Over dinner the other night, with friends and family,  my brother and I sat at the end of the table catching up. This is our conversation.

Him: I’ve got a date on Monday.

Me: Cool. How did you manage that?

Him:I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that and remind you that my servers host your blog.

Me: True dat.

Him: But to answer your question, I know what women in their late 20s and early 30s want to hear.

Me: What’s that?

Him: They feel like they’re running out of time, so I propose to them.

Me: Marriage? You propose marriage? The first time you meet them? And that works?

Him: First of all, it’s not the first thing I say to them. It’s not a line. Secondly, it’s obvious that I’m joking.

Me: I don’t get it. What do you say?

[Puts on his charmingboyishfunnycasual voice and smiles]

Him: Do you want to be my first wife?

[Despite myself I burst out laughing.]

Me: OK. That’s a little funny. I can see why that works.

Him: Really?

Me: Yea!

Him: Why does it work?

Me: Isn’t it obvious?

Him: No. Wait, is it?

Me: Oof, you know nothing about women.  The reason that line works is simple. You joke about it which means that you’re comfortable about the idea of getting married. But not that comfortable so as to appear desperate. You’re exactly the right amount of a commitment-phobe. Basically, you present yourself as the  type of guy that a woman thinks she can actually change. And that’s hot.

Profound silence.

Him: True dat.

Me: Your surprise offends me.

Him: I think I underestimate women sometimes.

Me: Yes dude, we’re smarter than you think we are.

Him: Agreed.

Me: Thank you.

Him: But let me say this: A woman is smarter than what a man thinks she is, but she’s not as smart as she thinks she is.

I’m thinking that I know this man. I know him. His gait seems familiar. Have I have watched this body walk up and down, in and out? I know him from somewhere. I drop it because I am here with a friend and we’re venting and we’re laughing and we’re planning. By the time I realize that he and I have been glancing at each other –between our respective moments– all night, he is gone. I deflate a little but I’m still flying.There is no residual want in my head. The past is wrapped, the night feels new and I still have hope. Man, I’m stupid. When will I learn?

One week later.

I’m sure I know this man. His eyes seem serious but the smile is boyish. He is the type I would know. But it is the way he moves that has got me thinking. I know that walk. I know that posture. I know that shrug. I stop because I am here with a friend and we’re celebrating. We’re drinking a year of friendship and then we’re snapping at each other and we’re smiling because the honeymoon is over. Beginnings are overrated. As I think this, I look up. And there he is again, our eyes lock. Does he think he knows me too? My smile waivers. He looks away.

One week later.

We’re looking for a table.  I spot one and I turn to the left and spot another. When I turn back, he is sitting at the table we’ve chosen. Oh, he is here again. He sees me seeing him and he almost smiles but I look away. We sit at the bar and it is the last day of August, a month that has tested us both, and we’re counting down the hours to September. We’ve got our back to school spirit and the air is crisp and this means we can wear our blazers soon. I glance in his direction. I want to know this person; if I don’t already.

Ten minutes later

He is still watching me. I’m terrified. This is how it begins. And I don’t want another end; at least for awhile. I want a beginning that will last a hundred days. I shake my head. No, I don’t want a hundred day beginning. I want to know what the middle of something feels like. Past the awkward undressing of souls, but before the stripped bare menace of the end.

A minute later.

I’m walking towards him because I will never learn, because the only way I know to get to a middle is through a beginning. And I reach his table and my lips are moving  and I’m talking and I want to leave almost immediately. But he is smiling and he is replying and he is asking my name and then he offers me his. And he continues the conversation and I think: This is easy. He invites me to sit down and I say ‘Maybe later’;  because if I sit down now, he’ll know that I want to sit down and if he knows that I want to sit, he’ll stand. Ha! Maybe, I have learned something.

An hour later.

This is so easy. He is laughing at my jokes and he is talking to my friend and his friend is talking to me. And when we switch, he lowers his voice. He wants me to lean into him. But I don’t. I say pardon and pardon and pardon until he moves, until his shoulders are the gate to our own enclave. He is telling me that in two weeks I’m going to be on his friend’s yacht sailing to Spetses for the Armata Festival. He tells me that in November I’ll be in his winter home in a remote village in the Peloponnese. I inch away from him. He was more interesting when he was talking to me about his daily idiosyncrasies. I liked him more when he was talking about his own secret parts of Athens.

I remember the recognition I felt when I first saw him all those weeks ago. I do know this man. I know him because he is like all the others. He thinks that largeness will impress me. It won’t. It doesn’t. I am impressed by small, consistent moments.

But I have this stupid hope, and the night still feels new. And he is not loud –he is quiet, a little shy and he is quirky– and he leans into me and he asks for my number, very, very discreetly. Fine, I concede, he may be a little different from the others.

