Too Many Men

The last month has felt overwhelming. Lord only knows what drove Jude to contact me, but shortly after he did (and I’m talking no more than a week), guys started coming out of the woodwork. I had this chat session with Nancy last Monday:

Me: “The old broad’s still got it. Both Marco and Phil looked me up and down today.”

Nancy: “Well, Phil is hot for you.”

Me: “Apparently so is Marco.”

Nancy: “Lol. You’re dripping sex.”

Me: “Hardly! I look awful today. They all started coming around me once Jude came back into the picture. Funny how that is.”

And of course I have a theory…

Jude has been very good for my psyche. He has given me more compliments in the last six weeks than my last boyfriend did in eight years. He makes me feel completely captivating and he celebrates my uniqueness and intelligence. Since returning from vacation, I feel as though I have been walking around in a daze; I wake up feeling full of him and he’s in my thoughts so frequently that I feel like he’s with me all day long. I have the feeling of complete and utter peace after I speak with him on the phone. I feel absolutely comfortable and at ease in my skin. He makes me feel so fantastic that I am certain I am radiating love out of every pore.

It almost sounds like I’m describing a religious experience, doesn’t it?

I think that this new, romantic demeanor is what these men are sensing and responding to. I have been asked out on the town, I have been propositioned, I’ve been checked out, an old boyfriend has asked to rekindle the relationship that ended sixteen years ago, and a man who heard about me through Nancy has requested a blind date with me. Even Wolverine initiated a conversation with me.

Tremendous? Yes, but this is also reason for celebration. I celebrate because Jude is proving to be good for me.

Outside the Comfort Zone

There is something to be said for keeping a gratitude journal. Since I started this exercise in May, I have found that I take the hurdles that life throws at me much more in stride; I don’t get as worked up when things go awry. I am able to flip a bad situation around to acknowledge that there may be a positive spin, an attribute that makes me seem a little too much like Pollyanna, I confess, but this helps me feel more lighthearted. And, as an added bonus, I feel much more ambitious to try new things when they come my way.

August has been a month of experimentation, trying new things, and forcing myself to say “yes” to those things that place themselves in my path.

Recently, I went to dinner with Nancy and Criostoir to a tiny Korean restaurant in Hudson, NH, a place which was Criostoir’s choice. From the outside it didn’t look like much at all. In fact, Nancy suggested that at one point it may have been a gas station. Inside, the seating area was one small room, probably no more than 500 square feet. Although the service bordered on slow, the waitress Jeannie was cheeky and entertaining. And the food was surprisingly excellent. I found myself eating Jam Bong, a seafood soup that includes mussels, scallops, shrimp, octopus, and squid. Let me tell you that apart from the scallops, none of those things would have ever made a regular appearance on my dinner plate before, but on this night I weighed the options and decided that I could have Pad Thai anywhere. And, lordy, am I glad I did.

This month, I also filed away my pre-conceived notions of an activity known as “tubing” and gave it a try. For those of you not familiar with tubing, the event takes place on a river where you sit in an innertube, drink beer, and float downstream. White trash city, right? That is absolutely what I thought, but from the riverbank I saw a different side, how being lazy in a tube puts you up close to nature and you see things as you float by that you wouldn’t notice speeding along in a car.

I put myself on an airplane and went to visit my friend Park in Virginia. While this probably sounds like an everyday occurrence, I assure you it took a significant amount of willpower to step onto that plane. Of all the things I am scared of (snakes, spiders, zombies), I’d rather face a room full of one or all of them than to fly. It’s an activity I do only when necessary. In fact, in the last 10 years, I have flown only twice before this trip and each time, I had an emotional breakdown, complete with tears, hysterics, and panicky paper bag breathing. This trip, I had none of that. I cannot admit that I was calm… In the hours leading up to my departure, I paced the floor. Once I got to the airport, my hands were clammy. Waiting at the gate to board, I was texting with Jude and my brain was so ill at ease that I have no memory of what I wrote. But I can admit that I sensibly told myself that if I wanted to get anywhere, if I ever wanted to see anything in this world, I would have to suck it up. So I did.

