Letter to that Guy- more online dating fiascos, by me.

Dear Guy,

I have to tell you how sorry I am.  My disappointment is not actually in YOU but in me. Its that classic, its not you but me bit that totally leaves everyone unsatisfied, no matter how true.

All we did was text, WE NEVER EVEN MET… so there are no children to care for, no body parts to have checked, no heart to re-invigorate…. nothing. nothing.  but what i did was something which is both old and well-known to me, and new and sparkling in its dysfunction.

i made you the answer to questions i used to have. desires i used to have.

you said, ‘i like to read’, i heard…

i’m the smart guy you’ve been waiting for… we can talk about books and i can teach you things you didn’t even know you wanted to learn… let’s hold hands!

you said, ‘my children are grown’… i heard…

we can meet anytime, anywhere, he has an EMPTY house… WE ARE FREE…. SEX! ALL THE TIME!!

you said, ‘i’m worried about you’… i heard…

( i heard it right, but my reaction went like this…)  OH MY GOD, this is what it feels like to have somebody care about me? to be watched out for? i’m going to cry.  i should ask him to marry me… i mean, arranged marriages work sometimes, right? why not? he wouldn’t be too freaked out, right? he must feel what i am feeling….

”””””’

sigh.

deciding to straddle the line between wanting a real thing and being ready for a real thing has made an interesting shift occur in me. this kind of mental gymnastics in which i singlehandedly create the makebelieve-come-true is something i did right before my very first date after the marriage ended .

i remember it so clearly. it took me a year and a half to be interested in dating. and my birthday approached and i went ahead and joined the online world and got a date. we texted ahead of time,  and i did the same thing i did this week… i made him into the ‘one’.

really? the first date in a year and a half is THE ONE? hmmm. what could be wrong about that?

i don’t even believe in the ONE.

so, upon seeing him, even in profile, still in car,  i realized what i had done, what i had created.  and never did it again.

and so the fact that i have suddenly succumbed to it, again? so curious.

what is this?

I’m 4 years separated. have had my first date, kiss, sex, whathaveyous… have learned a whole lot, have remembered more.  why, suddenly, am i back to square one ?

forgetting everything that i’ve learned, the power that i’ve reclaimed? would i really want to date and find myself an empty husk again? without the solidity and groundedness that i have now?

i suppose the fact that i’m seeing all this and adding ‘no text’ to my daily list shows a bit of something has dislodged… i don’t want to give into what seems to be a natural skill set for me, the creative imagination overspill.

i don’t know who, or what is coming… but i’m pretty sure that when it does, i’ll meet it face to face and not in my imagination. so i can just ask my monkey brain to step aside for awhile, go eat a banana for chrissakes.