So, I rattle off my digits in twos.

Because the only way to get to a middle is to go through the uncertainty of a beginning.

Under any other circumstances, I would have refused his offer. I am not a casual woman and usually I don’t do casual affairs. It’s not my style. But the combination of the man, his timing and those invisible cicadas made me think that maybe I should play a different role for a change. Maybe I would even like it.

The truth is, I thought I could do it because this man doesn’t inspire me to write.

With others, I could find a story in every lingering gaze. He doesn’t look at me that way. He hasn’t even seen Me through the cloud of alcohol and debauchery that is his life. So he doesn’t inspire me to write about his lines or his kisses. There is no pushing or pulling. There is no story here.

He is merely an interruption. He does not inspire words because there are none with him. There are no sounds because his want is on mute. I can’t colour him because he is the very definition of black: he is the absence of any colour. He doesn’t inspire me to write which means that he must not inspire me to feel either.

I like that.  It is safe.

(If only it was true.)

See, when I hear of his other women, accidentally slipped into casual conversation, I bite my bottom lip and flinch. It is reactionary, from those collective experiences that have left me feeling that I will never be a man’s priority. I am just one of many options. When I learn that he dates other women, I dig my nails into my arm to brace myself for the punch that follows in my gut. It is a gag reflex; I want to be a protagonist even in a story that has no story. And when I learn that I won’t even be auditioned for the part of the female lead, it stings.

But those long minutes of flinching, stinging and self-imposed scratching are to be expected. My ego is fragile after the perceived rejections I’ve faced over the last six years. And I’ve been scared and I’ve been bitter and I’ve been angry and I’ve been neurotic and I’ve pushed people away when I wanted to pull them in and when it mattered I pulled too hard and it all unraveled. I even stopped breathing for a while.

But now I don’t want to push or pull. I just want to fall. So, I tried. I jumped without any consideration for the drop. I jumped without any consideration for the landing. It wouldn’t have hurt if I was a book with a hard spine.

But, I am not.

Neither am I an old receipt. If I was, it wouldn’t matter where I fell, or even that I fell at all.

But I am paper thin.  I may rip easily and at times I may crumple, but I have value.  I am loose pages of a manuscript in the wind. I can float, and I can do casual.

I chose to fall into this plot-less story, but I am not a casual woman.

And the reason he doesn’t inspire me to write is because he does not recognize that difference.

Recently, I was told that I come across as a bit of a man-hater. Had I been on my game I would have responded, ‘Man-hater? Pah! I’m a people-hater!’ Alas, I was tired, a little disoriented and what with the ex-lover sitting at the next table and all–a lot defensive. My mock outrage felt scripted.

‘What? No. Way. I. love. men?’

Admittedly, men do piss me off more often than not. But there is one little attribute that most men possess, that I not only love and admire, but also envy — their simplicity. I wish I could be simple. I wish my brain worked that way. However, as hard as I try, I will never go from A to  B without a maze of torturous thought. I like men because they manage to reign me in and balance me out.

Take for example the way I processed my last break-up.

I spent some time with a man that made me believe in men again and then he put an end to it. It was a short conversation and no explanation was given other than ‘It’s over. Let’s be friends.’ My mind screamed, why won’t he give me a reason? Why won’t he talk to me? I was told, early on, by a man that: “It is over. He just wants to be kind now.”

I just want him to be honest.

I would sit with my girlfriend’s in the first few weeks after the demise and we would discuss it all; in every excruciating detail. When I was alone, it was my mind.

I just want him to tell me what I did wrong.

I believed my thoughts could be  retroactive. If only I had done this, if only I had done that, it would have worked out. But pretty soon, someone would tell me that I did nothing wrong and that he is an idiot.

I just want him to feel regret.

My life went on and I met many men; some of them even gave me a little bit of attention.

I just want him to see how other men see me.

Time trickled by and I forgot the colour of his eyes.  I cooled down, I understood, I didn’t blame. I just kinda missed him.

I just want him to talk to me.

But he didn’t for his own reasons. And so, gracefully,  I forced myself to move on.

I just want him to be happy.

It was, of course,  only partly true. I wanted him to be happy as long as I was happy too. But he moved on and fell in love and I didn’t. This turn of events left me unmoved but gave me the motivation to get over it.

I just want him to have never existed in the first place.

Months later, I bumped into him and he looked at me in a way that he shouldn’t look at me. And he touched my arm and then said, ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t touch you.’ It was confusing. So I began to talk and talk and talk again. I got angry. How dare he? Who does he think he is? How can he treat me in this way? Then I realized that I never meant a thing to him and that he doesn’t think about me and that it is indeed over (it had been from the day it was actually over) and there is no drama here, no profound explanation for the end, no out of the ordinary experience. It was an ending just like all those other endings and the only sure thing about all endings is that they’re a preclude to a beginning. And so finally, ten months later, my delayed thoughts aligned with his.

