Photo Finish, Part Two

A stranger in a new land, I was navigating unfamiliar terrain on every front. The oddest of the new experiences was my baby-step into dating in a new culture. We left off with his dating history being pressed between the sheets of a photo album and nothing happening between the sheets in his bed...and it gets better...

One of the ways I grounded myself in my new world was to cook. Old habits are hard to break. I had long ago earned the reputation of cooking meals that some considered “elaborate” when preparing dinner just for myself. I happened to learn of this rep by way of a long-distance phone call one evening from my sister before I left the US.

After a bit of the usual chit-chat (obviously on the speaker phone – not so unusual in our conversations), she asked, “What’re you doing?”

“Just finishing up cooking dinner,” I said.

“What are you having?” she asked, continuing along a line of questioning I had not yet picked up.

“ooooh! A lovely roasted chicken stuffed with garlic, herbs and a fresh lemon from the garden, smashed garlic potatoes and baby peas,” I said, pleased with how the chicken was looking as I described the meal.

“Who’s coming for dinner?” she asked.

“Nobody…it’s just me,” I said, not giving it a single thought.

“See! I told you!” she said, addressing the direction from which the laughter was coming over the speaker.

She had made bets with guests who had dropped by for a beer that I’d be making some big meal – for myself. And she was absolutely correct. Cooking is a pleasure – gastronomically and aesthetically. I’d plop it under the category of “self-care” if I had to make it make sense.

As I settled into a new life in a foreign country, this rather odd fellow was filling a void created when I made this leap alone. I had boiled my confusion over his distant demeanor down to a to a syrupy notion of how it was absolutely okay to “be friends” given that he was providing a much needed social network and some other very enjoyable activities and connections as I found my way in this new chapter.

My suggestion to prepare dinner for him and some of his friends was, at this point, more for soothing myself than finding a way to his heart. (That path was looking rather dark and mysterious at this point.) So he left me to my own devices as I happily shopped at the open air markets, boucheries and boulangeries, ticking items off my list along the way. Then I ventured into his bachelor’s kitchen to roll up my sleeves, wrap myself in a long apron and prepare a lovely coq au vin for the evening.

Mid-way through the project, I was humming along while I chopped and sautéed and sniffed and sipped, when he passed by the kitchen door. I heard something about “That smells really good,” as he passed in my peripheral vision. Then he circled back in with a curious grin slapped across his face, hands behind his back. I stopped mid-chop to look up and brush an errant curl from my sweaty face with my sleeve and then leaned my apron-ed body back against the counter to get back to my happy task. “Gabby!” he called and just as I looked up over my chopping board a flash of light followed a sharp “click” and I knew immediately where that stunned look was going to end up. I also knew that as I was stirring the wine into the evening's dinner, this little space-filler-of-a-dalliance was toast.

We all managed to share an enjoyable evening over a delicious meal and lovely wines and after the guests had left, we talked. We were very sane and reasonable. Both aware that this was really going nowhere, we decided to just leave it at friends. I slept on the couch that night. The next day, although I attempted to get on an earlier train, I had to honor my original reservation. Like two grown-ups, we managed to interact quite politely through the morning. At noon-time, he suggested that we take a long walk through the city and find a little café for lunch before my departure. Fair enough. No reason for hostility here. My bags were packed and with a few more hours to fill, we headed off for lunch.

Taking seats directly across from one another, we settled into a little table on a quiet street. I was reviewing the menu when I sensed movement on his side of the table. When I looked up over the top of my menu to see a lens pointed at me, I said, “Get that fucking camera out of my face! You’ve got your shot. No more!” He made some whiny false complaint and the mood of our lunch actually ended up being more frosty than polite.

I declined his offer to walk me to the train and as I gathered my bag to leave, he had one parting request. “Do you remember that really good photo you took of me when we went to Italy? Could I have a copy of that to use on the dating site?” (You can’t make this shit up, dear readers.)

“No,” I said, then turned and walked out the door.

Last I heard, Mr. Amateur Avedon was still searching for the picture perfect woman.

