographic field research. Sure enough, when I was in Germany doing my anthropology thing, I got hit by it right on schedule. It was late September or early October when I reached my German language (and German) saturation point. I gathered up some English language books from the Nuremberg city library down the street, shut myself into my studio apartment, and read and read and read in total isolation for about three weeks. I read, among other 19th century classics, Thackeray's Vanity Fair three times in a row (the selection at the Nuremberg city library was limited, although I could have read endless Tom Clancy).
I think one may be able to argue for there being such a high water mark in the world of hard-core online meeting people to maybe date (A.K.A. "online dating'). I really started back in October, but only met one person between that time and getting together with Dan From Eugene in early January, so I like to think I didn't really start the game with any seriousness until about three months ago. I find myself going into these sites with less and less enthusiasm and general interest, as well as more and more of a critical eye. I feel like I'm in a cafeteria line after having eaten a full meal at home.
Last night, eharmony presented to me a man who used the word "spiritual" to describe himself, what is important to him and what he's looking for no less than six times in his 'about me' information. What about "was probably born without the 'god gene' inclining one towards the spiritual" did the good people at the eharmony home office not understand? I'm sure he's a very nice man, but when he starts talking that stuff, I'm going to glaze over.
In any case, I'm feeling the oppressive strains of something akin to culture shock. I'm thinking about how nice it was when I was happily retired into private life and never spent any time thinking about any of this stuff. I want to shut myself back up into my convent and read endless P.G. Wodehouse novels in which the Edwardian British upper classes fall in and out of love at a moment's notice and narrowly escape engagement and marriage at every turn.
But I trudge onward. What ho.
Last weekend I met surely the most interesting one I've come across, yet. Mark the Conversant (or Mark the Ukrainian) met me outside Powell's Books in Portland Saturday afternoon. First thing I notice is that he is quite a bit darker in real life than in his pictures. Second, he who said in his profile that he only speaks English had a vaguely familiar accent. He suggested I guess where he was from -- well, I pondered, mid-latitudes, anywhere from Morocco to Western China. Further north, he says, and as I was about to say something along the lines of the former Soviet Union, like around about Uzbekistan or so, he says Ukraine.
Really? I say, thinking to myself that he doesn't look Ukrainian. "I don't look Ukrainian," he says. No, you don't, I reply. "I'm Jewish," he explains. With a German name. From western Ukraine. Oh, I say. From the Transcarpatians, then? Stunned silence. "Yes! From the main city in that area." Oh, Liviv, I say. Stunned silence. "Yes. Have you been?" He left in 1988. Classic. He says he does not list Russian as one of his languages because he doesn't want women from the local Russian Pentecostal community contacting him.
So we had a very interesting conversation during which he came awfully close to -- but did not quite reach -- expressing a level of concern about the Islamicization of Europe that reminded me of batshit insane Bat Ye'or's Eurabia conspiracy theory (the EU officialdom is in cahoots with the Muslim world
to compel everyone in Europe to convert to Islam and turn it into part of the Caliphate). I cut him some slack, because, like I said, he didn't quite reach that level of insanity and I kept thinking that if I were a rather Sephardic looking Ukrainian Jew whose family had somehow managed to survive the Holocaust in situ and who had been beaten up a couple of times by the KGB, I might be a little paranoid in these times, too.
He was interesting enough -- and not at all crazy -- in other ways that I would have definitely gone out with him again, but he never has responded to my post-date e-mail thanking him for the lovely time and suggesting another get together. Oh well.
Sunday evening I had dinner with the president of a printing company, a transplant from Boston and a second generation immigrant who got his undergrad at Jerusalem and Masters at MIT. I see a pattern, and it's not what you're thinking. I'm beginning to understand that I'm in the market for men who want me, in part, for my status and social capital as an academic type. If a man doesn't appreciate the egg-headedness, this could be a problem.
Social scientists -- especially adjunct, fixed-term professors -- don't make huge amounts of money. Our social capital, such as it is, is all we have. So, this means I'll most likely be attractive to men who have a fair amount of economic capital, and who like the academic "prestige" I bring to the table, or to other academics who generally place brain booty over economic, but who don't want career booty that surpasses theirs. I think that the field of serious suitors is definitely refining itself to just these sorts -- well-educated rich men and university professors/research scientists. This should make my mother happy.
That's just speculation, of course. It's frankly too early to tell what the field is refining itself to, because it clears as quickly as it fills. But Boston Boy is still in the field. He's the only one standing at this point, except for Dan the Grumpy Writer who is back from London at the end of this week and who I will meet sometime next week if plans still hold.
