A brief encounter of the virtual kind, based on a true story and embellished for your amusement”¦ as well as my sanity.
So I thought taking risks was counter-productive because it felt a little counter-intuitive and was probably just as good as auditioning for MasterChef, when all you know how to cook is meth. But apparently that’s just the fear talking, life’s too short for perfection, and you never know when a background in ‘chemical engineering’ might help you score big on the macaroon challenge.
I realized this at some point last year (boringly unaccompanied by an epiphany), shortly before I took a heart-stopping gamble on love; and after a decade of being out of the game I finally decided to start dating again… and no, that wasn’t a typo.
I. Was. Single. For. Ten. Whole. Years.
During my sexual exile, I didn’t sleep with, nor flirt with, wink at, smile for, poke, tag, kiss, miss, dismiss, or even so much as fondle another human being. Not one mother-duffing person. I don’t even recall getting a breast exam.
It took some very good friends, a therapist, and a gaggle of self-SOS books to realize my ducks would never come in a row, and if I waited till that happened I’d eventually be dating a necrophiliac.
So I got online, signed up to the sites of dating and, following some rustic rookie attempts at virtual conversing, I was sent a winky face accompanied by some pixilated flowers that smelled a bit like my keyboard. I referred to the troubleshooting section and thought it best to return a smile, she replied with another unfrown and the ‘fiber optic cable courtship’ began.
Before I knew it I’d scored myself a date with a hot sci-fi loving nurse who hated talking politics… excellent, just make sure Peter Dowling doesn’t slip out after a few too many wines and you’re all set. So I left the faceless interface behind and ‘operation-use-your-words-slash-English-is-my-friend’ commenced.
To my absolute bewilderment it went pretty well AND she wanted to see me again. WTF. It took all the willpower I could muster just to stop myself from updating my relationship status on ‘fakebook’ from single, to… not so much.
So a tweet would have to do… Met possible soulm8 last nite @lycheelounge – Can’t wait 4 joint private health cover. Bugger wedding bells, this is forever #littlespoon
It was only good however, for as long as I could pretend I liked who I was. She saw right through this a few weeks later when we spent the night together in a hotel room on the coast. It was romantic, exciting, fun… and bloody awful.
All my insecurities came rushing to the surface and the only person I wanted to wake up to the next morning was my therapist. It ended about a week later, but you’ll be happy to know I finally lost my ‘V-plates’ again… and yes, it was just like riding a bike only this time I wondered what our kids would look like.
However brief, I was done with the metadata mingling and decided that serendipity had a much better chance at delivering another Mrs. Wrong. Or Mrs. Maybe… or Mrs. You’re probably right for me but what if our iPhones don’t use the same charger!? And if they do, mine’s not the frayed one… it’s been gaffa’d.
It seems like only yesterday I was yelling at the screen, “At least you’ve got someone asswipe!” every time someone ticked the complicated box on the optional public census forum; a covert conspiracy gathering superfluous information from the nations biggest approval seekers for the purpose of creating the next wave of pre-mixed drinks called “Zuckerberged.”
I consider the soulmate debate an interesting one… the argument for it is romantic and idealistic at best, and the squabble against it is nothing more than a moot point because you’ll never really know – you could more accurately say who isn’t your soulmate than you could say who is.
Relationships, the same as life, require you to be present and to focus on the positives; I daresay Amy Wolfe, who developed a somewhat aberrant and amorous connection with a roller-coaster in the U.S., understands this better than anyone.
#YouMayNowRideTheBride #Idooooooooooooooooo
Aside from being animate, my priorities now lie in meeting someone who’s read the same self-help books. If things don’t work out we can blame the same authors; sending ‘self-hate’ letters and trolling their twitter accounts with anti-affirmations… because fun.
“I Hope You DON’T love yourself!”
I might have to leave the rest of these potentially contradictory insights for the next post, but for now my dream of one day listing my love life as anything but simple, via syntax on a social site for anti-socials, is closer than my face is to the computer right now because nobody’s here to say “Posture.”
#single