Intimacy and ice cream both melt

I wake up in the middle of the night laying next to you and you are still awake. You are reading on your kindle and wearing your thick framed glasses. In that moment, you look like lenny kravitz if he were a professor of literature. 

We start to talk about intamacy and what it is for you. 

How your longest relationship of two years ended with you just disappearing for two weeks. This girl who you refuse to admit was quite possibly the love of your life left feeling like she was not enough for you. Left with empty space to fill. 

How did I end up in your bed again? It was late and raining and we forgot that we both arrived on your bike together. I said goodbye and walked out key in hand with no motorbike to ride. I suggested I could sleep next to you with all my clothes on as my personal barrier against lust. But then, you surprised me with the obvious. Just as I was asking if I was allowed to hit on your friends, you stuck your curly head up to my chest and I melted into you, enjoying the sweet comfort of much needed affection. I need this right now damn you. Fuck the future. I just need you to hold me in this moment.  You are my friend, let that be good enough. Just like scrambled eggs on sunday its not fancy and perfect but it will make me happy and full. 

You told me earlier that you had slept with someone. I held you with this knowledge. I saw that you unfriended her on Facebook. She looked like a rounded version of me, holding a glass of wine while lounging on pillows. Yes I digitally spied on you, how could I not? You declared we were over and then ran off without speaking to me for a week. 

I kept this image at bay and held you. Pushing back the flashes in my mind like a broken movie reel that only sometimes lets in a visible frame thru the light. I still wanted you even though you are tainted goods. You are a spoon on someone else's dinner plate. You are a cup with lipstick smears and a bit of orange juice left in the sink unwashed. I tried not to think about it. She was just one of many before, this was now. You are always just now for me.

In this version of now, you were suddenly so affectionate, holding me tight. Wanting me. We have gone thru this a few times, so I could allready predict the future. The first night we had sex twice and you held me as if you wanted me. Drinking me in. The second night, not at all, less snuggles. You texted me when I left after two strange days together to let me know that the retort to your landlord was "it was nothing serious" when she asked if we were "back on". You informed me unserimoniously that you would finish the movie we were watching together on your own. Not save the ending for another night in bed. 

Intimacy scares you. You build walls against it. You make rules. You routinely vote against it on the premise that it is dangerous. Like broken glass in a yard with barefeet. It could hurt someone.  It could hurt you. Danger Will

Robinson there are hearts involved. 

Intimacy is so much more than sex. Intimacy are those moments that we share late at night when neither of us can sleep and we talk while staring at each other across the pillow. Intimacy is what happens when two people share thoughts and feelings. Why are you tryinging to stop it, to block it? Why question it. It, like all things will pass. Just like the night, the morning always comes even if you can't sleep. We will both wake up from our heady ocsytocin laden cloud and declare that neither is enough for the other. In the mean time, pretend this thing we have is ice cream in the sun. lets eat it befor it melts.

You are broken my sweet friend. I forgive you for this defect. I imagine you as a baby crying it out in the other room as your parents weened you on the urge to need them. You sleeping in a bed on your own and not snuggled up next to your mothers breast. Enacting the modern myth that a flannel blanket is enough to replace human skin next to human skin. Is this what did it? What ended all possibility of enduring human connectedness for you? I don't know. But I no longer take your rejection personally. I no longer chase this want like I am chasing butterflies with a net. Escaping my grasp just when I almost catch it. I now simply enjoy those moments when you let down all guard. Those moments you let me in. Those moments when affection is what you give freely like peanuts at the zoo. Those moments I enjoy beyond words. Just moments. Let's eat them before they melt sweet friend. 

This sucks and other explicatives

In the morning you excitedly texted me about how I could help you to build your future here. You joining me in the ranks of corporate refugees from civilization on this tropical Island. 

In the morning, things were good and fine and adequately imperfect. But in the evening you were suddenly fickle and I wasn't enough to butter your bread. As if the world is so overflowing with friendship that there is a surplus to be tossed out the car window without rolling it down all the way. 

Did you really want to start a bussiness with me this morning? The first hip place to drink and hangout in this small town. Was this my idea or yours? Did we really go looking for property, laughing the whole way? Exitedly examining abandoned buildings. What happened? I keep searching in my mind for the critical invisible threshold we stumbled across. Was the birthday cake we ate that evening so sweet that I couldn't measure up somehow or was it simply that I missed the moment to have reciprocated your flirtatious whipcream on my nose? 