In the meantime, Young Theodore is teaching me to play Go. I really am going to have to do something about him soon.
Mary’s Love Update, Vol. 2. No. 1
And the search for Mary's Perfect Companion continues... .
About the time of Spring Break, the burn out hit quite hard, and while I've kept up the dating, I have slowed down. My amusement in the whole thing has plummeted. Consequently, I haven't been able to bring myself to write about it. I don't know if I can honestly say I'm feeling amused again, but the mood to write is back.
Since my last update, I went on another date with Boston Boy (successful company president, degrees from Jerusalem and MIT). He was keen on seeing me again, but on our way to dinner, he ran through two stop signs and turned the wrong way down a one-way street. In a subsequent phone conversation after he had returned from a ski weekend, he mentioned that he had gotten two speeding tickets on that little trip. I guess that means I should add 'safe driver' to my list of must-haves. One of his passions is his BMW motorcycle, so I figure this guy's days on earth are probably limited. I wouldn't want mine to be similarly limited through association.
Furthermore, while his profile had him as 49, he's actually 55. "Because 50 sounds so old," he explained when I asked him why the lie. Yes, well, I guess, then, that 55 sounds even older.
I did start out with a range going as high as 55, but I've brought it down to within 8 years of me -- eHarmony's argument that relationships between older men and younger women are ideal, not withstanding. The first and biggest reason is that, as a woman, my life expectancy is 5.3 years longer than that of men. Presumably, I will want to eventually settle down with someone whom I would just as soon not live without, and if he's a much older man, the odds are that I will eventually have to live without him for a rather long time. If I marry someone even 'just' ten years older, I could be facing 15 years or more of being a widow. That's fine if I have been looking forward to his death, but I have no intention of going into that sort of arrangement. Not unless he stands a good chance of handing in his dinner pail while I am still reasonable young, boosted by the enormous wealth he would leave me.
I've asked a couple of the men I've dated who state a preference for younger women why they do (for both, yes, I was in their younger range). "I'm really active, so I need a partner who can keep up," they both explained using those exact words.
I don't buy that for a minute. If they aren't just pulling it out as a line that seems less offensive than what they really think, they are delusional. Given that women live longer, one might presume that they generally stay healthy and active longer, so a man of 52, as David the Ambitious was, should do just fine with a woman of 52 in terms of activity level. That's an individual thing, not an age thing. If a 52 year old man can and does race kayaks down Class V whitewater, why does he automatically presume that no 52 year old woman can and does? And why would he think that at 45, such a thing would come naturally to me? I have absolutely no interest in doing that sort of thing and never have, not even when I was 25 or 15, but I do know women who are ten years or more older than me who are very much into extreme whitewater.
Boston Boy, at age 55, has a definition of "active" that is more related to travel in a variety of different locales, some marginally challenging. Mother and Daddy were in their 60's when they went to West Africa and are tootling around god knows where right now -- the Panama Canal, I think -- in their 70's.
The clencher with Boston Boy, however, was not the terrifying driving or the age thing, but the moment he emailed me a 'funny'; it was a picture of a control console like a stereo amplifier divided in half with one button on the *top* half labeled "Man," and a complex maze of wheels and buttons and dials on the *bottom* half labeled "Woman." It was all I could do to keep myself from firing back an angry message deconstructing his ass. I'll show him complicated... Next!
Speaking of age deceptions, I was feeling rather hopeful about the director of a Salem-based non-profit, but when I met him, it was apparent that his picture on his profile was somewhat dated. I didn't recognize him at all. He was pleasant enough, but it's hard to get sparked by someone who has started the whole thing off with a deception. That's the second time I've encountered the blatant past perfect picture thing. Dan From Eugene used a picture that was probably 20-30 pounds ago. The sense of humor and lovely eyes were enough to distract me from the fact that he looked about ready to give birth to a case of beer, which just goes to show that aspects of personality can be just as blinding as physical appearance, if one has a weakness for them.
I continue to hang out with Young Theodore. I would consider him a friend at this point. He's amusing, learning Go is entertaining, he can hold up his end of a conversation and there are some common interests, but he's just not sweetheart material. We seem to have come to a mutual understanding on that regard.
On the horizon is another non-profit director down in Eugene and a psychologist up in Portland. I'm meeting the psychologist this weekend, as things are currently planned, but in his last e-mail to me, he went on at some length about how sad and tired and depressed he is whenever he goes over to his parents' house, because they don't ever seem to be that interested in what he has to say and he just feels so discarded and unloved. Well, you know what they say about psychologists... they went into the field because they felt badly in need of counseling. A problematic relationship with one's parents is one thing; whining about it in correspondence with someone you haven't even met yet is quite another. I'm sensing a lack of social intelligence, and I've come to the conclusion that social intelligence is a very desirable thing. But it was late and he was tired and I was feeling irritable, so I'm going to assume a miscued interpretation on my part.
