The text conversation began … “I wanted to match with you first and tell you that your first date description gave me a little bit of the goosebumps because it’s been a while since I’ve had that kind of a first date.” Over the July 4th holiday weekend we went out. We had a good time. We spent the entire day roaming around Pittsburgh then visiting a pub or two and had some dinner. I like getting to know people, and am, I’m assuming, pleasant enough company, that I sometimes find myself on multi-hour, multi-meal dates. I think we spent ten hours hanging out. As nice as it was, it was not the first date either of us were hoping for – no goosebumps, no immediate follow-up, no dying to meet again. We could articulate what we wanted, and we wanted the same thing, but that doesn’t always translate into a connection with sparks. And perhaps, sometimes what we want is too rooted in what we’ve had or where we’ve been.
What I had written as a perfect first date was, “time slows and almost stops; everything is easy; there’s laughter; you’re left a little speechless, and can’t wait to meet again.” In the two or three years of serial/serious dating that I had done (2016 – 2018) – this type of feeling might have happened twice in the course of dozens of encounters. I can still recall the details of both of those dates – the way the late afternoon summer light angled into the bar and colored one’s eyes or the other’s hair. The way one walked into the room, the way the other smiled. In both cases, there was a level of familiarity and comfort that felt like we had known each other for years, and we were surprised it took a lifetime to meet. In one case, the phrase that kept popping into my head was a soft “yeah.” I had no other words. It was like a sigh, a deep exhale of comfort and astonishment… “this seems and feels right – in a stars aligning type of way” On those dates, I felt a little dumb-struck, a true breath taken away moment. The experience is something that eludes a clear description or definition and is usually summed up by the word chemistry. You know it when it happens and you can feel it on your skin and in your bones. I think Ben Harper tries to capture it in the opening of his song “Two Hands of a Prayer”
First time that I saw her she had white doves in her eyes
She spoke to me but I could not reply, not reply
She was a stranger I had known for years
She brought to me so many smiles and tears, smiles and tears.
When it comes to dating now, I’m sometimes hesitant to think in terms of those rare white dove instances of magnificence and comfort. It sets an incredibly, perhaps unattainably, high bar. If I were in the other person’s shoes, I’d want to know – “did you feel that way when we met? Were you speechless? Were there doves” I also hesitate to describe those connections as being “perfect” because nothing is perfect and in my experience, the near-perfect tends to flame out pretty fantastically. Then again, I’m single, so I suppose everything (perfect or less than perfect) has flamed out… but those rare instances seem especially prone to catastrophic falls and fails – higher highs bring lower lows. Things are so great, that the first sign of trouble feels like a betrayal – a disappointment of a different magnitude. And yet we try… we are all Icarus convinced our wings are somehow different, confident we can fly, impervious to the melting.
The date in Pittsburgh was the second one I’ve gone on in about a year (10 months). As a practical matter, there aren’t a lot of people to match with here. Add to that my slack posture towards meeting new people (in a romantic sense), and well… you get two dates in the span of a year. Don’t get me wrong, I’d like to meet someone. It’s probably higher on my list of “ingredients for a full and good life” than most things…. but it’s not something I feel I can pursue with any fervor or direction. For much of this past year (since last October), my dating profiles (I have two of them) have been local and/or in cities where I might one day want, but probably can’t afford, to live (Austin, San Francisco, Seattle, San Diego) – or cities where I have lived or met other people. When I lived in Tennessee, I once “met” (online) an actress who lived in Nashville and also a writer and therapist from that city. I also met some people in St. Louis, some in Memphis, lots in Philly before the move. I seem to have better success in some cities compared to others. My profile, as if it’s a real person, has spent most of his time on the west coast splitting time between San Marcos (a place I’ve visited in real life) and Alameda, a place I know nothing about. This approach has been a little like having a “Flat Stanley” profile. What city will I turn up in next? I’m up front about it – I say that I don’t live there but would consider moving. I could use a vacation and I’d consider flying out if the connection was promising – the worst that happens is it’s a disaster and then I knock around a cool city on my own. I’m also highly selective in who I talk with (by which I mean I don’t talk to anyone) – I don’t want to enter into any conversations that could be misleading. My thinking in placing my profile in these other cities has been that I’ve moved for jobs, so why not for a potential partner. I adopted this line of thinking when I was in Memphis and was faced with the prospect of moving. Back then, I got to know a women from Seattle and tested out San Francisco (both places where I was a job candidate). I also had a good connection with a woman from Omaha – a random online meeting where the conversations were good enough that we had plans to meet in person. Then she got back with her on-again, off-again boyfriend. She and I have stayed in touch (loosely) and she’s very happy in a new relationship (just celebrated a one year anniversary). I’ve stayed Facebook in touch with a few of the women I’ve dated and almost all of them are engaged, married, or are in long-term relationships (including at least one of those two wow first dates).
I’m writing about this process because in addition to thinking about the potential job back in Philly, the first date in Pittsburgh was part of my two weeks of contemplation. On a daily basis I think about what it means to live a full and fulfilling life, but when faced with the actual prospects of change (a potential relationship or the invitation to interview somewhere) those questions take on different hues and textures – they begin to have a bit more depth and wriggle to them. Do I know what I want? Does this move me closer to what I want (or think I want)? Sitting on a rock at the Point (a nice park along the river in Pittsburgh) my date talked a bit about her last long-term relationship. I think she was coming to the realization that there are elements of that relationship she would like to have back or experience again or anew…. In many respects, she felt like he might have been “her person.” As someone who used that phrase often in a relationship, I understood where she was coming from. She talked about how under different circumstances, maybe in a different time, it could work/could have worked (she was caught somewhere between the past present and future conditional). The thing about those types of connections is that we don’t just fall in love with this other person, but we fall in love with a new version of our self. And as best as I can tell, that type of connection, if truly and deeply felt, doesn’t really go away. It can be a little like some of those friendships that might go through years of hibernation but can always pick up where they left off.
I came across a poem the other day by the poet Maya C. Popa. In it she wrote “I understood I could hold onto the past / or be happy.” Part of me wants to argue with the poem, change “or” to “and/or” because both statements seem to be true. The poem, which I like and will copy here is titled “The Present Speaks of Past Pain” which is very much what dating can entail and even more so what love seems to entail (that “process of refining the truths they can tell each other.”)
It’s that hour of dusk
when the sky is awash
in waning light, when, if we might
forgive each other, this would be
the hour for it.
I lay down beneath a yellow tree.
I understood I could hold onto the past
or be happy.
Then, nothing. You did not appear to me.
The sky filled with stars
that had been there already.
I think these feelings, these longings or losses, are much more common than any of us are willing to admit out loud (other than in art and song). One of the guys I hang out with at the bar will, when his partner isn’t around, sometimes talk about the one who got away. His eyes get that distant and happy squint that accompanies fond memories. One of those wow first dates I had, would talk about wanting to be (maybe for me) the person she was when she was married, before it all fell apart. She would apologize because I wasn’t seeing her best self, the woman she used to be. The other wow date would share sad songs that I knew had more to do with the past than the present we were creating. Are we all just chasing sparks from the lives we used to live? Are we trying to recreate those magic potions from our past knowing full well that this type of chemistry is an imprecise science… that the titration will require a steady influx of curiosity, compassion, patience, and care if we are to find balance or survive our future selves together or see the stars that had been there already?