Marshmellow Fluff

Growing up I dreamed of the day I would date.  The idea of meeting a guy, the first kiss, the first time he said, “I love you.”  I had big ideas for love and as I grew older, with each passing year, that hope faded.  Relationships took their normal toll.  Falling in love, realizing after 6 months you were never really in love and then staying for months longer trying to build up the nerve to finally break the relationship off.

I’ve been a serial dater for years.  I dated the same guy all throughout high school.  I broke up with him when I realized I needed to take the journey of single hood, one I knew I needed to take in order to find out who I was.  That single journey lasted a few weeks, before I found myself in another relationship, and then another, and another and another.  Clearly there was a pattern that I had began which was solidified on Thanksgiving at my aunt and uncle’s house when the place card next to mine simply read, “boyfriend.”  Apparently my family knew my pattern well enough to know that if they wanted to remain current with my love life, they needed to remain generic.

It was sad really.  I had always picked safe, nice guys.  I was never into the bad boys.  I wanted a guy I could be sure wouldn’t hurt me, a guy I knew would much rather spend time with me than with his friends or at a club.   I wanted a guy who, in all honesty, liked me more than I liked them.  While in return I got a safe relationship I never got a relationship I wanted.  To choose a nice guy is a wonderful thing.  To choose a guy solely because he is nice, is a dysfunctional thing.

It wasn’t until I moved to Los Angeles over three years ago, that my picker went from safe to really really stupid.  I began a string of relationships with men that should have sent safe-seeking me fleeing in the other direction.  I dated a musician who only wanted to make out on his couch in between his guitar playing.  I dated a guy I worked with who, unbeknown to me, had a fiancee that I discovered only after she confronted me.  To this day, I believe there is no lower relationship point in the world than to find out that you are the other woman.  I dated my neighbor who quickly became the reason why I spent the last three month of living in Los Angeles in an empty apartment sleeping on the floor.

My last three months in Los Angeles were torture.  I went from a cozy apartment overstuffed with furniture to nothing-in a matter of 4 hours.  I dreaded going home every night to the emptiness that seemed to swallow me whole.  It was during the first week that I convinced myself I was stuck in some sort of relationship purgatory, paying my penance for leaving a string of men who loved me and who I was unable to love back.  It seemed unfair that all my prior boyfriends had been able to move on, get married, have children and here I was, still single going through a horrific breakup and sleeping on an air mattress in a hollow apartment.  But I had a choice.  I could, A. let the bitterness of failed relationships swallow me up and cave into despair, or I could B. Pick up the pieces of myself, take control of my life and approach dating with as much vigor and determination as I had my career.

Luckily I chose to move on and take control.  I wanted to run full force into dating, which to me was the same as saying, I want to run full force into sheer terror and unavoidable torturous demise.  I wanted to go on as many dates as possible, meet as many guys as possible and spend the time sifting through each of them until I found one I really wanted–regardless of wether or not he wanted me more, or was safe.  I figured there was no scarier place to exorcise my demons, than online dating.

I made my profile and made myself a promise; every seemingly sane guy I encountered, I would have a conversation with, and if that went well I would proceed to go on a date with.  Within two days and 1,000 visits to my profile I was hooked. I met guys for dinner, for drinks and after 5 dates and countless “get to know you” conversations I was completely and totally over it.  I didn’t want to talk anymore about growing up, if my parents were still together, what I liked to do for fun.  I was so sick of those conversations the thought of talking about myself one more time, I was sure would send me over the edge.  Dating was like the gym, it was exhausting and had yet to prove it would provide the results I hoped for.

Through online dating I met a guy who managed MMA fighters which ultimately ended when, after spending the evening at his house watching Caddyshack, he proceeded to make out with me while clinging to me like a spider monkey.  I am not doing the moment justice here…the guy literally, mid make-out, wrapped his legs around my waist like a five year old who didn’t want you to leave and clung to me.  Once I wriggled free I quickly wriggled away and we never spoke again.  I dated a guy who seemed nice, we went to dinner had good conversation, and in all honesty, I hoped to see him again.  I called him twice afterwards, and over a year later, he has yet to return either of those calls.  I went on a date with a guy who was the epidomy of metro sexual in trendy jeans and a bedazzled skin tight black t-shirt.  We went to dinner for an hour, I felt no chemistry and thought it was mutual until he proceeded to call and email me three times a day for the next two weeks. I was upfront and told him I felt no chemistry although he was a nice guy and wished him the best…his response, “I am much too good looking for you anyway.”  Sadly, the calls stopped, we lost touch and I would bet my unborn children that he is still single, living in the Greater Los Angeles Area and getting weekly spray tans.

Five dates and I was exhausted.  I willed myself to forge on and stay committed to my quest, although I did so with far less enthusiasm than I started with.  After a month of an active profile and a handful of terrible dates under my belt, I was sifting through my inbox when I saw an email that stood out.  At first glance it was seemingly normal, which was the first thing that got my attention.  It wasn’t a cheesy, “you are beautiful” email, he didn’t open with a stomach turning, “hi princess”, his email was casual, witty, simple and endearing.  I checked out his profile and thought his pictures were cute.  I did my fail-safe average of taking his cutest picture with his least attractive picture and I concluded that he was more than reasonably attractive.  After a few email exchanges we decided to do the first phone call.  I braced myself for the painstaking polite conversation that inevitably comes with this step of the dating process.

The first time I talked to Paul on the phone we clicked.  It wasn’t the “he’s cordial and friendly to me and I am friendly back” kind of conversation, it was much different.  I enjoyed every second of talking to him. It was the kind of conversation that is easy and fun,  where you go back and forth and the conversation is like a good game of ping pong.  He lobbed a ball to me I pinged it back and we went like that for 7 hours.  We ended our conversation as the sun was coming up and I went to bed smiling.

We met for the first time and our first date was the best date I have ever been on, which really doesn’t do it justice because I haven’t really been on many good dates.  I will say though that had I ever been a contestant on the Bachelorette and went on one of those helicopter flights to Napa Valley kind of dates…my date with Paul would remain the best date I have ever been on.  This is even more funny to me because we did nothing.  We met for dinner, took a walk and went to Starbucks. Everything was easy and comfortable, like I had known him long before that moment and I liked him…even before it was clear that he liked me or was safe.  He could have been lying to me, he could have had a secret wife, he could have just wanted to get laid and move on to the next unsuspecting on line profile…but every part of my being was telling me that he was good and he was right.

We promised each other in the beginning that we would go slow, so as not to ruin the relationship.  We had both been down roads where we rushed things.  He told me how his reservations for rushing stemmed from breaking up with a girl after losing interest because they moved to fast, I didn’t have the courage to tell him my fear of moving too fast stemmed from the fact that I was sleeping in an apartment on the floor.

It is now late and I am tired and cross-eyed so I will call this entry 1 of my “Paul story” because there is so much more of this story to tell.