She Asked a Great Question…

A friend of mine is trying to get back into the darting world.  He’s signed up for one of those online services that allow people to build a profile and post some pictures.  The fun part is watching him get nervous wondering if someone is going to “like” him or if they are just going to pass him by.  But along the way he found a profile of a woman who he likes, but is slightly intimidated by.  Her profile fits him nicely, or at least what he thinks he wants.  But then she asks her potential suitors to answer the following question :

You meet a girl for the first time and you’re very into her. How do you show that when you touch her? Are you 1) tender, 2) gentle, 3) firm, 4) rough, 5) savage, or 6) brutal. You can only pick one. Don’t choose what you think I want you to, because you’ll likely be wrong. How about on the fifth time?

I love this question!  My first reaction was to think about how you would physically touch someone during that first meeting.  My answer was firm, because the last two just make me shiver with the notion someone would have thought about my daughter.  I want someone to know they are being touched, that it wasn’t just some random mistake from an over-crowded room or my clumsy nature.  I dated a girl in college and her mother was a big time hugger.  Right up on top of you as you walked through the door.  At the time I was still frat boy built and weighed 210 at over 6 feet tall.  Bigger guy!  She told my date later that “When Lary hugs you, you know it!”  She didn’t mean I was rough, just I swallowed her whole in my embrace.

But then it hit me, I might be looking at this question the wrong way.  What if she wanted to know how you were going to touch her on an emotional level?  You could say something sweet and sensitive about her or you could say something completely inappropriate and never get that chance to get to the “Fifth time”.

This question is so thought provoking you can see that even I want to answer her question just hoping that I might get some type of reply.  Something that lets me know what her intent was.  My friend was confused as to what he should write.  I truly think he likes this woman, but is afraid.  People tend to be that way once they get burned.  Might be the exact reason why she is trying to weed out guys who are just looking for something she isn’t going to give them.  She also might be coming from that position of having kissed her number of frogs and wants something different.

Communication can come in so many ways.  This silly question on a dating site has turned into several conversations between me and my friend.  I in turn am writing this because I’m fascinated with the question itself, the two paths someone might take in replying to it.  Somewhere there is a guy who hopefully is finding it within himself to answer this young lady’s posting and they might find happiness together.

Words are funny things.  So many meanings and trying to understand them can be a daunting task.  43 years on this earth and I am still learning what needs to be done to express myself in a clear manner.  One that doesn’t confuse a situation, some method for letting the world around me comprehend the craziness that jumbles around my brain.  There are days when I hopefully succeed, but I know there are days when I just don’t.

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Style Icon.”

Life Takes Effort

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “It’s a Text, Text, Text, Text World.”

“If this is going to be more than 5 minutes worth of texting, I’m just going to dial your number instead of playing around!”

There are always exceptions to that statement, but for the most part I’m not a fan of trying to communicate with someone via text message.  I cherish those times when someone will just out of the blue send you that note saying “I miss you” or “Thinking of you”.  But just as often people use it as an artificial barrier to truly communicating.  Why would you want someone to learn bad news via a text message?  People around me know I’m not a fan, so they email.  It may not be as personal, but damn if it isn’t better than 140 characters of emoticons and poor grammar.

I know of one acceptable set of circumstances when it has been a good experience.  Both of us were at work and lacked the ability to pick up the phone.  But with this friend, we never would have been able to have this conversation face to face.  It was just easier.  So she sat in her classroom watching over a bunch of rowdy high school kids and I was behind the confines of my desk in my office.  We must have gone back and forth for an hour over how to deal with an issue.  The messages weren’t clipped collections of words, but fully realized thoughts.  Long sentences where I understood her point of view without needing to read between the lines of smiley faces and thumbs up.  It dealt with a very serious topic, and we were able to make it work because we both knew how to handle communicating.

The flip side is having someone go into hiding and send one line texts with no ability to reply.  Ending any relationship, unless you are 14, via a one line text is childish.  Part of being an adult is knowing that you have to deal with life, even the unpleasant sides, by looking someone in the face and saying something.  You don’t walk away from 10 years by saying “Don’t contact me again”.  Especially after I have spent the previous couple of days taking you to various doctors appointments!  [okay, maybe that is a very specific example!  But it happened none the less.]

Communication takes effort.  Everything in life is about communicating with those around you.  Sometimes it’s a letter in the mail talking about nothing.  Just something out of the blue because that person was on your mind.  I used to talk to my mother’s father every Sunday night growing up.  It didn’t matter where I was living at the time, every Sunday around 6 p.m. the phone would either ring, or it was being dialed.  A race to see who got there first.  When I was younger the calls were about silly stuff, they got more interesting as I got older.  Unfortunately they ended when I was 18.

I have a book that is a collection of letters written between Abigail Adams and John Adams during the times they were apart.  My Dearest Friend.  Sure the letters took days to get to there intended spot, weeks before some replies made it back.  But they kept their relationship alive because of those letters.  Love, loss, hardships, family and friends all captured without the limitations of a handheld screen.  Pages upon pages of talking, even when they weren’t in the same room.  Sometimes the same continent.  Ironically this was a gift from my ex, wish she had read it.  [disclosure, Abigail is my aunt.  Small affection for everything she did.]