And what a magnificent trip it was! We spent three days around the Williamsburg area, where Park lives, and four days on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I tried everything. I pulled apart crabs with my bare hands. I showered outside. I ate foods I can’t get easily in New England: fried green tomatoes, peanut soup, venison/duck/rabbit pie, shrimp and grits. I climbed to the top of the Cape Hatteras lighthouse. I got an amazing pedicure, the massage from which I am still feeling.



I pulled the crabs apart, but I wasn't happy about it.



The fantastic, relaxing outdoor shower.



Cape Hatteras Lighthouse



Game Pye, made with Rabbit, Duck and Venison and covered in Currant Jelly

But the biggest surprise of the last month has been Jude. Talk about something putting itself smack in the middle of my path. After some initial fumbling, we started to communicate, first on Facebook, then by text, and now by phone. I have learned from him that he had tried on several occasions to hook up with me in high school, but he always felt rebuffed. My recollection of Jude is that he was quite the flirt, and popular enough in his own way. I doubt I ever took him seriously. But talking to him now, part of me wishes I had. Each day, I find that we have more in common than I ever would have thought possible. My rational side reminds me that in high school, I was particularly self-absorbed; I couldn’t wait to get away from the small town politics and the shallow, small-minded people in my hometown. That rational side makes a pretty convincing argument that I was shallow and small-minded in my own way, and that it may have taken me 20 years to be ready to accept a boy from my own back yard.

So here’s where things get interesting. Jude is 3,000 miles away until mid-December. I haven’t seen him in the flesh since we graduated almost two decades ago. We have never in our lives gone on a date. But we have an undeniable mental connection and I am admittedly attracted to him.

And I’m going to fly, yes FLY, all the way across the country to see him in October.

Is there a problem? I don’t know. Today, I feel incredibly optimistic. But other days, I worry that it’s absurd to feel this way about a man that I haven’t seen in a lifetime. I worry that if I go out there and he hates me, it’s not as easy as taking me home, saying good-night, dropping me at the door and driving away. I worry about how my mother would weather finding out that I’m going to California to see him. I worry that this is jumping headlong into something that neither of us is ready for. And I keep thinking about that old adage, “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”

Except that right now, I don’t have any bird in my hand, I only have the bird in the bush. And the image of the Leap of Faith in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade makes me feel very powerful. And I have to remind myself that I am a 36-year old adult, and if there is something that could lead to my ultimate happiness, would I care what anyone thinks, whether it’s my mother or our old classmates? And although I have asked for guidance and clarity of mind, this thing still feels like it is being propelled along by its own force.

So I see no other choice but to address this Colossus that has heaved itself directly in my path, “Yes.”

Act III, In Which the Players Weigh the Consequence of Performing Good or Ill

I never suspected that I would struggle so regularly with ethics, morals, and the question of following or departing from social mores. Had I known that so much of my life would seem like my character was being tested at every turn, I probably would have majored in Philosophy. Or Government.

Why is it that doing the right thing is far from easy? And why does doing the wrong thing come so naturally – and feel so good? Well, I should clarify that it usually feels good for a moment. Unfortunately, I have had more than my fair share of heartbreak and I have carried around a lifetime of guilt because I didn’t do what I knew was right at the time.

Once upon a time, I accepted a date with an older coworker. I was fresh out of college, coming off my breakup with Buck. I was socially idealistic, emotionally damaged, and universally courting trouble. He was a recently divorced man in his early 40s with a grade-school aged son. He was artistically idealistic, financially damaged, and universally courting pussy.

Many of the months in the year following Buck are like a blank appointment book. I know that they happened, that I survived them, but there was hardly any life in my living. I remember the stupid, destructive things that I took part in, but most of the faces and places and names specific to my daily existence don’t feel like they could possibly have belonged to me. In the case of Peter, I have a vague recollection of going to dinner at a little hole-in-the-wall Thai restaurant that was at standing room only capacity, and then going to a local theater to see Evita. After the movie, we may have gone for drinks, but I can only remember finding myself following Peter back to his place.