Next.

photo courtesy of CreativeCommons ©BigTallGuy

A Photo-Finish, Part One

For years I met weekly with two girlfriends for breakfast and long talks about all things related to our respective lives. We supported one another through marriages, births, deaths, divorces and everything in between. Two of us, now recently divorced, slowly tip-toed into dating. One, older and braver than I, had started explore online dating. As I prepared to move to France, she offered an interesting idea: "Why don't you go online and check out what's available on the other side of the pond?" Brilliant!

I created a brief and anonymous profile and started to lurk around the French collection from a distance. One fellow in the bunch caught my eye - but I did nothing. After all, I was busy. This was just a lark. And I didn't really give it another thought.

Then a week or so later, I opened my email to find a message from this very gentleman. Seems he had found my profile appealing enough to toss a line in and see what might happen. We emailed back and forth until I arrived in France and shortly after, set up a time to meet. We hit it off immediately and made plans for a second date before the first one ended. It didn't take long before he wanted to introduce me to all of his friends. Things were looking good.

A transplant from Denmark, he circulated in the insular Danish community in this French metropolis and asked that everyone speak English when I was around. When walking from point to point through the city, he insisted that I tell him if he started to step up the pace and get ahead of me as he didn’t always realize it was happening and he’d had problems with women in the past over this issue. Such thoughtful gestures can make a girl absolutely swoon. According to his friends, he had really fallen for me. That was fine with me. I was quite taken with him and appreciated the attention and affection and that European thing of a fellow insisting upon payment for everything from coffee to dinner.

Yes, I was enjoying everything - from pickled herring to Aquavit – but not so much the tours of all of the churches. As we village hopped, he suggested that we stop in at each and every church in existence. I thought it was a particular interest of his so I went along with the program amiably. During one such tour, he asked me if I was pleased to add another church to my list of visited sites. I replied quite honestly that it didn’t make any difference to me. He was stunned. His ex-wife had insisted on visiting every church and somehow he had made a broad-stroke assumption that this was a gender issue: that all women liked churches. I believe this may have been the moment when I realized that things were not as they seemed. It may also have been the moment at which this fling began its descent.

Weekends were spent at his lovely apartment in a lively neighborhood. In an old bourgois building, the apartment was reached by an antique cage-type lift to its top floor perch. Marble floors made for an elegant entrance. A pale yellow tint splashed the walls like sunshine. Danish family heirloom pieces mixed seamlessly with modern French touches like the marble and wrought iron dining table.

After a day of fun out and about, just the two of us or with his friends, we would return to his apartment for the night and begin again Sunday morning out in the world. As the light was clicked off, he kissed me goodnight and rolled over like we were an old married couple. (My apologies to all the old married couples out there, but…you know what I mean?!) I was puzzled. Everything seemed to be going well. He seemed to be really interested in me. I certainly found him to be attractive, humorous, smart. The distance in bed did not make sense. I gently made the query into the mystery and he shrugged and said, "I just want to make sure about this. It seems serious to me and I don't want to make a mistake." Alrighty-then. This was very unusual but I was certainly more cautious than I'd ever been about entering into anything after the last guy. This actually made sense to me and I decided to be cool with it. (Some friends even suggested that they thought it was rather "romantic", "respectful", "charmingly old fashioned"...but one of my friends heard this detail and said, "He has intimacy issues." Period. Paragraph. That savvy fellow was absolutely correct but I decided to give Mr. Not-So-Sure a chance. Besides, otherwise, I was having a pretty good time.)

One evening as we waited for his friends to arrive for dinner, we sat down with a glass of wine and a stack of photo albums. Oh goodeee! A window into his past. I was expecting perhaps a baby on a bearskin rug, a few shots with brothers, stuff like that. As he lifted the cover of the first, I saw a page filled with photos of women in various settings. Thus began the introduction to his dating history.

“This woman lived in NYC. We met on the internet and I traveled there several times. She was crazy! She couldn’t understand why we broke up. She still sends me email on occasion to see if I’m still interested. Crazy, I tell you!” There were accountants, flight attendants, marketing specialists, business owners. Page after page of women representing countless countries - all documented by a single photo. He pointed at the next shot, “This woman was from London. We didn’t date for long. She thought I drank too much. You think I drink too much, too, don’t you?” (I did but was loathe to tell him in that moment for fear of a camera coming out and snapping a shot for the archives.) The friends arrived and we left for dinner but the little stroll down memory lane had left a lasting – and disturbing – impression on me.