People look at relationships anymore as being as disposable as those devices we use to communicate.  It’s hard to pick up the phone not knowing how the other person is going to respond to hearing your voice.  So let’s send a text asking them to call you?  Put the onus in their hands.  Chicken Little in the 21st Century?

The technology that was supposed to bring us all closer, make it easier at the drop of a hat to get a hold of someone has built walls.  I look at the Caller I.D. before answering, mostly to ensure some telemarketer isn’t on the other end.  But why does my television have a setting allowing me to screen my calls without even looking at my phone?

I do miss those times when you had to sit in the kitchen with the phone cord pulled as far away as possible so that you could talk to some girl without mom looking over your shoulder, giggling.  They may not have been earthshatteringly important calls, but they were what we had before Snapchat allowed me to send my dinner via the airwaves.  [And seriously, why do people post pictures of their dinners?  If you made something, maybe I can see that.  But going to some restaurant and posting someone else’s creation, give it up!]

Acceptable texts –

1. Running late, be 10 min.

2. Could you pick up some milk?

3. I love you/Thinking of you

4. The meeting has been moved to Rm 213!

Unacceptable Texts –

1. Just letting you know grandma died…

2. You have a tumor in your kidney.  [okay that wouldn’t happen, but still not one you want to receive!]

3. We’re done. Lose my number.

4. The baby isn’t yours/ You are the Father!  [sorry again, commercial for Maury just came on.  Those not in the U.S., it’s basically a televised paternity test involving a woman and potentially 5 guys.  Creepy!]

You get the idea.

I doubt that most people who see this have an issue with the notion of writing.  Sometimes it may be harder given the subject matter.  Maybe just being nervous about the response keeps you from saying what you really think.  But in the end you are doing yourself and everyone around you a favor by talking, writing long form, opening yourself up even to the painful stuff.

But that’s just my two cents!

And We Danced, Like a Wave on the Ocean

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “But No Cigar.”

I know that the original phrase came about from a scene in the oh so classic Annie Oakley film from the mid 1930’s.  But I prefer to use the much more catchy “Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades”.  That particular turn of phrase coming from a baseball pitcher in the mid 1960.  Yes, I looked up the quote!  I’m a bit of a baseball nerd, but not on that level!

There is a photo I keep squirreled away that anyone who would look at my phone would wonder why I bothered to scan it.  The only other photos on there are of my daughter, her mother [eventually I get around to archiving those, but I’m not ready] and two women from my younger days.  Both had great influence on who I became, charted a path for me when I was a kid.  One I wrote about just days ago [ https://509majesty.wordpress.com/2015/03/20/last-phone-call/ ], but the other deserves a little time as well.

Remember that member of the opposite sex you were friends with in high school?  The one who in quiet moments entered your mind while you dreamed of what she smelled like.  Her name was Kristin and for the better part of my junior year in high school she was a dream, a brief reality, and later a regret due to being a dumb 17 year old boy.  It’s easy to picture how you screw it up, so let’s stick with the dream/reality part!

It had been almost a full year since Patre had died and people were starting to tell me that maybe I should try being social with women.  Nothing big, it wasn’t “Hey Lary, go sow those wild oats.”  It was more along the route of why don’t you go to the movies with so-and-so.  It was made easier when she made the first move.  A simple phone call asking if I was alright after one of my idiot friends had wrapped his car around a tree with me in the backseat.  It led to more phone calls and eventually going to dinner.

I got the girl a cat for Christmas!  I don’t like the furry little things, I tend to step on them when walking around the house.  Not intentionally, just used to bigger dogs!  We had fun.  She reminded me that I could still have feelings for someone without diminishing what I felt about Patre.  It was a huge leap for me, in so many ways.  But then I did something stupid.

It was just a birthday party we were both at.  People sitting around their parent’s basement, drinking soda, eat pizza, nothing special.  But then I let someone sit on my lap.  My dumb boy brain thought, how could this look odd.  I’m not hiding in a corner, we only have so many chairs; go ahead.  WRONG!!!  Monday morning the ax fell.  Hadn’t even made it to home room before it took my head!

We didn’t talk for a week or so, but then there was this dance coming up.  Then there was a party we both went to, followed by yet another event.  The dance began.  Are the together?  Are they just hanging out until something else comes along?  That went on until I started seeing someone seriously and she admitted to the same.  OH well, I guess this will be the one photo from high school where my date was someone new.

Over the years we talked.  Visited each other at college.  When something was wrong in either family, she was the first person I spoke with, and she did the same.  There was the night she was scared when she learned her parents were getting divorced.  I drove hours to get to her, even leaving my date behind in the process.  When my brother had an issue in college, she drove even longer to get to me and then sit in the car while I drove to help him.

My family always liked her.  She was welcome at any point, even if I was on the other side of the country.  With the advent of Facebook I looked once, but knew that it was a situation I never wanted Whitney to wonder about.  Here was some woman she had never met, only had seen pictures of.  The present was most important to me, not the past.