I made the fatal girlfriend error of treating you like a friend. That's what we said we were, friends. I let you convince me that I should confide in you, as if we were two girls talking about boys, over kombucha at a cafe. Vomiting my bad day in your lap. I warned you that I shouldn't, that my "baby daddy" breaking into my house to steal our sons passport was one of many unsexy details of my life that in no way will illuminate me for the better. Only painting me as a critical character in an episode of jerry springer's talk show drama, girls in heals hurling chairs at each other in the background. 

Is this what did it, what tipped the scale, from good to bad? Maybe you were just never that into me. Never wanting to take me in the bathroom at a restaurant because the need was too great to let it wait. There was always something lurking in the background despite our endless hours of fun. Are you breaking up with me for sexier, younger girls with no children or ex-husbands? Girls who stand still looking pretty and laugh? Did you allready meet one? I don't know. 

As my friend I imagined you would listen to it all and still show up for coffee the next day. I guess as soon as you kissed me hard on the lips we were no longer friends, not really. I missed that distinction. That critical moment where from there on I should be coy, and charming and delete all the ugly bits. But I can't. Just like using whiteout with an old typewriter you can always see that there is something there, hidden beneath the illusion of paper. 

You suggested a walk, so thru the ricefields we went as my son tried hard not to go to sleep near by in my bed. Him wanting my company way more than you wanted mine in that moment. Me feeling guilty for selfishly wanting you, letting him go to sleep without mom snuggles. 

With iPhone flashlight aps protecting us from dark and snakes, we walked through the night sky looking at fireflies. You feigned interest when I described their romantic biological tale of sexy flashing. Instead, repeating like a mantra "we have really gone and done it, haven't we?" The question bringing the conversation back to the topic at hand. The insinuation that we liked each other too much. The lie to apease my heart from hurting, that this feeling of too much want was somehow mutual. Is that a white lie? Or a stray elephant? I think I have lost the metaphor for this type of benign betrayal that seemed harmless until minutes later when you turned on your own invented truth. 

We sat with our feet dangling in the ricefields. The crickets chirped. "I think I haven't wanted to end it because I didn't want to loose a friend." you said.

But really without using words you boldly wrote in the night sky that you don't like me enough. 

Fuck it, why not just be my friend. Is this such a terrible consolation prize? Right, I forgot, we can't. Somehow when we consumated what affection we had for each other, we opened something that can't be put back. Like an unruly jack- in-the - box whose lid refuses to close once he has popped out. Something that can't be put back.

The crickets kept chirping, but I could no longer look at you. 

The next day you couldn't talk to me either because you had gone to watch cricket by the beach. The odd drawn out sport that may or may not be named for the chirping animal that serenaded us as you broke up with me for the fourth time in as many months. 

I had thought we were just friends. But we were more. I will forgive us for not making it to friendship, for getting stuck in the "in-between" as you called it. Friendship is different than this. Friendship forgives all. It allows for bad hair days and unsexy moments of truth. Friendship is better than sex. Friendship is what I want more than sex. You however want it all and with the right person. I am not her. Good luck to you sweet man, may you find it. 

sit next to me

My son, the love of my life, was having sunday croisonts with me. Chocolate almond filled croissonts. He sat across from me but wanted nothing more than to sit next to me. He is eleven years old. He asked if he could move seats. He wanted to fondle my hand caressing each finger one by one. He wanted to play with my hair, taking strands and braiding them or scooping it back off my shoulders. He wanted to snuggle up to my arm, resting his head on my shoulder. He wanted this as an addition to the coffee and croisants. For him, It added to the chocolate filling. I am his mom, he loves me.

The man that says he is not my boyfriend  doesn't consider affection. But don't be fooled by this fact. He is sweet in so many ways. He does want to widdle away his day talking to me about everything under the sun, while laying across from each other on cushions with a view. He wants to teach me deffensive chess moves while cricket casually plays on his mac in the background. He wants to listen to eclectic playlists of spotify music that range from motown to hipster bluegrass. He is content to do this naked in bed under a mosquito net. Why do I care that he is not my boyfriend? Why does all this leave me wanting? Why do I care that he doesn't hold my hand as we walk, or rarely reaches to gently touch my leg? My hair he doesn't twirl around his finger. He never leans over to kiss me. 

