If It Didn't Suck....

Now this has happened to me before, but I believe I am older and more mature or more jaded to realize why this is so. What I am referring to is the myth of coincidence when it comes to occurances that happen while dating. Let me clarify. You don't particularly care for a certain singer. Your date or significant other does. Suddenly you hear that singer all the time on the radio. A particular phrase. Word. Sound. Smell. I put forth the theory that it isnt kismet or coincidence but the mere fact that now you are cognicent of the phenomena, therfore more aware of it. Therefore thinking wow I could not have missed that all this time it must be fate.
I give you my case.

It is simple in nature but I had a few dates with this woman I'll call Katelyn. She is a Jersey girl who loves Bruce Springsteen. Now I like him but he isnt one of my favorites. While we started talking I would hear Springsteen on the radio. While we dated it got worse. I heard him on the way to work, on the way home and when I played the radio to go to sleep. I would turn on my high def music station on TV and it would be Bruce Springsteen Storytellers. Bruce was ubiquitous for some time. I too thought of the fate thing the kismet thing, but I am a realist, so even after the relationship dissolved. I made a point of listening for Bruce, and lo and behold he was still there. As he was all along. It just so happened I was more aware of him because someone I was involved with liked him, so when I heard him, I was more aware as opposed to just listening along with the radio as a backdrop to my life.

I am reminded of what a friend and porn store proprieter once said, "Doug, there are no coincidences." In the case of this sort of kismet, I would say he is right.

Thinking about my future and my life alone again I wonder are some people meant to be alone or is that just how things appear to be for a time? While I long for that companionship, the warmth of another, knowledge of knowing another completely and them knowing me as fully, I do enjoy my life at times. Most times. I answer to no one, have to make plans with no one, wait for no one, make decisions with out any consultation, and find myself being able to be consoled by no one as well.

I like the fact I have to make no concessions. No compromised. I made so many before, I don't want to make another anymore. At least anytime soon. I like my routine as stale as it may be at times, but its mine to live or amend anytime I want.

Though sometimes, at night, it hurts, not physical mind you, but everywhere else. It aches the soul sometimes when the feeling hits that I am alone, that no one will be there for me, that I, like everyone, will die alone. Then I hear a song I like, and relax and drift off into sleep; restful or fitful, I lay there and dream.

One realization I have, one epiphany if you will, is that while I have no one in my life, no religion to console, I do have the panaceas of few but close friends and diversions that truly fill the void. Those were in threat of being lost last time I succumbed to the company of another and I will not let that happen anytime soon. Though I do long for the opportunity to have another in my arms, enraptured by the charms & warmth of contact. Of a pair of souls comingling on the physical plain.

While I do not have much experience on the subject, that has never stopped me from making comments. I was, officially divorced as of December of 06. Unlike some it was not because I had "found" someone else, or she, then again perhaps she did, but that isn't important. What is is my outlook about the whole thing. See, I didn't feel comfortable to start dating until it was all completed. We had drifted apart a long time before I filed last summer and I had no qualms or deep rooted feelings about if what I was doing was right or not. It obviously was, and was a long time in coming. The thing is when I was finally able to legally and morally date again, I found myself remembering how much I hate dating.

Contrary to popular belief I am somewhat shy and have a hard time opening up to new people and with the added feeling that I have some living to catch up on, I have hit a major snag in my new found "freedom". See, I have always loved the idea of marriage and hoped that when I did it it would be for the first time, the only time and last forever. It just so turned out I am one of the larger statistics and my marriage ended in divorce within 3 years of tying the knot. Too bad the knot was a noose around my soul.

But I digress. In January I had met someone and thought it was going well, perhaps a bit too well and my suspicions turned out to be correct. She was a bit younger than myself, and I should have seen problems brewing. She was cute, sexy in her way, meaning she wasn't overt or anything but there seemed to be an undercurrent of immaturity even though she was a college graduate, she was still in her early twenties. Needless to say after many mixed signals, including phone conversations that lasted for hours, and a few dates that I thought really went well, I fell into the FRIEND ZONE, and did not want to be there. I severed ties, and tried again.

And again.

What I found was that while I am no stranger to compromise I found myself remembering how many things I scarified in my marriage and changed and acquiesced, and now, during my second time around I did not want to give things up right away. Though it is symptomatic of dating. Eating foods you do not like, seeing a movie you would never see and so on. Those things are nothing. Ideologies are. Life choices are. I have only been single again for less than six months and I like my life, as empty as some may say it is, and I am not ready to make concessions yet. Though I will admit I am, at times, lonely. Nevertheless, I was never as lonely as I was when I was married.

I did take out a book, Dating for dummies, and wonder if I can, at 37, reinvent myself and become more outgoing. Dating after divorce. I never thought I would be a divorcee', then again I never thought I would be married. And another truism is that I never thought I would be in love, and while I had been many times, I know that the love I had, was ever returned in kind.

So in my foray into the dating world, after my marriage's demise, I can say that while it would be foolish for me to have that schoolboy notion of finding someone that I can love and return that love to me, I long for it. However, I have done without many things in life and would really be happy with someone who I can fall into like with, and can in turn return that like. Though the hope of love will never die as long as I draw breath.

Well with this past check, whose stub I actually perused yesterday, it is official. My wedding is actually paid off. On this day, rather April 16th, four years ago, I took out a pension loan in order to pay for my wedding. I opted to pay it off over 4 years and now the day has come where I can say my loan and my wedding are finally paid off. Now here is where this would all end and you would say so? Big deal. Well the name of this blog is what? Yes thank you. The rub if you will is that while my wedding is finally paid off, I have now already been divorced for several months. Divorce was final last year. And now I am taking another loan so I can pay off my lawyer for my divorce expenses.