Was there ever a chance, maybe years ago but something always was in the way.  And it probably was us, knowing better.  knowing that the dance was fun.  The knowledge that we would be there when the other needed it.

I moved to Florida and we talked a few times, but life again took its place.  My 25th high school reunion is this year and I hope to see her, maybe her husband won’t mind if we danced one last time.

Faded Pink Sweatpants

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Fight or Flight.”

I’d been watching her from across the room for some time now.  Small conversations about how things were going, a furtive piece of chocolate offered for no reason other than it allowed me to be in her proximity.  Everyone in the office seemed to know what was going on, the guys poking about while the women thought it kinds cute.  Two people who had no idea exactly what was building, an experiment in relationships.

For a little while I even changed my work schedule so that she and I would be in the same place at the same time.  The young lady never knew it, just assumed I was trading places with someone who might have had a conflict.  I watch as she shuffled across the floor, later telling her that she reminded me of a penguin.  The odd things I would bring in to “share” became more focused on her likes, me being allergic to chocolate yet bringing homemade fudge later became a joke shared in the quiet moments.

It was time to make “my move”.  The simplest things are usually the things that hold the most meaning, so flowers were a simple showing of my growing affection for this woman.  Now the interesting part begins!  How do you get someone’s address [this was 2004] without asking outright?  Well I had access to her personnel file, paper still ruling the corporate world; in with my Post-It Note to gather intel.  Sneaking back out to my office space my plan was finally hatched.

The next Saturday I took myself over to the local florist and asked them to put something together.  The simple question “Wife, girlfriend, mother?”  It was obvious this wasn’t some simple task for me.  “How about something simple, classic?”  The people behind the counter were having fun with me, they knew I was trapped.  Burgeoning love can do that to people!  I ended up getting this oversized vase filled with lilies, roses, and a few other white colored things that I honestly don’t know the names for.  “Give us 20 minutes and $70!”  My now sweating palms hand over my credit card and I go wait on a bench outside.

You know the stares people give when they wonder what is going on?  Plenty of them were cast in my direction as I tried to secure the flowers in my car.  Eventually settling on the back seat, strapped into the belt, safe as possible.  The drive was pulse raising.  Each mile further my breathing was getting a little weird.  Not like a panic attack, but just like a panic attack!  As I approached the door, a simple thought came to mind “Who else might be at the house?”  Too late to run when you are on the front doorstep, so ring the bell!

She came to the door in tattered sweatpants dragging the hose for a vacuum cleaner behind her.  Faded pink sweats, an oversized t-shirt and her hair was just stuck to her face from the warmth of running around doing chores.  She couldn’t have been any more attractive to me.  The look on her face was priceless.  Absolute shock, fear of the unknown, muttered apologies for her appearance.  Muttered apologies for my appearance, my only reply.

Whitney always had this tell when she was happy about something but unsure how to respond.  Her lips would quiver just a tiny bit, her face scrunched up in thought.  We spoke for a couple of minutes and I excused myself, letting her know I would see her at work later.

I don’t recall if I was more nervous taking her the flowers or waiting to she her later to gauge her longer reaction to my statement of affection.  What I do know is that I would do the exact same thing, in the exact same manner if given the choice.  That florist closed years ago, the coffee shop next door that we used to call our own changed hands and just isn’t the same.  And as I have written, the relationship ended last September.  But now I know what I have done today, writing this down, allowing myself to relive it, is something that has me wanting to run away.  But damn that is a good memory!

Say Anything or Do nothing?

Gut Feeling

It seemed like such a simple thing to do.  Send a card to someone recognizing that they had done a good job.  That they should feel pride in the way they have done their job.  Letting them know that people appreciate all of the hard work they do.  Under most circumstances anyone can do this, but when you are sending it to your ex; it gets so much more complicated.

Standing in the aisle of the store, wondering if this is generic enough so that it doesn’t make anyone feel uncomfortable.  Looking for just the right words, so that you don’t have to add any of your own.  Personalizing this only leads to more conflict with that simple gesture you are attempting.  I selected something I might have presented to a person in my own office.  Straightforward, congratulations on sticking out 7 years!  I meekly signed, “You should be proud of yourself, Lary”.  Nothing to be misconstrued.

How do you label it.  My handwriting is sort of distinctive, and Whitney would have noticed it across the room without having opened the envelope.  So the one questionable detail is solved by printing off a label with her office address on it.  A stamp later and into the mailbox it goes.  It was before a holiday, so the mail was going to get there on November 13th or 14th, but that was okay.  Even though I put it in the mail November 9th!  November 11th was the anniversary, maybe she had something nice done for her at work?

November 14th is when I was admitted into the hospital and remained there for days.  Thankfully I slept most of the time, so I didn’t need to wonder if it ended up in the garbage before she opened it or immediately afterwards.  Did she smile for even a second?  Who knows?

Was it the right thing to do?  For her yes, even though we don’t speak it is important that she knew she works hard and should feel good about all she has accomplished.  For me, it just leaves questions about the entire endeavor.