I just want him to be kind.

I don’t hate men. I adore them. I love their simplicity. I want them in my life, I need them in my life because when I let them, they make me simple too.

It is July and I’m nervous.

I’m waiting for him to kiss me. I’ve read his palm. I’ve already traced my finger down his life line and accidentally felt his pulse.  We both know it is going to happen because for the last two hours, all we can see are lips. He takes a sip of beer and puts down his glass. I pick it up and imitate him. The beer is cold and bitter but as I swallow I bite my bottom lip and it goes down sweet.  He moves next to me. Kiss me, I think and he does.

I finally exhale and blow a stifled breath into him. When our eyes open, I expect to see my own relief reflected back at me. Instead I see hunger.

It surprises me. Wait, I’m not there yet. He leans in again and kisses me again and this time his hands are touching my body in places we don’t talk about with the lights on. Wait, I’m not there yet.  I put my hands into his; here touch these instead.

‘Why are you being so coy?’ he growls.

I fall back, away from him. His words don’t scare me. It’s his eyes. They’ve fogged up; he’s not looking at me clearly. I’m disappointed. Wait. I don’t want this tonight.

‘Your body seems to want it’, he says as he kisses me again. My eyes stay closed but my legs open. 

No, no, no. I scream to myself. Don’t want me for this. I want you to wait. It feels like a split second decision but it takes twenty minutes. I’m there, lying on the floor, but I’m not in my body. I don’t have to force myself to kiss him, because all I want is a kiss, but  my hands are not my hands. They’re touching, grabbing, unbuttoning, pushing, pulling. Is this what you want? I challenge.

‘Let’s go upstairs’, he says.

‘No.’

I don’t want it to be like every other time; I don’t want to be another woman in his bed. Instead I become another woman on his floor.

I want to wait. I don’t want this to happen now.

But it does.

***

Last year, I didn’t love myself enough to believe that if I told him to wait, he would, and then still want me. Have you ever given in to the moment because you were afraid that if you didn’t, the moment would never come again?

I make general and derogatory statements about men all the time.

Today, over coffee, I was on a rampage. When I paused for a moment, and listened to the words I was using, I felt like an idiot. I was being unfair. Sure, men can sometimes be weak. They can act in ways that disappoint me. They’re so rational that it drives me to be over-emotional.  But I don’t hate them. I kind of heart them. A lot.

I love them when…

…they’re wearing a pair of Converse sneakers.

…their jeans are slightly baggy and their boxers peek out.

…they are not afraid to smile back at me when I’m walking away.

…when they show emotion.

…they finally understand that in acknowledging weakness, they automatically become the strongest man in any room.

…their hair is short and spiky.

…they you use technical MAN words that I do not understand.

…they patiently explain them to me (But if they’re condescending about it, I hate them.)

…they wear layered t-shirts.

…they let me help them.

…they make me laugh by pretending their belly is their alter ego called ”Hans”.

…they do something right, they do it right.

When do you love men?

When Cute Man casually asked me if I would like to go for drinks sometime after work, I had reservations but agreed.

Throughout our three week correspondence he has mentioned his recent break-up in every single email. And I have tried to end that topic in every single email. But, he has persisted. In his latest email, he claimed that there are two types of feelings that one needs to get out of their system after a break-up. The habitual ones and the meaningful ones. Never mind the fact that I am quite intrigued by the way his mind analyzes details this way, it sent shivers down my spine. Especially when he admitted that at the moment his feelings were a combination of habitual and meaningful ones. Say what?

In the very next sentence, he confirmed a day next week for us to get together.

I’ve been on the first date after a man’s long term relationship has ended. I arrive on a wind of hope and a prayer. He arrives with mud in his eyes. It never bodes well for me. So before I replied to his email,  I lay down all the lessons I have learned over the last ten years on the table. I thought for a few hours. I discussed it all with a friend.

Sure, I could go for a drink with him and scope the situation out in person.  That sounds like the adult thing to do. But knowing me, as I do, if I go and he is as cute and charming in person, I will ignore all the warning signs and crush on him and date him and think about him and then he’ll break up with me and then I’ll be sitting in the exact seat I am sitting now writing, Dudes, I shouldn’t have let it start.

I also know that none of that could happen. I may go and not feel a thing for him. I know that the exact opposite could happen. We’ll got out, get on and date happily ever after. If I don’t go, I’ll never know. If I don’t go, I’m closing a door on heart break but also on heart warming. Instead of doing the adult thing, I did my thing.

I was honest.

