Recently I reached out to someone  I felt drawn to, and we lightly conversed on line, then had a couple phone conversations.  I was sort of girlishly excited, became silly and talkative, and began feeling a bit of a thrill of that chemistry I’ve been talking about.

I found him sweet, open, smart, worldly, gentle, soft and manly.  Good combo.    And for me, one sign is that I start feeling all girlie….  We laughed a lot, talked about a dozen different subjects, and laughed some more…  for me, laughter is a turn on.

Going only on photos, I believe, was in some ways a hinderance, for at some point  he found himself put off by something or some things that escaped from my mouth, due to excitement and a certain feeling of relief …..  a giddiness to actually feel warmed up by someone for a change… and he momentarily stopped in his tracks.

Something I said pushed some button somewhere, likely from the past, and he found himself distanced from the Me that was on his screen.   And he didn’t voice this at the time, on the phone.  He just backed away.

Now if we’d met somewhere, and struck up the same conversation, we would have been conversing on more than several levels, and learned a lot more in a shorter time.

And at a different time, I wouldn’t have been so soul weary at yet one more person to check out and be interesting to, entertaining him and making him laugh.

But as it stands, all I’ve learned is that I attracted someone who seemed one of the better prospects, only to make some blunders and shut down the doors by the wrong sharing at the wrong time.  A clash of Moods.

If he’d known me a little longer, he would understand that I am a passionate and in the moment person, one who does not always filter the mouth, and also one who covers her vulnerability with layers of bravado and blasé, throwing in chatty humor as distraction.   And I might have known that he has buttons and sensitivities from the past (don’t we all), and been able to avoid certain areas, leaving them for later.

I am actually, at times, quite fragile. I can be defensive, and I can also be the most caring and empathetic person, which has been one of my downfalls most of my life.  Only recently have I learned to be a bit more cynical and distant, and not give away my shirt, or heart, to just anyone.

I am more complicated than many, more sensitive than most, as awake as I can stand to be, and I guess I possess faces and facets that I use, and that use me.  So I am at a definite disadvantage when on a cold, hard page…

All I really learned was to play my cards close, give away as little as possible, measure my words, be mysterious, and watch for clues.  And also to shut the fuck up.

And it’s hard to do that on line, or on the phone…. They may seem to be agreeing with you, or engaging in consentual conversation, but their eyes, their body language isn’t there to guide you in or out of a situation.  All you have are voices, and words.  And on line or on the phone, long silences don’t go over very well, and there is no room for non verbal communication.

I for one, tend to talk too much when I’m nervous, so there you go.  And there he went.  Just for the moment, I might add, not to discourage you, as we are now straightening out the misunderstandings of Words that got in the way of our magnetic attractions, and learning more about eachother.

I never have been brilliant at filtering myself, editing myself.  I tend to just say what I’m thinking or feeling at the moment, and then in another moment I feel and think a different way, or from a different side of me.  Or I’ve moved on Exactly Because I expressed those thoughts, and was actually looking for feedback…. From myself, or another.

Sometimes I say things to See how they Feel.  Sometimes I say things in a way that might sound like I’m believing them, when actually I’m Asking if it’s true.

And most important to remember, sometimes we All say things that strike another in an entirely different way than intended, because of Their mood, or Their experience, and the established buttons.  Sometimes it’s just because Words are a Bitch at best.

If there is no basis for discourse, if Trust hasn’t been established, then we are free to make assumptions, and walls can come up.  People hear what they Expect to hear, and those expectations, often times, come from past experience.

And now we know that our memories are quite selective, and mutate with time, so that this years’ memory has developed some life of its own from last years’ actual experience.  Many times, we are being led around by a fantasy world that doesn’t even exist in reality.

Next time, I’ll tell you about another friend I’ve made.  He has provided a Hotbed of potential, but don’t get excited…. Not quite as Hot as I’d wished for, which is a completely Other discussion, things to unfold, confusions to coalesce, and Choices.

It just gets more confusing, but I am assuring myself that I will indeed untangle this plate of spaghetti that I have handed myself, and eventually things will fall into place.

And in the meanwhile, I share with you my brain talking to itself.

It’s a Tim Burton World where I live …. or

Blackberries ate my Airstream…

I have several things I am wanting to share with you today, and find myself a bit swirly and torn.  So many thoughts have come to mind these last couple weeks, and it’s hard to put a finger on it, but the feeling is that I’m done with the online dating thing entirely.

The First and Foremost reason for feeling this way, aside from complete discouragement in the process, is the deep and abiding belief that keeps surfacing for me…. Chemistry.     For me at least, getting together with someone is not an intellectual experience.  At least not purely so…

Now understand, this may be one of my infamous downfalls, for goodness knows I have followed my heart and gut, and other parts, in most of my decisions to do with love and romance.  The mind is on top of the rest for a reason, and I am not lacking in mental prowess, but…..