He lived in a second story apartment in a rust-colored triple-decker that was located in a suburb just outside the city. Despite being the apartment he had taken after his divorce, it had a restfulness and a hominess to it. Peter was a photographer and although his full time job was in a call center, he had big dreams of owning his own studio. I have a recollection of listening to an 80s show on the local college radio station and looking through portfolios of Peter’s work in dim amber light. Predictably, he tried to persuade me to have sex with him and I have an indistinct memory of nearly going through with it. In the end, I thought better of sleeping with him. For the life of me, I cannot remember what convinced me not to or what excuse I cooked up to avoid following through, but I doubt I was very firm in my resolve, and to Peter’s credit, he didn’t push his agenda, although I would have been an easy and captive target.

The reason I bring up this story is because of all the murky memories of this evening (including whether or not Peter and I even kissed), one thing stands out as clear as a saxophone in a woodwind ensemble. In making the case why we should top off the evening with a visit to his bedroom, Peter said, “It’s all practice.” For all I know, this could have been the reason I decided to decline his kind offer. At the time, I had the feeling that this was a fairly sleazy thing to say. Now, after fifteen years of my own experiences, I think Peter was onto something. 

When I consider some of the things I have encountered and undergone, particularly those things that were very poor decisions, I can see the wisdom in Peter’s statement. I’d like to think that I’ve been able to log my mistakes and learn from them. I’d like to think that I am a better person, not because I ever did those things in the first place, but because each experience gave me a basis for knowing how to handle what came next.

After having the joke I made to a lonely middle aged man turned around on me with complete sincerity, I realized that he couldn’t distinguish between jesting and reality. Now when I need to interact with him, I am all business.

After a few episodes of foolishly drinking one beer after the other on an empty stomach, only to discover after it’s too late that I am in a vulnerable and unsafe situation, I finally learned how to supervisee my alcohol intake.

After allowing myself to be seduced by a married man, seeing how friends responded to his overt cavorting, and dealing with my own guilt at transgressing the boundaries of his marriage vow (because I know how it feels thanks to my father’s unfaithfulness), I am more wary of my familiarity with married men. Now, when I come across one that outright solicits me, I urge him to go make things right with his wife.

If you are lucky enough to have never struggled with anything like this, let me tell you, it’s damn hard. Sometimes a single person is lacking for attention, affection, appreciation, or a combination of all three. Sometimes you just want to sow some wild oats, and doing a dangerous thing seems exciting. And sometimes whatever reasons the married man throws out sound so plausible that you trick yourself into thinking that no harm will come of it.  

It takes an unimaginable amount of willpower to say no when he’s absolutely gorgeous and captivating and you’d venture to guess that he’s an expert at the indecent things he’s suggested to you and you really just want to accept his proposition since it’s all practice, anyway, right?

And that’s where making informed decisions based on experience comes into play. Or if you don’t have the depth of experience yourself, to learn from the gaffes of your elders and wisers. Some days you’ve got it. And I seem to be having one of those weeks.

Act II, In Which We Discover the Possibility of the Game Being Over Before It Has Been Played

I had about a second’s worth of flirtation this week.

Out of the blue, I had a message from a high school classmate asking if I were single. Jude is someone that I was hardly close to when we were teenagers; the extent of our acquaintance could be boiled down to a disagreement over the title of a certain Jethro Tull song and some French kissing during a slow dance at a winter formal. Since we graduated, I’ve had the only the slightest contact with him, the full extent of which has taken place since last November, so I was a bit perplexed by his cryptic email. When I questioned Jude’s reason for asking about my status, he said that he thought I was smart enough to fathom that he wanted to take me out.

I feel so conflicted about this situation. I am experiencing the strangest mixture of giddiness and fear; giddiness thanks to the compliment, fear because there are so many unknowns.

First, I know that this man is going through a divorce. So, is his asking me out a play to get some nookie? Or to test the waters and see if he’s still attractive? Would it be a ploy to make his soon-to-be ex-wife jealous?

Second, while his company is located on the east coast, he’s on assignment in California for the next five months, with occasional trips back on the weekends. Wouldn’t it be easier for him to find someone who’s local to take out?

I also wonder if I’m the only one he’s asked out? Or was he casting out a lot of nets to see what nibbled? And, like a paranoid, out of place teenager, there’s a little Piper Laurie voice in the back of my head that wonders if this is some kind of a game so he can have a laugh at my expense?