In the end he is content to sit across from me. Does he know that his affection doesn't measure up to an eleven year old? 

He doesn't like cats

What does it take to make a match? One that lasts. If he doesn't like cats, and I don't like dogs. If he feels that my politics are worse than jello. Wiggly and unfounded. If I feel that he is still recovering from being 25 even at 36, afraid of breeding and owning houses. 

What are the list of defects that I can tick off about him, and he about me. Like a campaign flyer on election night bashing the oposition. We are both aware of what we are voting against. Worse than repealing the carbon tax. 

He was visibly stilted at the revelation that I sleep naked in the presence of my son, despite his otherwise ambivilance about my nudity. 

I winced as he ate two big macs in a row, no chewing and then farted. 

He frowns as I glance at strangers with my inadvertent bitch face, proving without a doubt that I am simotaniously snobby and socially awkward. 

He is emotionally unavailable, abandoning all forms of intimacy untill I am left a neglected younger sibling in his presence. 

I am emotionally needy requiring hours of cheeck kissing, hair fondling and toe dancing for which my dance card remains empty. 

We are not agnostic about each others defects. 

Neither of us are perfect for the other. We are human and flawed. Cracked and crinckled like the discarded wrapping paper after christmas morning. We lack the new shiny gloss that either of us imagines we should have. 

But as my friend I accept him. As my friend he is just him. Funny, attentinve and relaxed. He cajoles me, is up for any adventure and says sweet and caring things at the best and the worst of moments. As my friend I hold him up to no higher standard than to listen to my boring bits of daily news in exchange for listening to his. We swap, him teaching me chess so I can beat my son, me ensuring he has a rain poncho or teaching him to make kambuca. We enjoy, we laugh, we keep company.

Is there anyone out there who will check all my boxes, fills all my spots, pass my corporate interview? Maybe the key to all happy relationships is acceptance. Unconditionally loving your flaws in exchange for you unconditionally loving mine. 

Lets not decide. Lets not try to pass each others test. No match is required. Let's just be, enjoy, share. The future doesn't exist. There is only now. 

One way love

Morning and evening 

someone waits at monsushema.

One way love

- matsu basho

"I never was that into her" he said. "She was always more into me" he said. They stay like this locked in acceptance of this imbalance. Thirty years pass. Him wanting more, her not getting enough. She gets fat, her a judge, him a lawyer. They both work too much, they both drink too much. One way love. 

He was buying me dinner yet again. For years he did this. Show up in Bali and buy me dinner. My sugar-daddy, he joked. He would call her later to say he loved her. That he missed her. I would sometimes listen to this conversation as he sat in my house. I would not sleep with him, no sex. I liked his company but was not that into him. I wished I wanted him. He owns a vinyard, he likes to travel. One way love. 

I sat over coffee with the father of my child. "I never looked at anyone but you." He said. We stayed coupled for 17 years. I know this fact to be true. I was the center of his universe as he honestly described it. He ate up all my offerings. Like thanksgiving dinner he always wanted what I gave him. I accepted him everyday and appreciated that he loved me. I loved him in return for being my unconditional safe haven. For 17 years I longed for someone I wanted beyond reason. Wanted like cookies and ice cream in summer. One way love?

The man who for six weeks was never my boyfriend returned after a month in Australia. I had forgotten what he looked like I said. His daily white t-shirt, yummy  curly chocolate hair and warm skin. And mostly his eyes, brown and deep. Now I remember. His Australian accent willing me to aknowlede we are not from the same place. 

I sat with him on a plastic wicker couch by the pool in the villa that had been the scenes of our six weeks of sex and friendship. His black newly purchaded samsonite suitcase on the floor holding his only possessions. We talked about everything but the subject at hand. I abandoned my visiting friend in a coffee shop so that I could sit with him on this couch and pretend not to want him. I wondered if anything had changed since a month ago when we had declared ourselves friends. When he said goodbye not wanting me enough.

He grabbed me and pulled me on to him. I burrowed my face in his beard. He kissed me long and hard. There was emotion there. There was longing. It felt good. I wanted him. In that moment he wanted me. I wanted not to think about the consequences, the future aching heart. I wanted not to ask or at least to ignore who he had been sleeping with this past month. I missed this man. I wanted him inside me, naked. Like a moth to the flame. One way love? 