Here is a relevant excerpt of the email I sent.

“Sigh. As I said before, break-ups are tough. They’re complicated and they’re messy. And it sounds like this was an important relationship to you. You sound confused and attached. It gets better, I promise. So, I’m going to suggest this. When it’s not complicated and when it’s not messy and when you’re not confused and when your feelings are not deep, but really, really, really shallow, then we can go out for a coffee, a drink or whatever else you like. Deal?”

My hope is this: be real and I’ll get real back.

Eventually.

But for now, I’m smiling much brighter than I was yesterday. Because now I know this to be true.

I’ve got my back.

Answer me this.

When did fathers in big butt cars and baby on board signs become sexy?

No seriously. When did this happen? It feels just like yesterday when the only thing hotter than a man driving solo in a sleek, German car was a man standing solo next to a sleek, German car.

Somehow, over the last two years, my taste buds have evolved. I don’t want the solo, stoic, man anymore. You know the one that doesn’t call when he says he will and doesn’t follow through with anything except disappointment. I want the responsible, relationship man. The guy that cares, that sticks to his word. The one that shows up on time and doesn’t leave me waiting.

I guess that’s exactly when fathers became sexy.

When I learned that the car, the hair, the clothes, the job, the 500 close friends, the connections to all the right people in all the right places (and some of the wrong ones), the money, the arrogance, the intelligence, the height, none of that has any value (or sex appeal) if it doesn’t come in a man that is responsible, decisive, protecting and caring.

Fathers became sexy when the word father and the word man became synonyms in my mind. All qualities that my version of father possesses are the qualities that my version of man possesses.

The kind of man that I imagine existed when that word was first uttered. The kind of man that makes a woman tell her friends, ‘You know the reason I like him? He’s a man.’ And all women, everywhere and anywhere, nod in sync in complete understanding.  No more words need to be used.  They  get it. And they’re a little jealous that she found it.

If only men knew how sexy being a man is to a woman.

Maybe then they’d choose to be one.

Before they became fathers.

Even though…

…it is highly unlikely that I would go through with a one night stand, every night before leaving for drinks I tidy up my flat; in case the unpredictable happens.

…the light is green, I check both ways before crossing.

…I hardly cook for other people, I invest time in finding the right recipe for the right person. I invest money in serving bowls and gorgeous plates. All in case I became a regular on the dinner party circuit.

…I want to tell my ex-affair-er all the reasons that I don’t respect him anymore,  I don’t. In case, we get back together. And then I would just look like an asshole. (To myself).

…I live alone, my flat has enough seating for thirteen people.

…I don’t get naked  and horizontal very often, I have a strict wax appointment. You never know, right?

…there is no rational reason I would get a text from a certain someone, each time my phone beeps late at night I wait ten minutes before checking it. So as not to seem desperate. In case, The Universe keeps tabs on the level of desperation emanating from a single woman and then purposefully does not give her what she wants.

…I have no use for beer in my fridge, I keep it in there.

…I really don’t like pointy witch heels anymore, I still keep them in my shoe closet.

…I am starting to think that all those men who let me go, lost more than I ever did. But I still don’t want to know it in case the mere admittance that I have abhorrent taste in men may bring another one into my life.

What are your ‘just in case something happens’ quirks?

When I was a kid I assumed that love was easy.

I thought that when I reached a certain age–like twenty–I would meet a boy, fall in love and live happily ever after. Then my father was killed and overnight I learned that love wasn’t straightforward at all. I learned that love lasts and even transcends life but love also hurts when the object of love is no longer there. For several years, my assumed life story altered slightly to include this fatalistic addition. Meet a boy, fall in love, live happily, he dies, I still love.

When I was in my early twenties I assumed that love would eventually come.

I thought that when I reached a certain age–twenty-five–I would meet a man, fall in love and (timing willing) have a long-term relationship. Then my boyfriend dumped me and I learned that I knew nothing about love. Love was a word to use in a moment. It was so meaningful that it became meaningless. Two years ago, my re-assessed life story was that I was not likely to meet my great love. (This was a relief because there was no chance of him dying on me.)

Now in my late twenties, l have no assumptions about love. I’ve made an ass of myself so many times that I’ve lost count.  I have no knowledge on love. I’m plain clueless.

All I know is that as a kid I thought it would be easy. I never expected that the road to love–or to like even–would be this complicated. I didn’t expect that there would be this many false starts. I didn’t expect that intentions could be shrouded in so much mystery that the process of finding love, once as exciting to me as the art of creation, would become a mathematical equation of mythical proportions. One that is frustrating and exhausting. The sheer number of variables in the theory of love are limitless.

And I’m no scientist.

I’m only a woman wishing that it could be a little simpler.

For everyone.