I would so date you.........but

I've heard it in dance clubs, from a chance encounter with a professional matchmaker and a woman I fell in love with this summer: "You're just not ready yet." But my favorite line is from one 30-year old cutie who writes a dating blog who told me in a deeply inebriated state, "I'd so make-out with you and date you but you're damaged goods." I didn't even have to make the determination myself; women just tell me it's too soon after 12 years of virtual matrimony for me to be emotionally available for someone else. I've heard the formula for waiting one month for every year you're in relationship - it kind of makes sense. After rebounding from a 4-year relationship into an 8-year one, I determined this time around that I would wait some time before committing to the next one.
The fear that arises at the end of a breakup is universal: you conjure images of a life of involuntary solitude involving a lot of T.V. dinners, dateless Saturday nights and going to movies alone. You feel like you'll never be loved again, that you're too old, fat, bald (don't have that problem) or out of practice to meet someone. You feel like you'll lose the security and comfort of something so safe and familiar. Those fears kept me from leaving my last relationship for at least a couple of years before I made the commitment to end my ambivalence.

Back in March, on my first weekend of singledom, I found myself at Happy Noodle with a male friend who was determined to mentor me through my new found freedom. Like a patient who'd just gotten his tooth drilled (I have lots of experience with that) and had yet to experience the pain when the novocaine wears off, I was in a state of bliss after my breakup. Enter the New Jersey Jewess in full princess mode who had high leather ass kicking boots up to her mid-thighs, carefully cultivated eyebrows, a good dose of make-up and a voice like J-Lo. At the bar she overheard me say I’d just broken up with my girlfriend; she stared at me with her hazel eyes and demanded to know what had happened. I began the odyssey of telling her about my past 2 relationships….and she told me about her past one which she was still getting over. She is a matchmaker by trade, a Sex-In-The -Wrong–City girl with no apologies for aggressively and directly stating her point -and I loved every minute of her Jersey girlness as I have a long history of Jersey women in my life. She said that if a man breaks up with her he can just go eat shit and die because he doesn’t value her. Like me, Jackie is a Scorpio and not afraid of a 2 hour intense penetrating conversation that spanned the realms of astrology, madams, escorts, ex-lovers and most amusing, the list of men that she had to sleep with before she could get married (which hasn't happened yet). She had recently completed the list by doing a very attractive black man she’d met at a conference in Florida who unfortunately had a small cock. She demystified the notion of black men’s prowess saying “I just had to find the only black guy on the planet with a small penis.” Penis size became an important part of the conversation as she told me about donkey dong, the guy with the 10” schlong. I asked if she’d gotten her cervix split by him but she apparently handled him. Somehow, women have a desire to tell me everything. Someday maybe that can earn me some money. Then she went on to talk about the big dick swagger. Well endowed men walk into a room feeling important and secure. She feels she’s now an expert at sizing up a man before exposing the goods. As a professional matchmaker, she knew just the right woman for me. I didn't know if it was going to cost me hundreds, or thousands, to meet this supposed soulmate, but she wouldn't divulge who this potential future mate was because she thought I needed at least a year to be ready for another relationship.

I’m now almost 8 months into the void, and, well, there’s been quite a marked absence of exploring voids. I’ve stumbled through dating like an awkward zit-infested teenager with a cracking voice; as a serial monogamist, I’ve been accustomed to the next female suddenly appearing in my life and becoming a long term partner. I’ve always viewed dating as an artificial construct involving awkward blind dates, match.com dead-ends and forced conversations with women who you’ll never see again. I’ve never understood why people refer to long-term live-in relationships as “dating.” But now I’ve warmed up to the sociological meaning of dating. It’s a Darwinistic enterprise in which you check-out the opposite gender to ultimately breed and further existence on the planet. In the process, pheromones are excreted, pre-mating dances occur and a choice is made. In my previous and now shattered belief system, I just waited for karma to roll around and jettison the right person out of the ethers to shack up with.