 

Dinner and a kid

Dear potential suitor:

Yes, I am a mother. My son is 11. He is gorgeous, smart and lovely. He has a mother, a father, and many grandparents all who love him. He is mine. He is not yours and never will be.

Don't be afraid. I know that you never settled down enough to have a child and don't imagine that you will. I did, I was married for 17 years. I no longer am. I have a child. So what? Now I want just good company and fun. Don't give me a scarlet letter. It doesn't belong to me. 

To the curly haired belgian who I see every day in salsa. You don't have to stop giving me those long sideways glances of admiration just because I devulged this fact to you as part of casual conversation. 

To the tall swiss with the Seattle area code who I ran into and then liked me on tinder. My whatsap picture is just a photo, and shouldn't make you cancel our date. 

To the overly tan french guy who flirted with me daily until you ran into me and my son in a cafe and your tan instantly faded. You wouldn't get the privledge of spending time with my son unless we were dating for six months anyway. Don't think about it. Enjoy my company. Be my friend even. He is mine not yours. 

Its not complicated. Don't overthink it. I am a mother. Its one of the things I am. Its not something I am asking of you. This description of me allthough possibly my most important title doesn't even show up on my resume. Even employers don't have the priviledge of knowing this about me.

I am the same person you liked before you knew this. Forget it really. Be my friend first. 

Sincerly,

A newly single mom trying to date

She is his girlfriend. You are my friend.

You are my friend. 

You coached me befor I met her. Before I faced the woman over a cappucino who now casually refers to herself as his girlfriend. You sweetly talked me thru it, you told me to hug her, to be nice. You looked at me as you said this with your large sweet brown eyes measuring me, willing me forward. Your wild curly hair defying your seriousness and ensuring that despite the topic at hand you still appeared playful. 

I now find you irresistible, like ice cream. Is this the oxytocin? I try not to appear overzealous as I wait for you to let me into your cracks, like sunlight thru leaves.  

Will you touch my leg as we ride the motorbike? Will you grab my hand as we are walking. When we lay in bed naked for hours as you ply me with music will you reach for me from across the otherside of the bed, grab me and pull you towards you? Maybe sometimes, for a moment. I am mostly left wanting. 

You are my friend.

She told me her life story, sprinkling in details that compelled me to envision this new reality of her and him. The story of her hair being left in his hair brush that she thoughtfully removed to spare its view from my son. Her vision of meeting his parents as the new woman in his life. She doesn't yet realise that she will be eating his mothers chicken divan and complimenting its blandness. I would always be his family she said, as she smoked another cigarette. 

She is just his girlfriend. You are just my friend. 

You called me after I met her and genuinly wanted to know how I was. We got on a motorbike and I rode with you to the dentist. We spent the night withought sex, just naked snuggles, music and conversation.

You are my friend.

The next day over a final cappucino befor you left for two weeks home to Australia you asked me how I felt. Two days earlier we shed real tears at the thought. What would we be missing if we stopped having sex, if we kept our friendship and left the rest behind? We took the question and turned it over and over in our hands. Applying all the logic and reason that you and I could throw at these otherwise fragile human emotions. 

In the end you don't like me quite enough, your want is outweighed by logistical hurdles or subtle inadequacies.

I of course have the same, but some how this doesn't stop me from wanting you.  At least today and tomorrow and the next I really want you. 

You hugged me and I walked away. It hurt. My heart. Enough that I could feel it. 

You are my friend. 

Find another shell, keep sorting.

"You are on a beach sorting thru the same bucket of shells" my friend said. If these are the shells in front of you these are the shells you will sort for. But there are so many, why keep sorting thru the same pile. Go ahead, drop them back in the water. Let them float away. Find new ones. Another beach. 

I will keep looking, keep walking, keep dancing, keep doing. 

I won't think about that one's curly hair or running my fingers thru his beard or wanting his music or his sweet brown eyes. I still want him, I do.

I won't think about my life partner and his new girlfriend or the loss of eating mashed potatoes at thanksgiving as a family. We are done. 

I won't think about the one who would tell me what to do, and buy me unsolicited cake while flashing his smile. He was never a possibility. 