Well, I gave it some cursory thought, and what I determined is this: you can’t really get down to the bottom of things chatting online. So I sent an open ended message (“let me know if you’re coming to the Boston area for sure”), in the hopes that it would prompt a phone call in which I planned to accomplish two things: 1) try to figure out what his deal is and 2) to lay some ground rules, i.e. let’s get together as two old friends to catch up on the last 20 years and maybe lay the foundation for a better friendship than we had when we were kids.

But my message was sent on Wednesday and I haven’t heard another peep from him since then.

Now try to guess what I’m imagining. Things like he contacted the wrong girl. Or he got cold feet. Or he was on a three day bender during which time he sent the original series of emails establishing my singlehood and his desire for a date, and he sobered up enough on Thursday to rethink it. Or his writing that he wanted to ask me out was a joke that I misinterpreted due to the faceless nature of internet communication. Or someone hacked his account.

God, I feel like such a dweeb. Mainly because I let an innocent little comment to get to me. And it got to me, not just in that Jude’s comment fucked with my head, made me question everything about it, but in that I also let myself be flattered by it to the extent of daydreaming what would it have been like to meet up with him. I mean, I am, first and foremost, a woman, and a single one at that. Granted, most of my imaginings were heavy on the awkwardness of making small talk with someone I haven’t known for two decades, but still – I wasted time and brain power on envisioning it!

Please make note of the fact that the one question I didn’t ask myself was “why me?” I have a perfectly good idea why that is.

I have always been and will always be a good girlfriend. And when you read “girlfriend,” you should liken it to “guy friend,” only with better listening abilities. I think the basis for my reputation as a girlfriend is due to the fact that the majority of my interests would not exactly be classified as feminine. You’ve got an extra ticket for the Bruins game? Call me. You want to drink beer and smoke cigars at 10 am? Call me, please! There’s a 48-hour James Bond marathon on? I’m your gal. And I think men innately pick up on that – certainly it’s something that Jerry would have realized about me way back when. I have always had closer and more numerous male friends than female friends. I am someone guys can be comfortable around, someone guys can relate to on a particular level. I have discovered frequently in my life that I will be allowed into a “boys’ club” and as long as no one points out that I’m female (oh, let’s say by making a date with me for the prom or by accidentally brushing against my breast in mid-gesture), my presence is harmless and things stay pretty hunky-dory. In my time, I have been the drinking buddy, the collaborator, the mentor, the kindred spirit, and just one of the crew.

And maybe, if Jude gets his act together, I will discover that I have new roles to play, such as the sounding board, or the shoulder to cry on, or the old friend.

Or maybe what’s done is done and I’ll just come out feeling like a rube.

Act I, In Which Questions Are Raised And Truths Are Revealed

I once had a boyfriend who claimed he knew when I was feeling sad because I only listened to Eric Burdon and War when I was sad.

Perhaps it is because “Nights in White Satin” from Black Man’s Burdon was playing on the hi-fi on my way to work this morning, or perhaps it is just the erratic fluctuation of hormones due to being off birth control for half a week, but I have been an emotional train wreck all day. And all because of Buck.

The last time I saw him, he mentioned that he was thinking of leaving his job, moving elsewhere, and going back to school. His plans sounded pretty nebulous until we chatted online this morning about going out for oysters at the Union Oyster House; “I figure I should try them while I’m still here.” And that’s when it became obvious that mentally Buck has checked out of New England.

The thought that he wouldn’t be here felt like a knot tightening up in my stomach and I had a moment of panic. It’s hard to imagine not having Buck accessible within a couple of hours.

But then I remembered that for all of the “onlys” that Buck is to me, he is also the only one who can make me feel absolutely worthless.

Like 15 years ago when he broke up with me out of the clear blue sky and I felt like I was just going through the motions of living for a year. Like two months ago when he texted me to break our plans for dinner and a movie and it made me think about how I don’t have anything or anyone else to fall back on. Like two weeks ago when he told me that he has had a girlfriend for five years that he never told me about, and this evasion made me wonder if it was because of some vibe *I’ve* been putting across. Like how with everything being on Facebook these days, the fact that our common friends grant him a more intimate relationship than they allow me feels like a slap in the face. 

