Dating Post WWIII

I'd like to think that amidst ALL the dramaramaville of my very serious situation, things like my empty savings account and career path to nowhere were the paramount issues weighing on my mind, but...they weren't. I had been excessively lucky to have a good job with family friends, roof over my head, the adorbale little VW Beetle from my best friend--I lucked out in the major creature comfort necessities of the world which allowed my mind to settle in that one area it had settled on since I was 11: Boys.

Disclaimer: I was truly distraught over the failed marriage to Mr. Perfection. It shook me up to the core and I'm still pretty shaken. But, let's not forget, it was his choice to leave. I had begged, I had promised all sorts of internal changes I'd never be able to pull off, and I had myself fully believing my commitment to change for this man that had done so much for me. But he left before I got to either dazzle or disappoint him. It truly felt like I had been through some war and I was emerging a battered and befuddled soldier a little unsure of which weapons I was supposed to use and when. So, there I was.

Now, I hadn't been on any kind of single person dating scene since...well...ever? I met Mr. Perfection at 19! I had been with him for 9 years and being single was honestly completely new to me in every way. For all of you who don't know me so well, I'm a bit of the adventurous sort, and new things, new people, new BOYS, well I get excited. The singlehood status became pretty exciting fast, especially since boys just like me. This is not conceit, it's plain fact. Boys like me. I am lucky enough to have my mother's hottie DNA coursing through my veins and the ability to think up a barrage of witty, smart-ass comments at will. I also have mastered the art of truly appearing to not need men. While in some arenas, say the medical field or culinary school, these talents may add up to nothing, but in the man arena it's pretty much a slam dunk. So dating quickly became my new sport, and a little mini-series of romantic entanglements have ensued from this beloved pasttime. Let's review each major saga in a summarized recap, catching you all up to speed on where I stand today on this majorly important issue:

Mr. Bahamas:
Sighhhhhh. That's all I could ever do around this man that made everything so easy, so thoughtless, so enjoyable that he made me feel like I was on vacation in the Bahamas every single day we were together. I met him ten years before and fell madly in crush with him as a silly little 16-year-old girl, while he was a very charming 23-year-old that led me into some minorly scandalous behavior and then disappeared into a distant memory of a crushed little girl. How it all resumed, how it all played out is so much less important than the fact that he offered a very safe and loving landing spot for this battered little woman. There may have been some love moments, may have been a marriage proposal at a totally inappropriate time...but there may also have been some unsolved baggage on his end that wasn't as disclosed as it should have been. Regardless, my Grandma Sally told me once, "The best way to get over one man is to get under another". She was a wise woman.

Mr. Magical:
So....this cannot be summarized. You know when singers write love songs? Or Shakespeare wrote anything? Or movies like The Notebook come out? Or books like The Time Traveler's Wife are published? Well, while I love these stories, I relish in them, I devour them, I never ever really believe them. I don't believe in that kind of star-cross'd-lover-we-fell-and-we-never-got-back-up-I'd-die-for-you kind of love thing. I don't think it's real. At all. I have always treated matters of the heart a little more business-like. I hold the most power, and I delegate my feelings accordingly. I decide how much my heart gets involved. I decide to what extent I will force this person to be in love with me. I orchestrate the blows and sabotage if necessary. But.....I changed last November. I'm pretty sure I got zapped by some accidental government laser or something to be exact because my actions toward this person are sooooooo far from normal for me that I have been wondering if I'm part of a science project. He doesn't even live here, met on accidental alignment of stars, and everything just FELL. He has literally the most inconvenient job in the world. We almost eloped after meeting 4 weeks earlier. He left the country months ago and comes home in a few weeks, yet we don't even discuss what that means in real concrete terms. We both play this little control role of not caring, I keep dating people that I could honestly not care less about while he's away. He pretends this is all OK with him. We act as if my daily phone calls with his mother are not a big deal, his calls each week from a country 12 hours off my time schedule are not a big deal, and I'm starting to think we're total idiots with all this acting. But I also love it. I get a little thrill from not knowing, the possibility that I could soon be crushed in love is intoxicating. I haven't been crushed from love since.....well...ever? Ahhh how exciting. The misery or joy I could be facing has to be better than heroin. (I'll just take my own word for it, I think the last thing I need these days is a heroin addiction)