It took about 4 months of solitude to be ready to ask someone on a date – and I went the safe route, choosing a woman I knew had been attracted to me. It went well, but a few days later I met another woman I believed to be the ONE. Our first date, a hike, was pure magic and we’d planned a whole summer together that first day. She was one of the most gorgeous, elegant women I’d ever met, and I thought I’d just been handed the keys to the golden door. I was so convinced that she was it and that we were meant to be together, that I wasn’t listening to her: that she really wasn’t ready for me and that she wasn’t sure she wanted a relationship at this point in her life. She also thought it was too soon for me coming out of a major relationship to be involved with someone so seriously. She tried to get me to lighten up, to just have fun and enjoy knowing one another. But in my serial monogamist style, I honed in on her and tried to make her my woman. I enlisted a psychic, a couple friends who were well versed in astrology and my community to affirm that I had a future with this beautiful soul. I generally trust my instincts and live intuitively – by this measure, I was 100% sure that we would come together – I felt that everything in the known universe pointed in that direction. Despite my powerful desire, and a summer of dating one another, a relationship wasn’t materializing. I had to accept the painful realization that it wasn’t going to happen despite the potential that we both acknowledged was there. I had built a glass house around her and projected its image into the world. When the brick of reality hit the house, it shattered at my feet.

So what to do with all that heartache from an unrealized dream? I unblocked my Match.com profile, and met a tall, sexy German woman in Denver. After 3 dates it’s going really well. I have no expectations of what might happen – we’re just really comfortable in one another’s presence, so much so that I find I don’t have to say much. Now all I have to do is refrain from using my faux German accent around her.

It Feels Like the First Time

We come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust – Rumi

It’s almost midnight. My date and I have consumed nearly two bottles of Argentinian wine after a 5 hour dinner and as midnight strikes she yawns and announces her desire to go home. I have one more desire and contemplate how to make my move.

In late July we met in front of the St. Julien Hotel in Boulder. I first saw her at a party last year, but I didn’t really SEE her. Seeing that is, in the Avatarian sense where the Navi with their pure primitive hearts and telepathic minds recognize one another’s souls. She stood at the entryway as I approached, as if she were waiting for me. We chatted briefly and she handed me her card. A few days later we were hiking, chatting and glowing. Two weeks later, we were reminiscing about meeting at the St. Julien. It’s an odd phenomenon that when we have an experience we are not necessarily conscious of the subtle thought forms and energies that we have perceived in that moment. But in retrospect I saw the essence of this woman then– ageless, elegant, gorgeous, radiant and proud. She appeared as a brilliant meteor that fell from the Perseid showers onto the circular pavestones where valet attendants take the keys of the well- heeled clientele.

By our second date, she’d given me a printout of the 12 stages of courtship: a road map to committed love. The stages are as follows, and are relevant throughout the duration of a committed relationship:

1. Noticing - seeing what is attractive in others and being conscious of the desirable traits in a long-term partner.

2. Attraction- curiosity and desire about the physical, emotional and intellectual traits of others.

3. Flirtation - playfulness, seductiveness and social cues that send signals of interest.

4. Demonstration – of prowess in athleticism, dressing to please the other person.

5. Romance – the ability to experience, express and receive passion.

6. Individuation – in a healthy relationship, each individual feels free to be who they are without fear of disapproval or control by the other (wow, I’d love to experience this).

7. Intimacy – the “attachment” phase in which a relationship deepens in its meaning and integrity.

8. Touching- the healing physical touch that requires trust, care and judgment.

9. Foreplay – holding, fondling, kissing and sexual play that build tension and eroticism

10. Intercourse – surrender to passion; to let go and trust yourself and your partner to be vulnerable.

11. Commitment- the ability to bond or attach to another. In contrast, addiction is the failure to bond.

12. Renewal- the capacity to sustain the above dimension in an existing relationship.

“Successful couples continue courtship, continue to show the other they are a worthy partner, continue to make efforts to attract their mate, and continue to express the value they have for each other.”

I’ve studied these two sheets of paper for some weeks, contemplating the meaning within each stage. I responded by sending her the Borat version of courtship in which his cross-country trip ends in an attempt to steal Pamela Anderson from L.A.

I don’t know what this meeting of our two souls will be – but she wants to explore it slowly. A part of me wants to dive in headfirst for the exhilaration of falling in love. As I am prone to project fantasy into the future, she grounds me in the moment. Robert Johnson wrote in his book “Owning Your Own Shadow” that falling in love is a disservice to the lover because one projects their happiness upon another person. Then when the intoxication of falling in love fades to reality, there is inevitable disappointment in the other person.

