In the spirit of love and romance brought on by ubiquitous candy-red hearts, here is a February series about The One Successful Setup and some of the many that failed before him. In case you missed the first part of the series, click here.
We’ll let Blessid Union of Souls do the singing this time, with “Hey Leonardo”:
She likes me for me
Not because I’m tough like Dirty Harry
Make her laugh just like Jim Carrey
Unlike the Cable Guy
But what she sees
Is that I can’t live without her
My arms belong around her
And I’m so glad I found her once again
I truly appreciate how K doesn’t want to change me, my quirks, and my interests. Sure, I have annoying habits like anyone else, but he accepts my foibles and possibly likes me more because of them. Life sure would be dull if we all acted the same and had no conflict whatsoever.
Last week we discussed the Misogynist. Before being introduced to the Misogynist, whom I never met in person, there was Perfect on Paper. We had jobs in similar fields, both enjoyed martial arts, had similar senses of humor, and we corresponded for nearly a year before meeting. Now, I don’t know if men who write emails to strange women almost daily for year and seem to open up about personal issues and encourage confidences get emotionally invested in the relationship to the same degree that women do. And I realize that it’s a broad generalization about ALL men and ALL women, but, in fairness, this was the first guy with whom I’d ever been set up, and was the longest relationship I’ve been in except for my husband. And being as it was my first setup and I didn’t have five years of painful, frustrating hindsight into the arranged marriage culture to illustrate how naive I was, of course I thought he was The One.
Except after he came to visit me, I literally never heard from him again. No explanation, no obviously off-putting events during our meeting, nada. It took me a long time to find closure over that one, but, hey, I was young. And naive. And hadn’t dated much. Come on, a guy who strings you along via email and phone calls for 11 months, culminating in a visit, and then can’t be bothered to let you know he’s not interested? Obviously I had invested much more into this fellow than the arrangement warranted.
Lesson learned: don’t drag out a setup for months (and months and months), only to discover when you meet that one or the other is not interested. If he likes you, he won’t drop you like a hot potato.
Stay tuned for the next post in this series!
Image: “Candy Hearts” by Michelle Tribe is licensed under CC BY 2.0