OT: The thing about the optometrist

I’m sure you’re thinking your thoughts about my relative silence about the optometrist. I’m not trying to be coy, or hiding a fiasco. When I say, “that man has potential,” that’s accurate. It feels like all I can say. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been in various kinds of long distance relationships before.

Twice, or maybe three times, in my adult life, I’ve been in an emotional state to support a long distance relationship. The first time, I had just finished college, and simply not willing to compromise about career issues at all. Not so bad: that man would have been a poor choice. Amusingly, he is still a grad student at this university, and though he hasn’t come out to me, I suspect very strongly that he’s gay. The second time, intense mutual sexual attraction made the distance bearable. We fought a lot, but the first time I saw him, in a synagogue while breaking the fast after Yom Kippur, I thought, I want him. We were in bed four days later and the sex kept us together long after we should have realized that our relationship was way too volatile ever to provide the stability that a marriage between two professionals with demanding careers needs to be successful. The last man I loved as much I am capable of loving anyone, I think, and the severe compromises that kept the connection going –it persisted for more than eleven years– were made in the name of sincere affection on both sides. I used to joke that he was the man I would have married at sixteen had I met him then instead of at twenty-six. He did not find that funny. Neither of us saw either the ways in which it limited us, how much the compromises were demanding, or how troubled our friendship was, and it ended rather abruptly in March of 2006. He told me a few days ago, by phone, that he’s going to be married and become a father. I’m pleased for him, but it would be a lie to say that I am not still processing the news.

So much for background, now to the optometrist. He’s quite attractive, but that chemistry that says “jump my bones now” is not there, perhaps not on his side, either; all this is mitigated by the fact that we each know how the other was raised and we have inherited ideas about appropriate behavior that perhaps neither of us fully endorses anymore but both of us feel obliged to conform to. At coffee on Sunday he didn’t attempt any physical affection beyond a handshake and a caress in the small of the back; last night he kissed me on the cheek at the end of the evening. This is awfully stepped back for the age we are now and the city we live in, but it’s consistent with the sort of manners we were raised with. I was grateful not to be pushed, though. And then there’s the negotiation about where. I don’t have furniture anymore, and don’t think of Motel 6 as the place for a tender first assignation. He asked me to see him again before I go. It would be the fateful third date. No way I’m having sex on the night before I leave town. He’s said he’ll be in Wisconsin this summer.

Could it be love? Eventually? Maybe. He’s a kind, diligent man, clearly someone who’s longing for an understanding friend and a little more adventure. He seems responsible, adult, and stable, and like me, has had significant relationships in the past but has never been married. He sees my profession as exciting, interesting, and desirable. He seems to see me as someone who knows where he’s coming from. He’s also now sending the “I am interested in you physically” signals. And I hate to waste the opportunity: it’s so seldom that I meet a man who’s not afraid of a smart woman. I just don’t have enough information yet to love him. And I don’t see how I can get it anymore at this point. I need to see him with other people, observe him in other situations.

Three dates might be enough for sex; they aren’t enough for love.

~ by Servetus on June 12, 2011.