It’s just that in matters of the heart, isn’t one of the things one looks for a certain feeling of being swept away?  And isn’t this actually the result of chemicals running through your blood?  And aren’t these chemicals sent coursing through your body sent by the brain?  And how pray tell, does the brain reach the conclusion to send out this intoxicating cocktail that disarms one’s forebrain, and stimulates the lizard brain?

And Why is this?

Of this I am not sure.  I could get cosmic about it, and say that on some deep level we recognize another from a past life, or that destiny strikes and what is meant to be just IS.  I could go all biology on you, and say it is that deep and driving force to procreate, and the animal craves what it needs or does not possess, in order to combine with that other to create yet a more perfect human in the next generation.

I could say it’s Kismet, that time and place and surrounding moment share in creating a gestalt that will never again exist, and one must seize the moment or be forever lost to it.

Or it’s Magnetism….  We are energetically drawn together.

But in the long run, the Why doesn’t really matter, because back to the beginning, it is not made in the brain.  Long ago marriages were set as alliances, a means to an end for a family.  Good matches had more to do with status and upward motion, than to do with individual happiness.  And what happened?  Everyone still ran around having wild impetuous affairs with some happenstance human who was there at the right moment in time, and set off the old lizard brain.  Passion…

Which takes me to where I started.  I have always gotten together with someone in person.  Occaisionally I’ve been set up by friends, and sometimes that sort of worked out, at least for a time.  For me, often times I met someone who was brought into my home by a visiting friend, and stuff just happened.  See what I mean?  In a way it is Kismet.

For me, this ridiculous effort to find someone with whom I have simpatico and crazy chemistry too is just something that has to happen.  Magnetism at its best.  Can’t push the train, and I think going on line and interviewing potential mates and being interviewed by same can be so artificial, so strained in a way, and certainly a whole lot of work, time and attention, and for what?  Invariably it begins to feel like a Shakespearean play, where She likes Him, but He likes another She, and that other She is confused over two other Hes, and so on… human nature is such that seldom are two people in the same place at the same time.

And I also feel that timing is often everything.  If we have this conversation tomorrow instead of today, you and I will be different persons, and the exchange will be entirely different.  I don’t know about you, but I suspect you are likely as moody as I, even if you don’t admit it, and one day I’m in one place, and the next an entirely different one. It could be a 180 switch, and perspective has reversed.  I’m not fickle, just a little complex.

But don’t you Dare call me Cybil…..!

p.s…..except in that comedy show, where I acted out a commercial for a perfume called… “Cybil …. for All the women in you” …. And then  proceeded to go through a dozen familiar lines from familiar characters, changing moment to moment, accent to accent, in quick succession…. Ha ha!

Hellooooo out there!  Did ya miss me?  I’ve been distracted, what with  water from sky falling down on me, and me not ready for said water falling down.  Ugh.  Do not like.

At any rate, you’ll be happy to know I have more than a few iron ideas in the fire, and will be pounding them into shape here, in the next few days.  Meanwhile, I received a letter from one of my friends who is keeping up with the blog, and he shared some thoughts on the subject.

I thought it would be interesting to share them with you, and be assured that he has granted this license, all in the spirit of anonymity.                                       He writes:

“There was an interesting article in Harpers or Atlantic recently talking about the internet dating phenomenon.  Apparently, when folks DO finally meet, the big test for everyone is just how honest they were in their initial email replies and conversation.  Every other kind of dating is different, but when the picture, the claimed qualities of height, looks, experience, type of lover, likes, dislikes, personality type, whether they actually like walks on the beach or just cuddling, etc, etc, are actually presented face to face, then the daters can and usually do make an instant judgement about how honest the other person was.
With regular dating, it is different.  There is time for the mystique to build, for the pheromones to kick in at the pot luck meeting, time to ask friends about the other person, etc.
Just thought you would like to know that factoid.
I don’t do any of it, as I am resting happily ‘married’ here, in my later years.  But I do occasionally wonder what I would do if I were tragically left single for some reason.  Not sure, but it is an interesting thing to think about.
Also interestingly, I am one of the only guys I know who has nothing to do with porn.  I understand it is a huge phenomenon, and most guys see a lot of it and like it.  I find it pretty unnecessary, totally disgusting, not like love at all, and a crude substitute for something interesting like, well, reading or a movie or an hour at the bar.   I liked naked pictures and even 8-pagers when I was 16 or even 18, but that was because there was no other titillation out there.  Sears catalog female underwear and girdle and bra ads caught my attention many times when I was very young, as did the naked black women in National Geographic.  But now the only vestige of that is that I absolutely love all kinds of lace, and even waist-high white panties.  Heck, even garters are a kick.  But please get rid of them when the tactile phase comes around, because pure skin, dim lights and the smell of hair are the best.  Perfume is good, because it talks to the lizard-brain in us all.
My!, you have made me digress.”

