Well, the bike ride worked in terms of improving my temperament although I did have to stop a couple of times mid-ride. A combination of taking my meds without enough breakfast and over-exerting myself brought the likelihood of me puking all over my handlebars close a couple of times.I only did a short loop as a result (see picture right), although if I'm honest with myself there were other factors at play too.
Indeed, to be blunt, one of the spin-off benefits of riding the full loop that takes in the whole Don Valley as far South as it can be ridden, or riding Leslie Spit, is the route it causes me to take home. I have to ride down the Beaches from Woodbine Avenue to Beech Avenue. In effect, this means that there is a slim chance (think national lottery) that I might see the invisible woman because she lives near there.
Today I was in such a grotty mood that I elected not to run the risk of running into her, although the near-puking was real.
There was one occasion this year when I thought I'd spotted her, sat wistfully on a park bench by the boardwalk. I even braked and looped back so I could take a closer look. But, the fact that I felt more than a little awkward about the idea, combined with the fact that I couldn't be sure it was her, meant that in the end I didn't approach her.
I may regret that for a very long time indeed. Maybe the rest of my life.
Anyway, the reason I bring her up as a topic of discussion is because I've realised that I've never really explained what all the fuss is about. This won't be an expose mind you. I'm not about to blurt out her intimate details in the same way I would my own. However, I do need to say something because people seem so astonished as to why I've been so taken with her.
Peoples' reactions have ranged from the perplexed to the frustrated. Some people have said they want to physically shake me. Others have rolled their eyes, and others again have seemed genuinely worried by the inexplicable effect she's had on me all this time. As ever though, I am working hard to understand the sentiment behind what people say and do rather than the actualities, and thus I realise that all the reactions are coming from a similar place of concern for my well-being. I don't have a poker face, lie badly, and blush easily about certain topics. Similarly, it's pretty easy to see when I'm severely upset about something - it's written all over my face. So, in group in particular, during recent months I've refrained from mentioning how much she's been on my mind because I know the kind of reaction it will invoke. Secretly, I even fear that if I mention her once more to my shrink, she'll burst out of her chair one session and grab me by the lapels to the rhetoric, "Get a grip on yourself man! She's not real!"
That would be bad shrinkage though, I'm sure. And my shrink's top notch. Good job really, she needs to be with me *smiles*
So how did I manage to get in so deep?
Explaining this requires some suspension of disbelief on your part, dear reader. For now, let's assume that everything she told me was true...ish. Only today I was explaining how physically attractive I found her and I got the, "How do you know it's really her though? Those pictures could be of anybody." response. Forget all that for a moment though.
Let's break this down the obvious way. Physically, she's totally my type. Brunette, slim, and very attractive, with mischievous eyes, high cheekbones, and eminently kissable lips. She has an incredibly cute bum too, which isn't important to every guy on the planet but it is to me. This is going on photographs only obviously - I can't tell how she moves or holds herself but I don't think it really matters because of everything else. As a couple I'd be the wider and taller one, thus giving me the necessary 'y' chromosome feeling of being the (relatively) manly rugged one, and her the 'x' chromosome need to feel protected, the smaller 'spoon' of the two if you will.
It wasn't the looks that hooked me though.
It's a bit misty in the memory but I believe it was a while before I saw a photo of her. And even when I did, the first image was pretty poor quality. More photos came later on. What came almost instantly was the rapport. The jokes I'd written into my profile page (we met on a dating website) made her laugh. Her profile made me laugh too. Even in the first two or three e-mails we exchanged I could feel a growing sense of attraction. It wasn't even as simplistic as 'having lots in common'. We did have some things in common, but they were the important things. We saw eye-to-eye on money & finances, parenting, religion, family affairs - all the big topics that are the usual stumbling blocks for a relationship. Indeed, I purposefully sought out more and more 'controversial' things top discuss with her as a means to test the boundaries of the relationship. In the end, I just ran out. I couldn't think of any more. Yet every response either of us gave seemed to draw us closer together. There were many, many times when we finished each other's sentences or it became apparent we were thinking exactly the same way. I did try keeping track of them for a while. I called them 'spooky factors' when, for example, we'd be discussing a topic previously unbroached and would say the same thing. I lost count after a dozen, but they were coming at a rate of two or three per day.