Granted, some of our distance is likely because for the last two years, he’s been focusing on the secret girlfriend to the detriment of our friendship, as people in relationships are notorious for doing. It makes me wonder when (or if) we’ll go back to camaraderie we had before. I’m starting to mistrust that how fantastic I feel when things are completely in synch with Buck eclipses all this feeling bad. I don’t want a half-hearted friendship and I don’t want to be jealous that his life has taken a different direction than mine.

I know that after flaunting my wish that he’ll remain in my life into perpetuity, I must sound like a complete hypocrite, but I’m going to put my reflections into writing, anyway…

I wonder if Buck’s decision to move away isn’t really a good thing. Perhaps, even 15 years after our affair, I am still emotionally involved with him, craving his approval and acceptance. Maybe the fact that he can affect me so strongly indicates that I am co-dependent. Maybe it’s time to accept that, because he hurt me so profoundly when I was so absolutely trusting of him, on some level I will never be able to be friends with Buck. But maybe if I am in the position of breaking up with him, ending the friendship, I will be able to achieve some emotional closure.

Maybe the work of hormones gone haywire, maybe the mysterious work of Mr. Burdon, maybe just a hard reality taking shape. Yet I have to put my own happiness at the forefront. Right now, all I feel is melancholy.

The Missing Link

When I was three or four, my grandparents took me to the local fair. While there, we had our photograph taken in one of those old time photo booths, dressed like a prairie farming family. I had an ankle-length, long sleeved pink calico dress and a straw hat with a full brim. I remember loving the outfit so much that I refused to take it off. Finally, the photographer convinced me to doff it by promising that he would mail it to me. I was very excited to think that not only would I get the dress and hat, but that I would get it as a package in the mail and I talked about it all the way home. I don’t remember how long I waited for the package to come before I realized that the photographer had lied.



The much-adored prairie outfit



Sometimes I get this same feeling when I think about love – the feeling that I am waiting for something that will never come.

In the movie Bass Ackwards, the main character, Linas, a sad sack who has overstayed his welcome on the floor of his friends’ computer room and whose main squeeze is shacked up with another man, drives across country in a Volkswagen bus and discovers himself along the way. In a poignant scene before making his trip, Linas is working on a llama farm, trying to feed the animals. He tells one of the llamas that he will give it the food if the llama shows him love. Linas even begs the llama to show him that it loves him. The llama just walks away.

This sentiment is an old friend.

A couple of months ago, I made plans with Buck, only to have him cancel on me by text message just a couple of hours after finalizing our date. We hadn’t seen each other in two years and I was looking forward not only to catching up with him, but to having someplace to be, something to do, and someone to spend time with. When he canceled, I was devastated. I hadn’t felt outright rejected in a long time. And of course it was Buck that was the only one who could reduce my self esteem to nothing.

The next morning as I walked, I pondered the situation and I realized how utterly alone I often feel under the surface. I think I put on a good show for people; I keep myself busy with work or projects, and even if I don’t have plans, I find something unusual to do so that friends looking in from the outside will focus on the interesting stuff I get up to and they won’t see how isolated I actually feel most of the time. I put on this show because I don’t want to appear pathetic or desperate, and I don’t want to be anyone’s charity case.

Being an only child, I am accustomed to being alone. But being alone is different than being lonely. Every so often, I feel solitary and empty to my core. I have the sensation of loneliness being so painful that it uncontrollably bubbles out of me, turning me into the living embodiment of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.” In these times, what I really want to feel is that I have someone to love me, need me, and soothe me. Like Linas and the llamas, I always hope that my cat Athena will sense my need and offer some feline affection to fill the void, but she has never been very perceptive of my emotions.

What I long for is a sure thing, something – someone- constant in my life. I imagine that my married friends wake up feeling confident in their place in the world, assured that even if they don’t have plans with other people, they have each other to fall back on. What a lot less work it must be, to know that you intrinsically have someone else around without having to contrive things to do so you aren’t alone. 