…and then he continues on a more personal train, which I shall quickly hide, lest he read this and decide I am not as good a friend as he thought.

So, t’would seem I’ve begun to capture what the general consensis is, regards attempting to meet someone out there on the ethers….    There’s a bit of a chill beginning to waft off my computer, and I’m starting to feel like hiding under the covers, with a flashlight and a good book.   Stay warm, and see ya soon…..

Oh where do I start?  Heading into winter has never been a favorite place for me, not since I lived in southern California, and all the world was warm.

But before I go any further, let me encourage you to visit my blog site, where the visuals and ambiance is a good deal more pleasant, and you can read this latest missile at your smiling leisure, not just as one more irritating email that you must get through.

Also, I then know that you have visited me, and are enjoying the stories I share.  Please understand….. I need this encouragement in my artistic endeavors, venturing through the entrails of my soul, and just for you!

OK…So…. The north offers tons of green, but all that’s dependant on lots of moisture, and the sun is often filtered by clouds and weather.  This year summer began mid July, and since third week in September it’s been going north-er.  As I count it, that’s Two Months of sun, two months for my sad little garden, two months to warm and store, before the howling winds hold me down for another half year.

This season brings deep longings for a warm fire and a cuddle buddy, and right now I have neither.  Oh, but don’t feel sorry for me, that is not my intention at all.  I have a cozy little hut, three warm blooded friends whose snores reassure me that I am not alone.  They don’t ask much, as long as they are fed, treated, stroked and given fond words of affection… not that different really, from a boyfriend.

Ok… speaking of boyfriends, I seem to remember  a bit ago that I was going to explore the Boys’ world of search and rejection.  Yes dear readers, I have done just that, and I return to let you know that it is just as bleak and confusing from their point of view as from this side of the pond.

The sad sighs most often heard are those of deception.  Seems women are fond of changing their age, and posting old pictures…. Before the fall, so to speak.

One fellow friend (I have a few now, and I do not write about them, as they are friends) tells me that when he met one for coffee, she had misled him by 15 years, and he was quite horrified to find that she was Surprised that he even noticed.

He, like me, has become sadly disillusioned by just a few months of explores, and is beginning to think it’s rather hopeless.  He talks of American women as opposed to the latin American ones, sadly stating that he does not feel important or valued here.  Seems American women, like that song from the seventies? eighties? Are aggressive, proud, critical, conniving, all those great adjectives that we hate to hear.

Am I ruined by my past?    …..Sad and angry from experiences that set me on a disillusioned  past path ?  Perhaps part of me is indeed.

Still, I enjoy manly men, and realize that we…. men and women….  are so different, much more so than I ever imagined, than I ever was taught.  The signs were there, but between Disney and fairy tales, I think we were set on a cruel and hopeless quest for a male that did not exist.  How did this fellow ever form himself in our culture anyway?

One of my fellow searchers keeps reminding me that They didn’t ask for their role anymore than we women did, which makes me think we’re all Victims (which is NOT my M.O., but makes me wonder who ?  where?  how?..)

Ok, so back to the feedback from my buddies in crime.  Another fellow said he’d gone on more than several ‘coffee dates’, and just never felt the spark.  They didn’t pick up on his references, didn’t laugh much.  He mentioned that when he cruised photos, he checked out the all important hair, as ‘old lady hair’ was a dead giveaway, and he stayed away from anything akin.

He also laughed in a sad sort of way, about how most of the profiles he perused were, as he put it, CookieCutter.  I think I mentioned those several responses to set questions like ‘do you like cooking, do you like live theatre, do you like to read, are you romantic, etc’, but he was saying that even their rap sheet felt like it was copied off some basic form they all used.

Love to cook, favorites are walks on the beach, sitting by the fire with a glass of wine, staying up talking til 2 in the morning, Sunday mornings in bed with the paper.

He did say that mine was refreshing, and had a bit of meat that he seldom found, and that was nice.   Too bad there wasn’t that magic that I was looking for, but I did find a good guy who is my friend.

Another began his first email to me with “Are you Nice?  Can you be Kind?”, and I realized here was someone who had really been hurt by deception, games, and thoughtless chatter that lead him to walk away quickly from some obvious flaws and indiscretions.

He actually told me that he’d had women talk a lot about their ex-es, whether they were cruel and abusive, or …. And this was sorta gross…. How they had the Best Sex Ever.  How much was a desire to just share, and how much was a challenge to an already deflated and discouraged man?  I asked him that, and he quickly reassured me that it was without a doubt,  manipulative.

But what would a woman hope to gain by this spilling of guts at such an early stage of relating?  I also wondered if this was her way of pushing him away, but I didn’t ask him this for obvious reasons.

So….. it’s a bloody battlefield out there.  Like I said up top at the beginning of all this.. It’s a War , and neither side quite knows what to do about it.