Drop them in the ocean, release them to the waves. 

Today is a new day. Let go of expectations, let go of attachments. In this new reality attachments are not the way. Don't attach, just be. Let people flow thru you and around you. Grab a bit of them hold on tight just for that moment and then release, let go. 

Be budda, he didn't attach. He walked away from his wife and sat under a tree. Find the tree, let go. Don't attach, let go. I like you, you are lovely, goodbye. 

The portugese man with the shaved head and the slight grey stubble, smiles and takes a strong lead, spinning me one extra time out of turn. I can't talk to him. He has nothing to say. Just spin me. I will ablige. 

The French man is very tan and hansom enough that the dance instructer imagines or wishes he was gay. "Do you ever dance in the evening" he says. I help him with his dance steps and he is open and grateful. He is too young, too tan, too short. But sweet and of course French. 

The Belgian won't speak to me in class but keeps asking me to go out in the evening. He is sweet and very young, I might need to lead. 

The older vinyard owner is coming back. I will enjoy his company for a time. A nice dinner, some wine. We can talk about food and building things. I don't desire him. He will always leave. He has a wife. 

Keep sorting. Keep looking. Keep throwing them back to the sea. 

The mute swan, the malagassy giant rat, the prarie vole and the black vulture are all monogomous. choosing partners, attatching, not letting go. They fall and then stay. They find someone and keep them. They do life's work together. 

I spent my life being these creatures. I spent my life monogomous to one mate. So what does the dating process of these creatures look like. How do they keep from latching on to the first potential mate and instead sort thru the options to find the best possible mate or just enjoy a connection for a moment. How do you resist the urge to get stuck with someone if you are a vulture, a rat, a prarie vole?

I am a prarie vole. I am trying to date. I have the urge to latch, to attach, to give up the search.  or a rat in this world. I must resist. Keep sorting. Be buda, drop the shell in the water.  Drop it. Let go. Be buda, find the tree.

Maybe the prarie vole has it all wrong. Maybe this is not what I even want. Maybe an intense emotional connection with another human being is nice in the moment. When the moment passes I should let go. Move on. Find the next one. Appreciate that moment for what it is, a moment. A shell. Enjoy that moment. Drop the shell in the water. Be buda, dont be a black vulture. Move on, fly away. Drop the shell in the water. Let go. Don't attatch. Drop the shell. 

La rueda

La rueda is a cuban form of salsa that is performed in a circle. The men dance and spin thier partners and then swings them on to the next person. As a woman this means that someone is always there to catch you. Each person takes you in and grabs you and holds you only tight enough to keep you spinning in that moment and then lets you go. You spin on to the next partner who catches you in turn. 

I feel so freed by this experience. I am indulging in Salsa to practice this metaphor of letting go. A metaphor for my new life. I am no longer dancing with one partner. I am no longer being held tight. I am being spun and then sweetly caught by the next man in the circle. 

I attended a halloween party last night. The man who was my first went with me. Two days earlier we spent one last day and night together. A day adventuring on sheer plunging beach top cliffs watching the sunset, the night tangled up under the sheets. In the morning we drank a cappucino and declared ourselves friends. No benefits. Just friends. The halloween party was the first to test out this new reality. We started the evening together talking and then slowly spun from person to person seperatly in the crowd. Dancing small talk. I peered at him from across the room as women flirted and chatted with him. We are friends. We ended the evening discussing our options. We would each now spin to the next partner. His choices were clear. A dark skinned girl from london wearing a hat wanted him in that moment. He would take her. I would keep looking. 

May the next person catch me as I spin, may they not let me spin out. May they let me land softly. 

Tomorrow I will rueda again. I will practice in the salsa movements the feeling of being held by strangers for a moment and then letting go. Always letting go. 

I am just a prairie vole

The prairie vole is frequently used in studies to emulate the nueochemical experience of humans. The prairie vole much like humans tends twords monogomous pair bonding. They do ocassionally divert from this, displaying behaviors that parallel that of human's such as divorce, seperation and infidelity. 

One study examined brain chemicals emitted when prairie voles were randomly given a partner and made to share space with them for a specific duration of time. Apparently, bonding chemicals emitted make the prairie vole exhibit a preference for those he spent time with, even when later given the opportunity to choose more genetically suitable mates.

