Friends and Lovers

Maybe I've been going about this effort the wrong way. Ever since John's death, I've been looking for the "love [for the rest] of my life". Maybe I should have just been looking for friends.

I met the Gardener and the Traveler face-to-face on the same day in October of 2006. The Traveler quickly blossomed into a treasured friend. The Gardener zoomed into "significant other" status, which lasted for three months until he saw some other skirt that interested him more than my skirt. But we have remained friends and he is one of the first people I call when I need or want someone whom I trust to share my pain or happiness.

The year 2006 was, in fact, all about three-month relationships: Mike from El Paso, whose bushy eyebrows and protruding nose hair were more important to him than our relationship; the Lemonade Tycoon, who broke up with me via e-mail; Mr. Match, who went out with someone else off Match (dot) com after telling me he was in love with me and predicting we'd be married a year hence (and whose presence in my life prompted this blog); and the Gardener. In 2007, activity dropped to one six-week relationship - the Professor.

But first dates. Ah, innumerable first dates. I'm sure I'm not the Queen of First Dates, but there have been enough that I feel I can knowledgeably state that the level of one's cynicism rises in direct proportion to the number of first (and no subsequent) dates one has endured.

Which brings me to yesterday. I had two first dates yesterday: breakfast with (oooh, pressure to come up with appropriate descriptive titles) PhillyGuy and a late drink with the Athlete. (It's my blog; I can call 'em what I want!)

PhillyGuy lives about 20 minutes NE of Ytown; the Athlete lives about 30 minutes SE. Both have jobs that I would say aren't really "careers", although one or the other might dispute that statement. The jobs they have chosen give them a degree of freedom that my current M-F 7-7 situation prevents. PhillyGuy (who grew up in Philly, hence the name) would have liked to spend his whole day with me yesterday, but as my weekdays-off-so-I-can-accomplish-things are few and far between, I wasn't giving that amount of time to nobody (she said in her best Southern drawl). The Athlete said to me in a late e-mail that he hadn't wanted the evening to end—that's a good sign. It was only my rigid body clock that shut things down at the two hour mark.

So my take on things? These were not first-and-only dates. I like both these men very much. Easy conversation; pleasant to look at across a table or along the bar; educated, skilled, talented, multi-faceted men with brains inside their skulls. What will develop? I have no idea. And I'm not going to worry about it. I'm at the beginning of tons o' things in my life, and anxiety is not something I need to mix into the stew. So I'm just going to enjoy it.

(Writing and re-reading that paragraph made me realize the things that are important for me in finding the man for the rest of my life: easy conversation and multi-faceted interests, plus nice looks. Interesting!)

Aren't I lucky? Two nice guys in one day!

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go shovel snow.