My friends always say something to the effect of, “awww, Cat, there’s someone out there for you” or “I’m sure you’ll find the right guy soon enough.” But are they just saying it so I won’t wallow in my loneliness, or is it something they truly believe?

For my part, I liken the search for a partner to looking at a lovely country lane, twisting through the trees and rising up into the afternoon sun. Viewing it, I am flooded with images from Country Time Lemonade commercials. It seems as though when I reach the summit of the hill, I will descend directly into a world populated with tire swings and barefoot boys climbing apple trees and bicycle baskets filled with wildflowers. The possibility of being able to sink effortlessly into that world is both exciting and comforting at the same time. But when I actually reach the hilltop and I’m able to see the other side, I’m faced with a high noon parking lot that’s shared by a strip mall and an airport. The marketing is great, but the reality is more than disappointing.

And this is why I say I feel like I’m waiting for something that will never get here. The image in my head of what love should be always has a dream-like quality, like a picnic next to a Maxfield Parrish-hued lake. I’ve found that reality is too frequently an overcooked hamburger eaten in front of the television with the slight odor of dirty socks in the background. When that wistful anticipation of Mr. Right or Mr. Good Enough starts to materialize in my thoughts, I feel compelled to rationalize him away.

What I need to remember is that nothing good lasts as long as a Country Time commercial would suggest. Even on the best of days, there’s a lot of mediocrity. Our memories string together the good moments, the seconds of optimism, and those instants that are truly extraordinary. I figure love works the same way. Most of the time, being in love is probably quite mundane, but we romanticize the moments that are a little more than average so that we remember them as something phenomenal, an instant that lasted for what seemed like hours, something that transcended this mortal plane. I suppose this bliss is out there for everyone, as long as they find the right llama and offer it the right treat.

Feast or Famine

It seems an unwritten, but predictable rule of single life that the dance card is always completely full or utterly, mortifyingly empty. The last two weeks have been an interesting mix of the two.

• I forewent the Burke’s Fourth of July barbecue and pool party to hang out in Boston with Buck. Full.
• The next day when Nancy texted me an invitation to come over in the afternoon, I felt obligated to go. No sooner had I arrived than Tzi Tzi called to ask me to a Spinner’s game for the same night. Full.
• I made plans with Criostoir to walk the Freedom Trail over the weekend, but he canceled on me, so I spent half of a beautiful weekend locked up reading, the other half driving across the state of New Hampshire on a desperate antique hunt, and the entire weekend alone. Empty.
• To make it up to me, Criostoir took me for a motorcycle ride one evening and the following night I attended an impromptu welcome home party for Nancy, who had spent a week in Canada. Because I don’t usually have a lot going on during the week, this was so full that I didn’t have time to watch the movies that were due back to the library on these same days.
• El Jefe invited me to go to a winery in Maine for Tzi Tzi’s birthday, but I was scheduled to work. What a bummer to be full!
• Looking into this weekend, the Burkes have asked me over for swimming, Amelia and Mark want me to meet up with them for dinner and a movie, and my next door neighbor has threatened to track me down to catch up on the newest crime drama. And to top it all off, my mother is begging me to visit. This is feeling depressingly overfull.

What’s a girl to do?

I remember all too well the feeling of being stranded in Lowell without anything to do or anyone to do it with after my long-distance relationship deteriorated last year and The Dude no longer wanted my company on the weekends. And that is why I am not complaining now. Over the years, I have been fortunate to have friends who have taken good care of me during my single patches, who have sustained me body and soul, and who have included me in their lives. Thanks to them, I have often enjoyed myself so fully that I don’t miss being part of a couple.

I sometimes wonder if it’s a conspiracy. Did these disparate people get together and decide to distract me from my melancholy by keeping me unusually busy? I know that’s unlikely. What it really means is that I have a lot of people in my life that care for me, and I suppose that is also a testament to the type of person that I am. Even now, being fairly new to the community, I have a network of friends who are willing to adopt me for an evening or for a holiday or for a weekend - my own safety net crew. Despite feeling overwhelmed (and occasionally underwhelmed) by the requests for my time, how can I not feel gratitude for having those people in my life?