Not long after this evening, I made plans to cook a meal for him...to be continued...

photo courtesy of CreativeCommons ©BigTallGuy

Mr. Lying-Sack-of-Shit

He said he was part owner in the new trendy restaurant that had opened downtown.

He was not.

He said he had connections to art galleries and could get a painter friend of mine in. (No, not that painter.)

He did not.

He said he said he was a gold medal winner in an obscure sport.

He was not.

I really should have run away from this guy like my hair was on fire before the first "hello".

I did not.

He said he lived in a cute little cottage behind a cool, old house owned by a famous artist.

He did not.

He said he had friends in Tuscany who owned a villa that they were turning into a bed and breakfast place…

...he did not…

...and that he was going to go work for them.

Uh, no. He did not.

He said he his decision to get rid of his car and use a bicycle to speed around town had been the result of an accident in which his car had been totaled. "It was unintentional but I ended up liking getting around on two wheels," he said with a smile.

Errr...it wasn’t exactly like that.

In fact, he couldn’t even think about leaving the country to go work with his non-existent friends in Tuscany because he didn’t have a fucking passport! That little accident that had left him carless? He racked up a felony charge for drunk driving with that crash. Uhhhhh, small detail left out of that account.

Although Mr. Lying-Sack-of-Shit should have been behind bars, the only bar he was behind was the trendy one he claimed to own lied about owning. Great employment for an alcoholic whose terms of probation included regular AA meetings, right?

The art gallery connections? Zip. Nada. Zilch. Rien.

That gold medal? Nope, he was just so tall that everyone believed him when he claimed to be a star in his sport, but nope. No medals to his name. Not a one.

Yes, dear readers, I did time with a criminal. (Not much time, mind you, but looking back, responding to that first "hello" was too much time!) This criminal-with-a-very-small-carbon-footprint really enjoyed riding in my Mercedes and being dropped off at the end of an evening. (I was going slowly on this one. And I thought I was being "green" before "green" was cool.)

Because I had started to wise up, I invited him to hang out with my group of closest friends as a “road test”…so to speak. Their verdict when the evening was over?

“He’s a great guy, Gabby!”

“It’s nice to see you with someone who’s into you!”

And this one, “He’s really easy to be with. I enjoyed meeting him.”

Such is the case with sociopaths.

With a thumbs up from my peeps – because I really wasn’t trusting myself at that point – I took the next step. But as I spent a bit more time with Mr. LSoS, I began to notice some irregularities. For instance, he lied about little things. Stuff I knew because the evidence was right there or I had witnessed the act moments before and he lied about it. When I questioned him on the observations and pointed out that he seemed to have a tough time taking responsibility for the smallest things, he got defensive. Of course.

I backed up.

We were only dating so there were no agreements or discussions of any exclusivity at this point and there hadn't even been enough of an investment for any patterns to have developed - like an expectation that we would spend weekends together. Backing up was easy. And as I did, I discretely checked out his claims and simultaneously poured myself into work tasks. My work schedule made the retreat quite easy. My research made the decision clear:

This guy needed to be dumped.

We met for coffee and had an adult conversation about the whole thing. What a relief. In fact, I was so relieved that he was really cool about this ending, that when he asked me if I would mind driving him home, I figured What's one last time for Mother Earth? and and we climbed in the car.

During the 9-minute ride to his house - an austere prison cell of a studio behind the dilapidated cow of a house owned not by a famous artist but by a non-famous lesbian who happened to resemble Annie Leibovitz - he started getting lippy with me about my decision to stop seeing him “without really giving us a chance.”

“This is not up for discussion,” I said and I navigated an abrupt right turn and whipped into the next possible place to stop - which happened to be the parking lot of an abandoned restaurant a good distance from his house.

"It's over!" I said, "Get out."

He hesitated.

"Now!” I snapped.

He was still yelling at me as I drove away. I never looked back.

I also never saw him again. Well...except for that one time...at a bit of a distance...in my neighborhood...40 miles away from his. Does the stalker energy really surprise you? It didn’t surprise me in the least. And I was fully prepared to blow his parole if he fucked with me.