We are/were open-minded in similar ways too. Again, some of the things we discussed wouldn't be on the table until after two or three dates yet with this particular situation we got a great deal of that into the open from the get-go. It's important, because finding out such things only after a few dates can make those dates a waste of time if it turns out there's disagreement on something fundamental. Frankly, by this time I couldn't get too much of her and it seemed to be reciprocated. I had to change my mobile phone plan to accommodate the hundreds of text messages we were exchanging, and became reluctant to stray too far from my computer in case she was online or had e-mailed.
This will no doubt seem peculiar, but it wasn't long before we'd pretty much mapped out the rest of our lives together and, at the time, she was living hundreds of miles away so the fact that we hadn't met didn't seem peculiar. We even questioned it ourselves, but concluded that if we were both mad, we were mad in the same way.
From my point of view I had reached the point where meeting was almost just a formality. It would have taken something monstrous to even dent the feelings I had by then, and I was 99% sure we were both going to like what we saw.
To answer the big "why" or should I say "how" question though, from my point of view I'd never been so blunt or so honest before about what I wanted from a relationship. Separating from Nicole and the navel-gazing that went with it had caused me to decide that this was the way I would handle all such relationships from then on i.e. be frank about who you are and what you want. Despite this, and being one of the rudest people I know, I just couldn't seem to put her off. And I did try. I half-expected to get the phone slammed down on me sooner or later but, because we were so akin, it just made everything seem so much more secure. She wanted the same things out of life as me, and we had some pretty candid conversations about having children and living arrangements. It was exactly as I'd hoped it would be - I'd hand-picked this woman because of her self-stated bluntness, and as a result I felt that (a) I could be my true self the whole time, and (b) the more I did so, the more attracted to me she seemed to become. It worked the other way too. There was no bullshit either. We both asked tough questions and got straight answers, so we circumnavigated all the usual soppy rom-com drama of calling after three days, pretending not to like when you really do, etc etc.
In short, I can't think of a better word to describe the life I could foresee with this woman than idyllic.
I got to a point where I knew I was in danger of falling for her, and that's when I first started to really press for a date. I didn't want to feel the way I did about someone I'd never met. The first couple of times it was supposed to happen, but didn't, could easily be put down to mishaps, double-bookings, crossed wires, whatever you want to call it. However, we reached a point when the relationship suddenly started to feel unbalanced. The things we'd discussed and agreed upon were the kinds of topics couples don't normally get into for months, yet we still hadn't met.
In time it became apparent why she was reluctant to meet. I don't mean to be deliberately mysterious when I say that when I found out, I totally understood. And no, it wasn't anything as sinister as her actually being a guy, being involved in some kind of elaborate online dating con, or simply pretending to be someone she wasn't. I won't tell you what it was though, because that isn't fair to her.
Suffice to say that it wasn't anything that couldn't be easily dealt with as far as I was concerned. It was a surprise to find out, and a disappointment to me that she'd felt she couldn't tell me the truth about this particular thing, but I could understand why she wouldn't want to. As far as I was concerned it was now out in the open, wasn't a big deal, and that was that.
I digress though. The point is that we'd both thrown at each other our worst possible characteristics or reasons for pulling the rip-cord, and yet we were both still there.
This doesn't happen often. I'm pretty sure some people die having never had this happen. I've learned about relationships through bitter, painful experience. Even when I haven't known exactly what I want, by now I've done it wrong so many times that I have a pretty firm grip on what I don't want, and can figure the rest out by elimination. Imagine finding someone like that who puts a tick in all the boxes and seems to like you just as much if not more so. And they make you laugh. And they turn you on. And they bring out aspects of your personality that nobody else does, aspects that you like and wished you'd see more often.
I know I'm not doing this justice, but then I'm having to tiptoe around things like confidentiality and tact here. That doesn't come naturally to me. Suffice to say, the staggering potential of this relationship was the most positive, fun, aspirational thing in my life at the time. It felt as if we'd already done all the hard stuff, and could spend the rest of our lives just relishing.
So be patient with me when I promise not to mention her again, and then do so. And then do so again. And again. I can't help it. I'd be with her if I could. Feelings this strong, this positive, this fan-fucking-tastic to actually feel on a daily basis do not come without their price. I know that even I cannot be sure whether it would have worked because one never knows how two people are going to get on with each other until they do meet.
But we never did, and thus I can never know for sure. It haunts me now, and it feels as if it will continue to do so for some time yet.
Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.
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