So here I lay, the prairie vole being fed the brain chemicals that nature gave me to ensure successful pair bonding. I don't want these chemicals now. They are no good for me. This is only my randomly assigned partner. I don't want to get stuck.

He was my random selection. A research participant. I chose him to take my virginity. Not my real virginity but to break the spell of seventeen years of monogamy. 

I chose him because he was there, because he was kind, and just funny enough and smart enough. This is what I needed. An emotional respite. A clear understanding that sex and human connection were still possible for me. The brain chemicals were not part of my bargain.

The first time I laughed the whole way thru. Finding it unbearably funny that I was kissing a stranger. The sex was not akward or difficult and was surprisingly normal. I was not insecure or shy in most of the ways I had imagined and worried about. It was good even. 

The second time, the chemicals showed up. I started to feel something deep in my belly for this stranger. This stranger of a different race from a different continent. Who I has only met on five seperate ocassions. 

We layed in bed by the hour contemplating the evolutionary biology of prarie voles and how to resist the chemical reality we were being flooded with. Strategies were discussed. Less time together, no socializing just sex, or maybe a time limit. We settled on nothing.

By the third time I could feel him trying. Pulling away, just a bit. It made my belly ache or was it my heart? It made me realize that the chemicals are half the fun. They envelop you, wrapping you up in closeness and wellbeing. They are why we do this. To feel close to another human. 

I don't know when I will see him again or how I will keep from getting stuck for another 17 years with just some random selection. Four short dates being enough of an entoxicant to render me helpless. 

I have decided not to worry, to let go, to stop thinking and just feel it all. I have learned that resistance is futile. I will just enjoy the high. For now. 

Someone else's laundry

I am wearing a shirt that is not mine. The laundry gave it to me by mistake. I can't give it back to the rightful owner so I am wearing it. 

Not long ago it was worn by someone else. A woman. I maybe even have passed her on the street or stood behind her in line at the supermarket. 

I should be bothered by this proximity with a stranger. The wearing of a strangers clothes just washed. I am not. 

You spent the week with her in another city, sharing a bed, sharing space. You will see me tomorrow possibly. I will hug you, share your space. You may tell me you love me as you did before you left. 

I spent the weekend pondering if you ever wanted me back, would I be able to share you like a shirt worn by someone else, just laundered. Would my phyche be able to ever get past this? This use, this wearing, this closeness. 

Once in the evening you came wearing her sweatshirt. I asked where you had gotten it. It was hers. I cried. Her things on you. It hurt so much. 

You just texted that you are back but didn't invite me for coffee as you said you would, only that you will pick our son up from school. I want to die. I understand why people feel this, that they can't bear the pain and they want to jump off of bridges. I did this damage. I pushed the first domino. I pushed us down this hill. Now I am a divorced mother. We never even were married. 

I went on two second dates today. The spanish guy who owns a vespa shop in Barcelona and the Australian journalist. I like both of them for company. For an hour. For a meal. This is supposed to help, this company. 

It really only reminds me of my loss. 

How do I replace this lifetime shared. I have to trade you in for someone else's shirt? For someone else's laundry? 

Date #2 and #3

Date number two was an Australian. Wild curly hair and tall but with a stylish conservative button down shirt. He was the first intellectually oriented person I have met in this small town. We had a lovely debate about capitalism and micro economies that was stimulating. This should have been enough all by itself. After a drought of lonliness one would imagine my brain would have jumped at this dance. It was a good start to feed my hope that someone could be possible but not enough to satisfy me beyond dinner. 

It is strange what you sort for in a friend, a lover or a partner. The right combination of things. I kept looking at this man across the table thinking he is smart, a journalist, he is a bit alternative, we are having a nice intelectual debate. What is missing?

Ironically after my first date with the man I spent my whole life with I wasn't sure. He was just nice. At 20 this was enough, to be just nice, or maybe it wasn't. All these years I was unsure if just nice was enough. Now I think that maybe all relationships are grown. Watered and fed untill shared experience makes them real. Maybe there is always a blank slate from the start. Maybe there is nothing else. 

Date number 3 was different. He was brazilian and alternates between working on oil riggs and surfing. I could have been on a date with Vinnie from the bronx, if I could just ignore the portugese accent. He asked me if I ever wore high heels. He liked really high ones especially.

 "I live in Bali," I replied. Heels? I have not even seen them in years. 