This ripped it for me. I was done. I would take my search off-shore. Or maybe I'd just stop searching. At that point, I was ready to go into a full-stop mode.

I left the country shortly after this experience. I had simply given up hope of finding a suitable partner in the fetid pool of available single men in my region of the US. This felon was the line in the sand for me.

“I wonder what men are like in the Old World?” I mused as I packed my bags.

Next.

photo courtesy of CreativeCommons ©Randy Son Of Robert

The New Yorker Gets Me Every Time

He was a musician and actor. Another set-up by a mutual friend. From the outset, I found him to be very intelligent, wildly funny, a talented pianist, and affectionate in a rather sweet way. What's more: he subscribed to The New Yorker. (I will overlook countless minor faults for this!) His self-effacing humor charmed me, as is often the case when it comes to that awkward, boyish demeanor. (Note to self: This is really something to work on - and get over!) What’s more, he owned - and lived in - a lovely condominium perched on the cliffs over the Pacific Ocean.

On the first date, somewhere between the declaration that he’d love to take me golfing and teach me some of the game and the goodnight kisses, he asked a curious question: “Would you still go out with me if I drove a limo?” Well, this is odd, I thought. I knew other women who ran in a crowd where their new suitors always seemed to have luxury-to-the-max cars…your Bentleys, your Ferraris, your Rolls Royces. What a refreshing twist from the macho bravado of many men who have such fine toys.

“Listen, I’m having a lovely time with you and at this point, it doesn’t make much difference to me what kind of car you drive,” I said...most likely as I was batting my baby blues in his direction under the moonlight and in the ignorant bliss that accompanies being clueless.

He dropped his gaze and scuffed one foot around in the sand atop the beachside cliff and sputtered as he searched for some way to let me know I had missed his intended meaning. He cleared his throat to gear up for clarification then continued: “I’m between jobs and I have something lined up that should be coming through any day now…but if doesn’t, I have a buddy who has a limo service and said I could pick up some work with him to tide me over.” He stopped and waited for my response.

"Oh! That kind of 'drive a limo'. As in you'll-be-the-one-behind-the-wheel-and-I'll-be-in-the-back-seat kind of 'drive a limo'," I teased. At least this artist would be gainfully employed. No worries. He wasn't moving in with me anytime soon. This quirky little detail seemed like a "no harm, no foul" kind of thing.

After those initial moments of confusion, the dating discovery process unfolded beautifully. We had fabulous conversations about everything under the sun - including favorite articles in The New Yorker. He serenaded me with his own compositions as we sat side by side at his baby grand piano. We enjoyed the same kinds of cuisine and he had a real flare for presentation when he cooked dinners for me.

We decided, mutually, not to hop in the sack right away but to allow some time for our romance to take hold. When we decided we'd had enough of that mature decision making stuff, we discovered that sex together was great. We did have one teeny, tiny little style difference that showed up a few romps in.

One evening, he stopped abruptly in the heat of a steamy moment of moaning, arching and heavy breathing and asked, “You’ll tell me exactly when you want me to spank you, won’t you?”

Spank me?! I think I was a toddler the last time I was spanked. I managed to find my way back from the shock of that moment (a moment so bizarre that it will exist forever as a freeze-frame image) to a pleasant ending of the story. Later, as I related his comment to a girlfriend of mine (yes, guys, we women do share stuff like this with our BFFs), she said, “Sounds like he’s watched too much gay porn.”

Unfortunately, as the relationship continued, we bumped into one more troubling little detail that we couldn't seem to resolve: he couldn’t sleep with me when sex was all over. As the relationship became more intimate, he became more distant. Yes, that charming “little boy” quality that hooks me (come on, I’m not the only woman that gets hooked by that, am I?!) ends up looking more like a mother issue when the chips are down. Not so charming after all. Nope. Not in the least.

I had to reevaluate the situation. So did he. He realized that he simply wasn't interested in a "committed relationship" even "as lovely as you are."

And me? I really didn't see a future with this emotionally-distant, limo-driving, spanking-obsessed artist. So he read The New Yorker. Pfft. There must be others out there.

The good news: no videotape.

