Stories in Reverse Order

Lying in bed with sleeping babes alongside. Trying to create today's post when I feel I don't have much to say. But I know the Traveler checks the blog via Blackberry as he's making his way eastward across the U.S., so don't want to leave him readless. He's got 300+ miles a day alone with his thoughts, so I should give him something to mull over.

I realize I hit you with the "He's just not that into you" post without the backstory. So here's the backstory.

I was getting ready to delete my profile from Match for the final time (yeah, yeah, heard it before) when I saw a man who looked to be a pretty good fit. He's age appropriate and lives in Akron, where I spend five days out of every week. He's educated, spent a career in the sciences, and is a classical musician. He played bass for years with Akron and Canton symphonies. After my initial "we should meet" e-mail, waited for him to finish classes he was taking at U of Akron and then met on Thursday night for coffee at Barnes & Noble.

Date Lab participants always assign ratings to their dates, on a scale of 5. I would have given this date a 5.

I always allot one hour to these first meetings, but stayed 90 minutes on this one. He was delightful. Without going into all the superlatives (good looking, smart, easy conversationalist, blah, blah), I could see many more dates with this man. And by all appearances, he felt the same way. There were initial "what's next" discussions.

The next day I e-mailed him to say how much I enjoyed our time together and hoped there would be more. When I got back to my desk from my department lunch meeting, an e-mail was waiting. "You are an extremely interesting, multi-talented lady. I think though (thinking about it more & more after our meeting) that the distance factor for now is a show-stopper --- the one-hour drives just freak me out. So I think it best that we not get further involved. Sorry."

Huh? All the normal rebuttals popped into my head, the greatest of which being, "I'm in Akron five days a week." I got sadder and sadder as the afternoon progressed, wondering what I did wrong. Finally I slapped myself upside the head and said, "It's not about you."

I can make all the excuses and offer all the explanations I want, but the bottom line is he wasn't interested and he's not the one. I can argue all I want and convince him to see me again, and it's going to end up in the same place.

Out of all that, I decided (yet again) to take my profile down. Match ain't working. I went through all the resignation screens last night to terminate my membership and remove my profile. After I closed the browser window, I realized I hadn't clicked the final "remove me" button.

Then an hour later I received an e-mail from an architect who lives part-time in Akron. So I guess I'll do this meeting thing one more time before giving it up. One more. That's all. Really.

(Oh, stop snickering!)