Finally, at the encouragement of my mother, I checked out another outfit called 'It's Just Lunch.' They function as a true match making service; you meet with the match makers in person, and they arrange dates for you. The only time the 'online' element comes into play is when you make initial contact with the company and when they subsequently e-mail you fix ups. They even make the restaurant reservations for you. You have no communication with the match until you meet on your date, if I understand the procedure correctly. I talked to the Portland office; it costs $1,500 for a year, guaranteeing 16 dates in that period. I'm afraid that's just not in my budget, although it would be interesting to see how that price point acts as a filter.
Mary’s Love Update, Vol. 2. No. 2
Meeting someone local -- that being in Corvallis, rather than Eugene or Salem or Portland -- seems like such a luxury, but it has its downside. As I was sitting at Interzone the other evening having a cup of tea on a first date with a Match match, son David comes trickling in and over to the table. After a couple of preliminary "hi's" and what not, he looks at the poor fellow and asks, "So... which one are you?" David's days on this mailing list might be numbered.
Following that, an old high school buddy of both sons wanders in and informs me that Bryan will be home in two or three weeks. The reason I did not hear this from Bryan is because his plan is to hitchhike back from Toronto. Sam spilled the beans. I turned into A Mother, which I figure can't make me smokin' hot to a date, but apparently that combined with the "which one are you" were not enough to drive this poor fellow off. We have date #3 on Tuesday.
Maybe I sell all the men I'm meeting short, but even though I'm up to the third date with this guy, he's not quite what I'm looking for. I couldn't tell you what, precisely, that is, but it's not an awkward, gnomish, outdoorsy computer geek with no college degree and a hobby writing protest songs. That's not a terrible hobby, mind you, but he's no Phil Ochs. He does have photography as a hobby, as well, and he's quite good, plus, even though he has no degree in hand, he seems to make a comfortable living as a consultant (one of Corvallis' multitude). And I have to say, he's impressively well-read. He most definitely does not have to look up in the dictionary a third of everything that falls out of my mouth. He's even quite well-traveled, mostly in conjunction with his business. He also has the distinction of having been largely raised by a Francophone Swiss grandmother, making him more or less bi-lingual, which is a relatively rare find in monolingual America. To look at him, you'd never know. He just doesn't seem like the sort you'd expect to be fluent in French. As I say about what I'm supposedly looking for in a man, I'm not quite sure what I would expect in the way of a fluent French speaker, but it's not him.
Before some of you jump all over me about being too 'picky', let me just say that he lacks charisma. I think I need a little charisma. Not oodles, mind you, but just a titch. All that said, we have highly compatible tastes in movies, so he does make a good movie-going/DVD renting buddy.
Not-Phil-Ochs is not the only person I've met since my last update. A couple of weeks ago I went on a Sauvie Island canoe paddle with a decidedly good looking -- Carib Black from Belize with the most unusual blue eyes -- educated, and all around pleasant fellow, but he's way more outdoorsy than I am and not really the most engaging conversationalist. There's the charisma thing again. He's a financial analyst. Perhaps that's the handicap.
He also did one of those homophobic freak-outs that tend to have a dampening effect on my interest level. We were walking back to our cars from a post-canoe early supper, when a mini-skirted woman stepped up on the sidewalk. It struck me that there was something that didn't quite add up about her from behind, and sure enough, as she turned to go into a bar, she turned her face in our direction. Yes, it is sometimes a little surprising to see a man where you thought there was a woman, but my date was visibly shaken. He even inched away from the bar as we walked past. I mean, really.
People have said, "Well, maybe it's a cultural thing." That would be the excuse of your run-of-the-mill homophobic frat boy or Great Basin rancher, too, would it not? I wouldn't date one of them, either.
The Angst-Ridden Psychologist I was on my way to meeting last update has been met. He was not nearly as angst-ridden in person as he came across in writing, but there was no buzz.
There was another one last weekend -- Saturday lunch at a rather prosaic joint in Beaverton called The Stockpot adjacent to a golf course where we had French onion soup. Nice man, but not really my thing, nor am I his. He's the sort of man I might have met while working at the Chamber. I probably would have gone out with him again if he had asked -- especially if he had suggested a horseback riding excursion, him being a horseman of four years -- but he didn't feel the buzz, so he tells me. Likewise. I'm perhaps more sceptical of "the buzz" or "chemistry" or "butterflies" as it's also called, than many of the men I've met, but if they're going to go on the buzz factor, what can I say?