Next.

photo courtesy of CreativeCommons ©lucyfrench123

The Angry Poet

We first exchanged glances, and then a brief introductory conversation, at the party of a mutual friend. I found him to be charming and attentive in a not-too-cloying fashion. He also had a sense of style that smacked of a European gene – which I later discovered to be accurate. He’d been in the US for many years but was originally from Europe, moving to Canada as a teenager. (He had me at "three passports".)

When our friend called me for permission to share my number with him, I was flattered. Then I thought about it for a moment (He-llll-ooo! There does come a point...you know what I'm sayin'?!), and cautiously agreed.

Our first date was casual and fun – a lecture followed by a long chat over some nice wine. He was funny, intelligent, curious and creative – a poet, in fact.

Danger, danger! Proceed with caution. Artist near.

We spent a second evening sharing a take-out dinner and more fine wine as he gave me a private reading of some of his poems. The early summer breeze puffed the sheer curtains away from the windows as Miles Davis and John Coltrane played in the background. Over the course of the evening, we laughed as we discovered how much we had in common and relaxed into the pleasure of playful flirting. But there was something niggling at me about this fellow that I was unable to shake. With my past experiences clearly in focus in my rear-view mirror, the familiar illusion of clarity born of hope (and an irritating positivity) with which I had always barreled into the future had been replaced by a pea-soup fog. From here on out, it could only be one foot in front of the other.

By the Third Date - a critical juncture in many conventional wisdom-spouting dating experts' views - I saw his emotional shirt buttons pop and the sweet poet morphed into a bilious control freak. This fellow, who was all smiles and jokes and charming poetry and touchy-huggy with me one-to-one became strangely hostile and combative with the flip of a switch.

After a long walk through a little beachside town, we stopped in at lovely little restaurant for dessert and coffee. Simple, right? Up walked a 20-something waiter, addressed us with "Ma’am" and "Sir" and was quite polite and accommodating to us as he handed us the menu. We could have easily been his parents (notice of his rockin’ body and bedroom eyes aside) and I thought his comportment was quite respectful.

Mr. Sunshine started asking questions about the dessert menu as if he’d been sent to interrogate this youngster about some secret enemy spy code embedded in the list of pastries and puddings. The waiter was taken aback (who wouldn’t be?) and started to get edgy. This only provoked Mr. SS and after gently putting a hand on his forearm only to have it jerked out from under my not-so-magic touch, the next thing I knew, I was looking under the table to see if I had dropped something - anything - just to escape the escalating hostilities. Nope, nothing under the table. Damn. It went downhill from there:

"This pastry must be stale. It is absolutely tasteless."

"Why can't these places make decent coffee? This is weak and cold."

The list went on. (And if what is said about wait staff and irritable customers is true, there was probably something nasty in his millefeuille that he just couldn’t see.)

"I find this all a bit awkward," I said. "I thought we were having a fine evening but everything seems to have changed for you when we walked into the restaurant. What happened?"

"What do you mean?" he said, and at that point, any further discussion was pointless. This guy was clueless to his own bad behavior. It did not want the job to correct/teach/scold/cajole/coax etc., etc.

When the night was over, so was any future for this new exploration.

As I unlocked my door, he suggested that we go out again. I said, "I just don't think this is going to work for me."

He balked and began to assert how much we had in common, blah, blah, blah.

"I'm not at all comfortable with the way you treated the waiter tonight," I said, "This just isn't a good fit for me." At which point, he had a minor tantrum. (C'mon...really?! When a woman turns you down, the way to impress her is to behave like a two-year old, right? Pfft!)

There are plenty of challenges in making a relationship work. Tying myself against the mast of this guy's anger was simply not going to happen. Yay me!

Honestly, how insecure does one have to be to take down a 20-something waiter to prove he's got a big dick? (Only a guess, but...I'm just sayin'...)

Next.

photo courtesy CreativeCommons ©skittzitilby

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

Ah yes, I did live...and learn. But friends began to worry as I grieved that last one. It took me quite some time to figure out what I was grieving. (Hint: It was not about him. More on that later, dear readers. We are going somewhere with this!)

The people who loved me didn’t see this ending as much of a loss, but I was heartbroken. In an effort to push me beyond my sniffling, they began to gently suggest possible set-ups. I wasn't particularly interested in being set-up. What interested me was proving to my peeps that I was okay. So I agreed to the first arranged date.

