Tag Archives: illusion versus reality

Still Sweet, but not yet the One

27 Thursday Oct 2022

Posted by in Daily Life, Daily Message, Dating, Finding Me

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“There sits the skiff – over there perhaps is the entryway to the great nothing. But who wants to board this “perhaps”?” ― Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Mr. Sweet continues to be sweet and kind.  But he is not the One… at least not right now.  Right now he is a friend that I go to dinner with every now and then.

He had already told me he didn’t want to date seriously and wanted “to see what is out there”.  Well, I have seen what is out there and it is pretty grim.  Kidding, but not really.

Even though he said he would continue dating, I was under the impression that he was not.  I took his excitement about me as a sign that he would not be interested in looking for anyone else.  I assumed that the reason his Match profile had disappeared was because he was focused only on me.  I assumed that with all the attention/daily texting/calling, that I was the only one.  All my assumptions were not based on reality, but based on what my heart wanted and the stories that sometimes I tell myself.

“It’s dreadful what little things lead people to misunderstand each other.”― L.M. Montgomery, Emily’s Quest

I normally follow: “pay attention to a man’s action and not his words”, and this time that is what tripped me up.  I should have taken his word at face value.   He said he was going to date other people, why would I read in his behavior anything else?

I don’t like to have regrets, but I do regret passing on some people on Match that seemed great just because I thought this was going the distance.  And now they are gone.  Oh well, if they were for really me they wouldn’t be gone, would they?  So I digress, no regrets!

“As soon as we start putting our thoughts into words and sentences everything gets distorted, language is just no damn good—I use it because I have to, but I don’t put any trust in it. We never understand each other.” ― Marcel Duchamp

My heart got excited and forgot to do a reality check about the situation. For starters, his divorce is only just starting, and it looks like it is going to be a long war.  There is a prenuptial agreement involved, but mediation fell through, and she is now ignoring his attorney’s letters.

Then there is the fact that I agree he should stay single, go on dates, have fun. I do not believe someone coming out of a long-term relationship (in this case a 27-year marriage) should immediately embark on another.  

While I am not sure what I want, I did think we had a good thing going and didn’t want him dating around.  I wanted to see where we could go. The future seemed so bright for us, or so I dreamed!

“Life is too long to say anything definitely; always say perhaps.”― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

I don’t want to date someone seriously while the person is dating around.  So, for now we are not seriously dating, or dating seriously.  We are dating, meaning we go out to dinner, bars, ect. A kiss every now and then, but that is it.  And I am even rethinking the kissing.  Not because I am a prude, but because I want to protect my heart from getting too tangled up in something not serious.

While dating multiple people may be appealing to some, I now prefer to date intentionally, one person at a time.  I may go on many dates, but if I have more than 2 dates with someone then that is where I will focus my attention and energy.

I must understand that his wanting to see what is out there is not about me. It is about him.  That is the distinction I need to make.  I was taking it all personally.  This is not a rejection, but an opportunity.  Feeling rejected make us victims and take our power away.  This is an opportunity to explore my feelings, wants and needs.

“When things do not go your way, remember that every challenge — every adversity — contains within it the seeds of opportunity and growth.” ― Roy T. Bennett

I can’t complain about him.  This is not about him; this is about my feelings and my interpretation of this new relationship.  We agreed on honesty on day 1 and he has lived it up to that.  He continues to be honest, kind and thoughtful.  In this just over 1-month relationship we have met several times alone and 3 times with my sister and my friend.   He continues to bring my sister bagels every time we meet.

The last time we saw each other was Saturday when we went to dinner and walked around NY City with my sister and friend.  He brought his professional camera and took many pictures of us in Times Square.  Always smiling and happy to help, that is something that we share.

“Love can only be found through the act of loving.” ― Paulo Coelho, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

He wanted to try to meet this week:

I am busy with my friend. It is her last week here, so I want this week to be about her.  Also, if I am being completely transparent (and I aim to be) I hate the feeling that he is fitting me among a bunch of dates.

I am excited about his friendship though.  I know that no matter what happens we will remain friends, and I love that part.

He continues to be Mr. Sweet, but there could be Mr. Sweeter for me around the corner.  Or even the Sweetest of them of all.  Or perhaps what I really need is Mr. Semi-Sweet.   I guess I got hurry up and go see what is out there.  Yet Again.

“People say they find love, as if it were an object hidden under a rock. But love takes many forms, and it is never the same for any man and woman. What people find then is a certain love.” ― Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Part II, yea or nay

22 Thursday Oct 2020

Posted by in Daily Life, Dating, Finding Me

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“The truth is that the universe has been answering you all of your life, but you cannot receive the answers unless you are awake.” Rhonda Birne

Part II

Thank you to everyone that wrote to me with concerns about this trip.  I so appreciate the care and support of everyone!  Blessings All! ♥♥

As I mentioned I asked the Universe for a sign and I believe I got one.  Well, I took something that happened as a sign. I will get to that in a little bit.

