Some kind of date

I’d rather be alone for the right reasons than be with someone for the wrong ones. – (Amanda Jones, Some Kind Of Wonderful)

I went out on my first date in ten years. It was awkward. It was not on the top of my list as a very memorable date. But it was okay. It bothers me that all I can really say about it was "it was okay". I don’t really know what I was expecting. I knew I’m a long way off to start hearing African drumbeats again. I couldn’t say that it made me warm inside but it made me face a lot of realities that I was afraid to face. No, strike that. I was not afraid to face it, but maybe I just chose to ignore it.

The guy was nice, silent. definitely not shy. But it was very clear that he went out with me because he was a very lonely guy … he knows what he wants … desperate for it in fact … that he pretends it’s real. He keeps telling me he loves but somehow I’m not convinced. I know a guy in love when I see one. He was not that guy. But I felt empathy for him. I could see hear the desperation for intimacy in his voice, the need to actually belong to some one, to love and be loved … I think his eyes mirrored mine. But what he can't see is you can not force love. You can’t hear African drumbeats or strums of guitars just because he held your hand or let you talk and let you analyze him without judgment that maybe you’re some crazy lunatic with imagined notions in your head. It takes a lot of magic for that to happen and that magic didn’t happen. You just can’t force it. He claims it is love. I told him he’s wrong. I told him that maybe they call it mid-life crisis. He thinks I’m funny.

I worry that I’ve reached the point where I have no more love to give. That maybe it can explain this vast emptiness of needing but not being capable of filling it; or anyone’s else’s emptiness for that matter. They say you can’t give what you don’t have.

I wonder if you ever run out of African drumbeats and guitar strums. Maybe I’m just going deaf. Maybe I should just stop asking questions.

I’d like to congratulate myself for being brave enough to go out again. And I also would like to remind myself not to settle for what’s there but look for the real thing even the quest turns me into a cat lady. Right reasons. Right person. No more. No less.