He was an artist from New York City. Recently dumped by the girlfriend for whom he had moved to California, the only obvious thing we had in common was being on the rebound. I had an okay time. I guess. When he tried to kiss me at the end of the night, I balked. Too fast. I think I whined about having a cold or something. I agreed to a second date reluctantly just to prove something to myself...or maybe to my friends. Whatever. In subsequent meetings I found his intelligence quite stimulating. Add to that a remarkable artistic talent and the pleasant scent of his cigars (go ahead...call me crazy but I like the soft aroma of a good cigar) and I shoved my reservations to the back burner and decided to go along for a ride. What the hell. It was better than what I'd just come out of and provided a bit of distraction from the constant sorting in which I was still engaged.

We did a long distance thing between his city (where he was renting a room in someone’s house) and my town, 200 miles away, where I owned my own home. It was workin' for me. I still had my own little life among my peeps, a private place to lick my wounds and a date for each weekend. Then one day he announced that he wanted to make a go of trying to find work in my town. I expressed my reservations but after several months of dating we were having a pretty good time. It kind of made sense to give it a whirl...on a trial basis. We discussed the conditions upon which it would work for me and with a handshake over dinner one evening it was decided. He would move in.

In our agreement we had discussed what he would be expected to contribute to the household. He suggested that as he had no visible income yet, he would trade his paintings (Note from above: he was very talented) in lieu of rent. I loved his work and figured it was a pretty good deal.

Always the generous soul, I wanted him to feel at home. He made himself comfortable in ways that had me gritting my teeth and repeating a new mantra: "All relationships require compromise," as he built a shabby work table outside the kitchen window and then got busy painting a huge dove above the bed in my bedroom. I’m talking huge here, with a wingspan the width of the bed and 5 feet high. H.U.G.E.)

"Errrr...exactly what is this going to be?" I asked as I witnessed the work-in-progress.

"It's a depiction of the Holy Spirit," he said as he audibly sucked in a few powerful puffs from his fat cigar and eyed his masterpiece.

"Oh," I said. My brow furrowed into a silent expression of concern. Did he really think this was the path to make good on his intention to "disabuse" me of my Buddhist leanings?

A valuable lesson about the limits of my generosity was taking shape - and it was beginning to look like a whopper of a learning experience. Artistic quirks aside, I was working my ass off and he was proving to be an expensive experiment.

A few short months after sleeping together under the giant dove, I asked him to leave. As he was moving his paintings out, we partook in a heated exchange. “I’m an artist! I would never barter my art work!” he exclaimed as he yanked his pieces from the walls, adding, “These would sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars!”

"But we had an agreement!" I countered.

Yeah. Right.

During the truck loading process, his parting shot landed like a bomb in my world: "You know, I could take half of your house. I've already spoken with an attorney. He told me my claim would hold up because you told me 'to make myself at home.' " My heart dropped into the soles of my bare feet. I started to tremble. I couldn't find the words to express the rage that was welling up once I clawed my way out of the shock of this announcement.

As I watched him carry the last canvas out, I could only allow myself to mutter, "Fucking asshole!" to the back of this parasite who had lived several months for free and threatened to stake claim to my home. He stopped without turning around and then loaded the painting in his friend's truck, slammed the door and drove off.

I expected my final words would be the nail in the coffin for any future contact - which suited me just fine. But no. Several months later he called in an attempt to reconcile. I suspect he had difficulty finding any other woman in the universe who would allow him and his Holy Spirit to live rent-free. A peacemaker to the very core, I politely agreed to meet him in a public place for coffee.

It was fine. I made it quite clear that I didn't want to continue any further contact and he seemed to understand.

But what I really wanted to do when I heard his voice over the phone was yell, “Bite me!” It's just not my style.

Oh how I wish it was.

Next.

photo courtesy CreativeCommons ©The Birks

Live By The Sword, Die By The Sword

I can safely say that karma is a bitch. I can also say that in my experience there is such a thing as Love At First Sight. We both felt it the moment we met. That electrical charge that buzzes up the spine and says "Oh my god! Where have you been all my life?!" We talked about it later...years later, when we began a relationship that would last for several years.