It’s midnight on my futon – the wine has made us both a bit loopy. I remember being 13, visiting my first girlfriend Jannie Israel at her day camp in Ossining, N.Y. We walked out into the woods on to a large granite rock nestled in a grove of oak and maple trees. We were talking and I kept contemplating my make-out move – but I was too afraid to do it. Decades later with my radiant date I feel the same way – like an awkward adolescent about to make his first move. She sits back down when I tell her there’s one more thing I want to do. Then I say “It’s time to kiss the Prince”. I’m an asshole. I meant to say something like “This Frog needs to become a Prince by your kiss” – either way, it’s totally cheesy. Not only that, I don’t even have a real couch to host this momentous event – it’s an old black futon with bamboo printed fabric. I left all the good furniture with my former girlfriend. I lean in, make my move, and……….

The Cougrr

We’re sitting at the Root Down restaurant in the Highlands neighborhood of Denver, a converted auto shop filled with art deco kitsch. There’s an entire wall hung with hard plastic desk phones from a bygone era in various bright colors. I meet my date for the first time. She’s elegantly dressed in frilly black pants and a sleeveless black top sipping a strawberry rhubarb Caprihina. We embrace like old friends.

Since me and DanceCougrr (her Match handle) started instant messaging on Match a few days before, we realized we were mental soul mates and as she wrote, MOTs (Members of the Tribe) This elegant, zaftig Jewess, a former sub-prime loan maven, has re-invented herself in a couple of new start-up ventures. She pole dances and is fluent in several dance forms. She’d emailed me photos of her on a pole with a bodybuilder/fireman for her 50^th birthday. Her sybaritic personality was that of a self-actualized woman unafraid to grasp life by the balls and fully enjoy every moment in all of its absurd glory.

The endless patois of witticisms endowed with occasional yiddish or rap phrases turns both of our minds on. If my brain had a clitoris it was being stroked every second – before our date, she left a voicemail telling me how stimulated she was by our conversations. We acknowledge that even if we never “feel the animal” for one another, we will always be BFFs.

I order another drink, a tequila infused with poblano that tickles my throat. By the time we head to the table I feel my cranium being grasped by the alcohol and tell the Cougs that my brain function is impaired, but I continue rattling off puns and spontaneous mutations on our conversation. She’s bringing out a part of me that is unique to my NYC jewish roots. My dad and I bonded by spending endless hours one-upping each other with wit. My date is across from me, her kind brown eyes lucid and receptive. She’s a profoundly good listener. She tells me about her foiled date with a guy she calls the “Avatard,” a man who communicates with extra-terrestrials who needed a ride from DIA since his car was “in the shop.” They never met but he emailed her a pornographic photo of the Avatar’s leading couple in a compromising position.

Bathroom humor and serious inquisitions into personal histories intertwine as we wax poetically about the Gnocchi and Falafel. One wouldn’t think these two would mix well, but the food is so exquisitely prepared it’s melt-in-your mouth ecstasy. I don’t remember the last time I had a meal where I wanted to eat as slowly as possible. We bid farewell to our waitress and circumnavigate the Highlands neighborhood. The buildings are a mish-mash of cold post-modern condos mixed with cute Victorian bungalows and hideous 40s era shacks with aluminum siding. She can talk architecture. We can discuss anything under the sun. It’s kind of like a middle-aged Jewish version of Before Sunrise – an entire night of magic free of sex. We end up on a park bench across from a Spanish influenced mission. She jokes that we could go over there and assume the missionary position. We chat on the bench about my trips to India, her cruises around the world, her time in Istanbul. She’s curious and asks more questions than I can answer. Intellectually, we have a rapport established in a mere few days that’s exciting, stimulating, profound and raunchy. At midnight she appears illuminated and vibrant. I’m fading. My new single life with its 2 a.m. weekend bedtimes has caught up to me. I assure her I’m not yawning because her company is boring. Au Contraire. We trace our way back to the restaurant and in front of another post-modern rectilinear apartment building we notice the brilliant full moon. I turn my back and drop trou, momentarily exposing my cheeks, mooning the moon. The Cougs, not one to approach anything in life half-assed, turns politely, and bares all to the white orb in the sky, outdoing me for commitment to the moment.