I made it thru my coffee, just barely. He was tan and muscular and I had always liked latinos. I could no longer be in his company, not for a single moment more. How is it that this only makes me feel more alone? 

Is funny and charming with some intellegence, a sense of adventure and fiscal independence too much to hope for in one person? I want my old very flawed life back. It was mine. 

The father of my child, my partner in all things life sat and waited in the school parking for a parent teacher meeting. We had driven on a motorbike together for one hour without talking, thru balinese ceremonies, traffic. Him fuming and smoldering over the fresh knowledge that I had a date, that in fact I was dating. This my only recourse from running into him and his girlfriend while buying bananas. It still felt like a betrayal somehow. 

"Let's just drive to the airport and get on a plane and never come back to this godforsaken Island that ruined our life" he said in a tone that lacked conviction. I imidiatly thought of real life. "We have property to sell first" I said. That was the wrong answer. I am still my practical non romantic self he declared. 

I don't believe its what he wants. I am not sure it is what I want. Not sure the genie can be put back, that the pieces can be glued back together. Would I respect him anymore now than I did then? Would I be able to get over his physical intamacy with another woman? Probably not. How can I be sure?

He is caught enjoying his new life and still missing his old one and feeling guilty about the dichotomy. I am stuck alone with no way forward. I am stuck trying to get thru 15 minutes of coffee and hoping that the next one will make me want to at least stay for dinner. What would someone have to be like to make this true? 

First dates

A man whose profile picture is him sitting at a desk cleaning guns would like to go out with me. We live in Indonesia, guns are highly illigal. No I will not go out with him. I will also say no if you have tattoos, are holding a beer or are flashing a hang loose sign. Also strangely if you are surfing. Odd I know. I think surfing could be fun but somehow if this is your profile picture I don't want to date you. I can't really say why. 

Last night was my first date. Online or otherwise in 18 years. I thought company with anyone would be nice. An attractive gentleman, who speaks three languages, has a masters degree and likes to travel enjoying the sunset with me. This should be preferable to the aloneness that has been stalking me daily for over half a year now.  Turns out I was wrong. 

What makes someone tickle certain spots inside your soul? Spots that makes you want more of them. More just over coffee or more that makes you want to bring them into your bed. This is a topic that now seems so nuanced and complicated as to be unsolvable. I don't know the answer for myself.

This gentleman didn't tickle anything for me. Not my mind, my heart, or my loins. He drove in a taxi for over an hour to have drinks with me based on some photos and a brief description of my life. God bless him for at least making me feel wanted for a minute. 

We each had a coconut. We enjoyed the jungly view that is Bali. It turned out that the restaurant I chose was the location of a speaking engagement and a honeymooning couple joined us at our table. Then minutes later, the genteleman I am scheduled to go on a date with the following night) who I had not met online but in person) showed up. He blindly stumbled into my date unaware that this was my scheduling conflict that made me push him forward another night. Awkward, but I suppose unavoidable when trying date en mass in a small town. 

I sat thru polite resume like converstation with my date and included the honeymooners in smart discussions of religion in Bali. I played by the dating rules that I have been advised of by those that know me too well, flaws and all, and love me anyway. Let them do most of the talking, don't talk about divorce or kids or other relationships. Keep my phone off and in my purse. 

In the end I knew within minutes that there was nothing wrong with him but he did nothing to make me want more of him. He was not funny, or intellectually challenging. He didn't even overpower me with some masculine trait like ordering my drink for me. Something that allthouh my feminist self finds dispicable my hormones find hard to resist. 

So with this, when my phone rang I broke one of my rules and answered it. I faned an emergency to leave. It turned out it was the father of my son calling about kid birthday plans tomorrow. I took the moment to tell him I was on a date and allthough this guys resume was better, he was not funny nor smart. Both of these areas are what make him and I still want time together even now. Funny smart conversations are part of what tickles me and makes me want your company. Unfortunately, there is more too. It was the intangible "more" that started the domino affect that brought me to this first date. I should have tried and and made him jelous but I didn't. It brought the missing back. That dreaded missing. 

Tomorrow night is another night, another date. I allready know how this one will go. But I am going to be generous and contemplate if there is something more there. Eventually with sheer numbers of dates eventually I will want to stay thru dinner, right?