The truth is I already knew what to do.  The idea of this trip, even though it was extremely exciting, wasn’t feeling right, not because of COVID, even though that should be a consideration, but because of him.  I was trying to make his lack of communication okay, but in the end it was not.

He eventually called.  I was completely honest with him, well, I am never not completely honest.  My problem is being too honest with some jerks that don’t deserve my honesty.  I mentioned that I had a problem with his lack of communication.  I said that questions had come up when I was excitedly planning for this dream vacation and he never bothered to text me back to at least see what I wanted.  I felt ignored.

I told him that the excitement of this romantic tropical vacation combined with finally meeting him blinded me to how crazy this was.  The resort may be amazing but I can certainly pay for trips and don’t need to act as if this is the last trip in the world. (Between you and I there is no way I am willing to pay $700.00 a day to stay anywhere, but he didn’t need to know that).  He agreed and mentioned that he has another timeshare to another expensive resort in Aruba. Gosh, who cares at this point?

In the end I cannot recall exactly what he added to the conversation that night as I believe that I did all the talking.  I hung up with the idea that the trip is off but that we are still on track to continue communicating and eventually meeting if he ever moves to NY.

Then he went silent.

****

“You will never follow your own inner voice until you clear up the doubts in your mind.” – Roy T. Bennett

The sign:

That morning. right after I asked for a sign I received a message from a guy on Match.  His profile didn’t have much information but he wrote me in perfect Portuguese which drew my attention. Right away he gave me his LinkedIn and phone number. I quickly did my Google research and found out a lot information on him.  This man is impressive.

There is so much I could say about him, but I always want to err on the side of not giving away too much information about anybody here.  He seems too perfect to be true.  He is 47 years old is very accomplished in the financial industry.  He speaks multiple languages, extremely well educated, and the best part, very spiritual. He has been to multiple retreats in different parts of the world, spent time with Indians in Brazil and healers in Hawaii.  He sent me videos and pictures from those experiences.  That is some of the stuff I love.  And he seems to have a sense of humor too.

Things developed very quickly.  I did all that I never do. I gave him my phone number right away. We connected on LinkedIn. On the first day we texted from 2pm to midnight.  By the time midnight was rolling around the conversation had gone from spiritual retreats to more spicy topics.  I take full blame for that.  Give me chemistry and a willing participant and I can be very free with my words.  In my defense, it had been ages, so it felt good.

. “I believe instinct’s the iron skeleton under all our ideas of free will. Unless you’re willing to take the pipe or eat the gun or take a long walk off a short dock, you can’t say no to some things. You can’t refuse to pick up your option because there is no option.”― Stephen King

Let me point out 2 things:

  • It has been fun with this new guy. I will call him The Swiss.  We will probably end up meeting at some point but I don’t think he will be the One in the long run.  We already had some miscommunications over texts because he was under the impression that I didn’t want to meet in person.  I have no idea how he came up with that.  Some of the smartest men make the dumbest assumptions out of nothing. The worst part is not asking questions to understand the situation correctly. That point has been addressed though.

Now we need to figure out when and where to meet.  He lives in NJ, it can take anywhere from over 1 hr to 2 hrs to get to.  And then there is COVID, which seems be getting worst again in some.  We shall see what we come up with.

For some reason I am not too concerned about meeting him at this point.  We have slowed the texting down to only a couple a day, and I prefer that for now.

“I had deceived myself. I will not deceive myself again. I have worn many masks and will wear them no more.”― David Rae,  Crowman

  • I saw his message as a sign, not because I think he is the One. On the contrary, I took this guy showing up as a sign that there are plenty of potential Ones right there.  I think it was the Universe showing me that I don’t need to get stuck on any one, no matter how amazing they seem to be. There are tons of even more amazing guys out there.

If he is not right for me, he is not right for me period.  I need to stop trying to make  some men into the perfect vision I have of them.  I need to stop trying to turn cubic zirconia into a diamond.

The right one for me needs to feel great all around right.   He needs to… oops I just realized that I was going to start to describing the perfect person for me. I don’t want to do that now, but I think it will be fun for a future post.  It will be fun to see how completely opposite the person I end up with really is. 🙂

And, just today some other interesting guy just showed up. I am not going to give him my phone number yet, but I am curious.

“Never stop dreaming,
never stop believing,
never give up,
never stop trying, and
never stop learning.”
― Roy T. Bennett