We were both therapists so we met occasionally on a professional basis for coffee and catching up...which then became personal. As we shared the more intimate aspects of our lives, I learned that he was having trouble with his girlfriend. And frankly, he'd been having trouble with her for quite some time so it seemed likely to come apart any time now. (What woman with shaky confidence hasn't told herself that one a time or two?!) Then one day, after one of these coffee klatches, which he insisted on buying (and in the United States, many women consider that a date!), we wandered over to a local bookstore where we began flirting between the shelves. On impulse (one of the things I liked about him), he bought me a book. Of erotic poetry. Game on.

He began calling "just to chat" and sensing his interest, I invited him to lunch. (Not something I would ever do at this point - I like to think I've learned a thing or two - but in my mid-thirties and recently divorced, I took advantage of all of those perks that the feminists before me fought for to bring about the sexual revolution. Although I don't think it was their intention for those of us who followed to shoot ourselves in the foot with that hard-won liberation.) We munched on a savory repast and made love for dessert. We believed we had each found our soul mate. We sent notes in calligraphy to one another, cooed to each other over the phone. (I did not call him at the start, mind you. A girl's got to have her limits!)

Unfortunately, this love affair began as just that: an affair. You see, most married men I know refer to their spouse as "my wife" not "my real estate agent" and I did not even connect that the girlfriend with whom he claimed he was having so much trouble was in real estate. Man, talk about choosing to be clueless! And I'm a fairly bright cookie...but when smitten, meh...not so much.

By the time I actually realized he was married - to the real estate agent - I told myself I was in over my head. So was he. The perfect recipe for passion: attraction + obstacles = sexual tension.

The relationship fell into the category of "It Was The Best Of Times, It Was The Worst Of Times" and endured his inevitable separation and divorce but started to fall apart when we became two rather than three. Not uncommon but I was hoping to be an exception.

I discovered he had a new "third" to stabilize our dyad as I helped him out, which I often did, with some work projects. An errant click on his computer's desktop opened a document with a sweeping "whoosh". An erotic poem written in first person about something throbbing as a result of something someone - and it wasn't me - was doing to him filled the screen.

Recent senseless arguments began to make sense. So did his introduction of me that morning to a colleague as a "work assistant". I hit the "X" to snap the masterpiece shut and never said a word. There was no point. All the confronting and arguing and attempts to dissolve our crippled union respectfully had left me too fatigued to carry on any more. I knew what was coming.

A few weeks later, he ended eight years over the phone. Over.The.Phone.

Next.

photo courtesy of CreativeCommons ©Party of Hive

The Things People Say Thursday: Culture Shock

An American woman confiding in her French friend about her adjustment in France:

"To be honest, I didn't know what was going on. Men on the street would grunt or groan or give a slow hiss as they passed me shoulder to shoulder. At first I thought, 'Is something wrong? Is he in pain?'

And then I realized: they were flirting!"

Ah yes, seduction has many faces...and sounds!

photo courtesy of CreativeCommons ©DearTerisa

Running in Place

A note to my dear readers to let you know work and suchlike has taken a bite out of my time in the past week and has me running. After some much-needed organizing and catching up, I'll be back in the Sunday Confessional and we'll take it from there.

Thanks for your patience in the meantime.

See you Sunday!

Gabby

photo courtesy of CreativeCommons ©anasantos

The Sunday Confessional: Ding Dong!

Dear Gabby,

I was once dating two women at the same time. I showed up at the door of one of the women with a bottle of wine and flowers as we had planned an "evening in". If you know what I mean. Problem was, I was at the wrong woman's house. Was she ever surprised to see me! And with wine and flowers, no less. So I made excuses to cover my mistake by telling her that I had been thinking about her and wanted to stop by and have a glass of wine together. But as she uncorked the bottle, I told her I couldn't stay long. (I knew the other woman was waiting for me.) I had a quick glass of wine at the wrong girl's house, kissed her goodbye and raced off to buy another bottle of wine and more flowers. I was late, but the evening had been saved. Lesson learned.

I have since settled down.

Dear Settled Down,

Quick thinking there, Trigger. Unexpected gifts of wine and flowers always make us feel so...special. (And people wonder where trust issues come from?!)

Gabby

Neeeeext?

photo courtesy of CreativeCommons ©emiliolabrador