10...9...8

Not quite ready for takeoff. Indicating interest in someone is a sore spot. On one hand playing this game is really the one way out of loneliness. On the other hand, it is a game. One that I loathe. Maybe I'm not alone in shunning the dating thing. Isn't pairing off the pay-off? An end to the single seeking whatever? Ugh! Eek! Makes me want to freak. One thing is it means reaching out. How do I know if someone is flirting? Haven't I forgotten how to play this infernal game? A life of watching Jeopardy alone and weekend volunteerism seems far preferable to these empty longings. So who needs to be a treasured partner, browsing antique shops and cooing over dinner, maybe discussing plans for the garden or redoing the patio?

Here's where the memory of a heartache sounds a screeching brake alarm in my head. He was a cool customer, a young man only marginally friendly, politely distant. He had a curious way of looking at a person through the corner of his eyes, without turning face to face when he spoke to you. It added some quality of drama. I was immediately distracted. Being the obsessive type, I sacrificed a semester to contemplations of wooing and winning the iceman. What kind of insecurity drives a person to pursue someone who isn't interested? "Sometimes your cards ain't worth a dime until you lay 'em down" - well so much for using Grateful Dead lyrics as life philosophy. When I informed my love interest of my devotion I was politely informed that he didn't feel the same way. However he thought spending the weekend in his room was probably a good idea. My own polite declining of his "offer" is one incident I recall with pride. Lovesickness is one thing. Slavery or rather, stupidity, is another.

And another man who I pursued despite all reason, the one who became ex-spouse number two? Oh yeah, he resembled the iceman to an uncanny degree. It was that looking out of the corner of his face thing. Be still my foolish heart! Ah, the unfathomable beauty of a pair of haughty green eyes, glistening with the ice of narcissism! Cut to the grand chase of love? Gag me! Abort countdown!

Agape!

MME