Along the journey to finding the one, a few bumps are encountered. These are the stories of those bumps.
A studious girl with serious ambitions, who found it easier to gain approval than to make friends, I guess it’s no great shock that my attitude toward relationships was both studious and serious.
Looking for the one
It might even have been called creepily intense; if so, I never got to hear about it. My sole source of feedback was the array of authority figures who affirmed my serious attitude with enthusiastic relief. Thanks to them — and to books such as Passion and Purity, Doing Things Right In Matters of the Heart, and that chestnut of the mid 2000s I Kissed Dating Goodbye — I began considering myself above the casual North American mating ritual.
This condescending attitude didn’t merely protect my butt from exploratory hallway gropes, and stand in for company at Valentine’s Day and prom. It also stirred up a gnawing, idealistic hunger for companionship, that no encounter with real human limitations ever had the chance to temper.
Consequently, when I met my equal — intense, seriously ambitious, self-consciously superior, and as unaccustomed as I was to dealing with feelings of attraction — I eagerly concluded that this must be it. After a well-rehearsed confession of feelings, he made his intentions known:
“No kissing, not yet.”
I was okay with that. The books and the authorities would approve of his scruples. Besides, the giddy rush of having my hand held for the first time was about all I could handle.
It took from January to early April for my preadolescent mind to catch up with my early-20s hormones. Two days after I asked him why we weren’t kissing, he broke up with me.
Two months after that, I found out from a friend that everyone had assumed he was gay, until we got together, and that collective opinion resumed after our breakup.
Two years later, he found out for himself that he was gay.
(He called to let me know.)
I’ve wondered since if closeted guys use some kind of trail-marking, because throughout the following year, I was continually approached by guys with great manners and impeccable nail beds. I seemed to have become the last stop on the heterosexual train.
I swore I wouldn’t be suckered again by “nice guy” types, or by the books that advocated for them. I felt I’d been fooled by my attempt to do things right, and next time around, I wanted a guy who wanted me for more than just my brains and personality.
But I also wanted to save my virginity.
Armed with these opposing values, I have since navigated through a series of relationships that cycle, like an epic novel, around the number three.
Three dates until he intuits that I’m not going to have sex with him.
Three weeks until he stops calling altogether.
Three months between one guy bowing out and the next one stepping in.
Three minutes sniffling (or ranting) on the phone before I remember that my mom (who, like a character from Jane Austen, refers to crushes as “attachments” and dates as “prospects”) is not the one I want to talk these things over with.
All my Christian friends seem to all have a brother, a nephew, a friend, or (best of all) an ex-boyfriend on retainer, for such a person as me. It’s cost me several noteworthy failures, and a few estranged friendships, to learn that another lonely person is not the answer to my loneliness.
Neither is the advice of my unchurched friends, whose sympathy can be bought for a beer and lasts about as long. Although, to give credit where it’s due, some of them have shown a remarkable grasp of the situation.
“You want to be with a cool guy who shares your values, right?” (Gulp, swallow, sigh.) “Wow. That’s going to be hard to find.”
I can’t believe that it’s really that hard. I know lots of guys who fit that description . . . the only drawback is that they are already married, or about to be. Unwilling to join the collective whine that all the good ones are taken, I often wonder if they are made good by the taking.
There are some girls who simply want a picket fence and a couple of kids. There are others who simply want attention. And there are a multitude of others with more complex wants.
I only wish I knew what my wants are. At this point, I only know what I don’t want.
Which could prove to be a good thing . . . I’m still waiting to see.
Flickr photo (cc) by bronx.
