Copyrighted by Lorna Tedder. Originally published in Third Degree Tilt.
Thursday morning, driving to work.
I feel like The Weather Channel. I change my mind “on the eights.” At this rate, I’ll become a candidate for “Storm Stories” or some other disaster.
I don’t know what is going on with me this week. I am never this indecisive. Ever.
I’ll make decisions based on gut instinct and I’ll make decisions where I have to wait for something else to happen, but once I make my mind up, that’s it. And yet, when it comes to the prospect of getting into a romantic relationship with a new man, I now waffle by the hour, and sometimes… often times…more than once or twice in the hour.
This week has been at its worst. The only times I’ve had this happen before, it’s been gone in a day…48 hours max, and only once every 3 months is it more than a blip on my radar.
Because of the work I’m doing now in my office, I’m suddenly encountering a lot more men at work. Yes, oodles of them married but quite a few of them are single and actively looking for…well…not necessarily a relation- ship and I think the term “intimacy” might be a misnomer.
As of today, I have turned down two more men who wanted to meet for drinks this week—both nice, early 30s, one single, one divorced. I wouldn’t mind being friends with either or both of them but that’s really not the purpose of getting together for drinks with them and they’ve made that very obvious. They, like me, have a limited amount of time and if they’re looking for a romantic liaison, why waste it on somebody who isn’t going to … liaise. But the invitation comes from them and I think for little while after that maybe I really should get out and see what happens with them…one…or both… probably separately.
Ten minutes later, I’m reminding myself that there really isn’t a spark there with either man in spite of several conversations. And minutes later I’m thinking, well, you know, maybe it could turn into something eventually or maybe one of the so-so guys will grow on me. Ten minutes later, I’m asking why I would ever settle for letting someone grow on me—not that letting some- one grow on me is a bad idea but I’d like to start from enthusiasm and go up instead of from ho-hum and endure.
Ah, this does nothing for my decision and indecision. I still don’t know. I guess the big difference in dating the second time around is that I’ve been around long enough now to know what I want and to know it when I see it.
To borrow a cliché, not one of these new men sweeps me off my feet.
I’m sure there’s a lesson in all this and I’m not sure yet what it is. Maybe it’s patience and perseverance, or maybe it’s take whatever you can get, however you can get it. I don’t know ultimately what my decision will be.
Hmmm, I do think all this ties back to this grand sense of change and of prepare, prepare, prepare. I just don’t know how yet, but there’s a connection to it. There is a huge change coming in my life, and not to sound anti-feminist, but I think the catalyst for it will be a man and my relationship with him. I feel it coming.
Like a tremor in the earth.
Yeah. Yeah, someone who’s going to make the earth move for me.
Leave a Reply