Finally -- and I don't think I've left anyone out, but it's possible... it's all such a blur -- I met an educational outreach administrator this weekend. Of all of them, I probably had with him the most natural feeling initial conversation. He's an old, thankfully reformed, New Age guy (think drum circles, Robert Bly, sweat lodges in Southern California, etc.). We talked about my Master's research, and because of his personal reformation and generally being an all around smart sort, he gets the problematics of his past spiritual interests. I'm not sure if I felt "the buzz" this time, but I could definitely see pursuing an acquaintance with him. Anyone who used to be into Robert Bly and can now dis him right and proper is going to earn some points in my book.
Then there's Young Theodore. Yes, he's still in the picture. He's comfortable. I'm going to be really pissed with myself one of these days over Young Theodore, come what may. He's surely not The One, but he is charming in a misanthropic, "cute" Steve Buscemi sort of way. Those of you familiar with my predictably unpredictable taste in men and male aesthetics will understand.
For those of you who want a diversion from my love escapades, you can join me in stressing out over Bryan and his hitch hiking adventure:
http://saintbryan.livejournal.com/
Mary’s Love Update, Vol. 2. No. 3
I wiped the slate or table or whatever type of surface imagery you want to use clean this weekend. I have said no more dates to Not Phil Ochs and am taking a hiatus from Young Theodore which will probably become permanent. It feels crappy to cut them off, but I'm feeling a certain lightness of being now that I've done so.
There is another one coming up, however, and I'm stewing mightily over it. He's seemingly too good to be true: sharp, witty, very successful -- partner and executive director of one of Oregon's top two advertising agencies... I can't even begin to describe how absolutely inadequate I'm feeling. Unless he turns out to be a 300 lb Quasimodo pretending he's this Mr. Fabulous, I'm in for a challenge. Our email banter -- our written chemistry -- is spot on, but I think he has me constructed as some sort of larger-than-life Molly Ivins type character, no doubt with the body of Sophia Loren, circa 1958.
I met this one via another of the online matchmaking tools, this one called Chemistry put out by the match.com people as their answer to e-harmony. The people at Chemistry present one with potential matches and guide the two through a communication process only leading to open communication via email after a couple of layers of 'formal' questioning and survey type stuff. As a last step, one of the participants can send an invitation for a First-Meeting (TM). Yes, they've trademarked the first meeting.
It's ridiculous, of course. Why not just ask in an email about meeting? But they have a process set up for moving to that next step, and it involves clicking on a "Request First-Meeting (TM)" button. It's hard to resist -- that candy-like button, that 'What's a First-Meeting (TM)" link, that flow chart (1. contact, 2. email, 3. meet)... One has to see what sort of fairy dust magic happens when one follows all The Steps, or perhaps more appropriately to this forum, what sort of chemical reaction it will set off.
What a disappointment. All I got were safety tips, pre-written text ("Hi XXXXX, I've enjoyed getting to know you. I'd really like to meet you in person for a First-Meeting. Hope we can find a time to get together soon. -Mary"), a selection of themes (roses, coffee or marigold), and the choice of only one venue (Starbucks). I felt like I was being herded into the Camp Prosaic detention center.
Mr. Fabulous, is hardly prosaic. He's about as close as I'm ever going to get to a 'Sex and the City' Mr. Big sort of character. The pressure is killing me. Fortunately, we are subjecting each other to our mutual appraisal tomorrow over lunch. It will all be over with soon.
Mary’s Love Update, Vol. 2. No. 3, Part 2
Oh yeah. That's what I'm talkin' about. This Mr. Fabulous guy is precisely the sort of thing I'm looking for. I have no idea if the feeling is mutual, but now that I've seen what it is, I know what it is.
We had lunch today. Funny, quick-witted, engaged and engaging, successful, uncommon, great conversationalist -- he assured me before meeting that he asks good questions, and he did not disappoint -- presentable, if not drop-dead gorgeous... Just right.
But he did let on that his schedule for the next month is booked up with business-related travel, and in my experience thus far, that sort of thing is frequently code for 'well, that was nice and all, but I'm not feelin' the love.'
::sigh::
This weekend I'm off to a Scottish clan gathering up in Bellingham, Washington in order to push bagpipes (I've been staying up late practicing my fist shaking at the Bastard Queen), which means a dateless weekend for a change. I'm rather looking forward to it. Bryan, it turns out, may intersect with me at that point, which means we (me and biz partner Rob) could be the last hitch on his epic journey. I promise not to mug him and leave him dead in a ditch.