Match.com Redux

A 29 year old woman, “Devka007” from Manhattan, sends me a “wink” on Match.com. Her profile reads, " I’m inventor, so my relationships with the person who is going to be my future husband will never die. I will always keep in reserve some wood to hold the fire of our love.” She’ll never have my wood, because I don’t have the cash she’s looking for. By her syntax and profile picture she could easily be Tatiana in the Bond film "From Russia With Love."

In 1996 I joined Match during its formative years when I lived in the loveless suburbs of NYC; if you were unmarried it was akin to having leprosy. So I electronically ventured out of the the NY ‘burbs and met a woman in Florida who claimed she was 44 years old. We shared a passion for astrology and developed a steady email relationship. It turns out that she was 64, had MS and was wheelchair bound. Yes, I did spent a weekend with her in a B&B in quaint Nantucket just for the adventure. I promise, it was strictly platonic and we had a wonderful time together.

Fast forward nearly 15 years and I’m back on the market. Match seems to engender the same zeitgeist as it did in the 90s – people always seeking, but rarely finding. After perusing hundreds of women’s profiles, which reminded me of browsing real estate comps in the South Boulder neighborhood where I just bought my house, I found one woman to be unique and compelling (to continue the analogy, every boring brick ranch in South Boulder under 600K is neither unique nor compelling). She emailed back to tell me how much she enjoyed my profile but that she’d already met a potential special someone. I'm hoping there's another woman out there who shares my twisted sense of humor and is wickedly playful and smart. But most are “honest, loyal, compassionate, caring” and want “long walks on the beach, kissing beneath the stars or candlelight dinners.” It seems as if each woman loves her family and friends, and is happy with herself if only the right man appeared to help them complete their lives. Some are even “baggage free.”

My profile is just as hypocritical as those of the women I’m writing about: show your game face to the world - emphasize the positives. Don’t expose your fatal flaws or wounds. I think everyone should have their ex-lover/husband/wife or therapist write an honest letter of recommendation that told you how their partner really was in relationship. Then you’d save months, maybe years of wondering what inner demons lurked inside that person and save all that heartbreak in the end. If only it were so easy.

Then there’s my non-carniverous diet; one of my close female friends informed me that she’d never date a vegetarian.Since I only know less than a handful of vegetarians including myself, the social liability is huge. One solution is to never cook at home, but order out every meal. That works in Manhattan quite well, where most refrigerators have a bottle of wine, a box of Arm and Hammer baking soda and some 3 day old Chinese food in a half opened cardboard box sitting on the middle shelf.

One woman writes a list of her negative traits: she needs 8-9 hours of sleep a night. I think she's my perfect match: I only sleep 5-6 hrs. a night and if she was dreaming peacefully in my bed I could have 3 or 4 hours of guilt-free downtime knowing my soulmate was just snoozing away. She posts that her liking hip-hop is a negative and I’d have to agree. She’d have to walk around the house with an I-pod and earbuds or I’d have to start a crash diet of Ice T and Kanye West.

And the 43 year old dog lover who “loves to get all gussied up for a night on the town as much as I love a t-shirt and jeans at a hole in the wall.” No one born after 1945 from any major metropolitan area says the word “gussied up” without sounding like someone’s great aunt from Wichita.

A 54 year old woman from Denver sends me a message inquiring about dancing at the St. Julien. Her photos reveal a classy woman - fit, confident, cosmopolitan and unselfconscious. Women over 50 often possess a magnetic beauty born of wisdom. Sadly, older women are often relegated to the post-menopausal cougar set, an unfortunate part of our culture in which wisdom and life experience is devalued for artifice and youth. However, at this late stage in the game, I'm thinking about kids, and I've already been with several women older than me.

Every woman on Match in the Denver/Boulder area is “spiritual but not religious," except for the 31 year old from Colorado Springs who loves God (like most people in the Springs). She had the appearance of a Russian mail order bride whose wardrobe needs would bankrupt me on the first shopping trip. I guess I could borrow my friend’s black Beemer and with a good slathering of Gendarme cologne, and pretend I'm rich for one date. It’s just we’d have to hook-up at her house because once she saw the futon couch in my living room it would be all over.

But then, an email from a woman in Denver, a transplanted 44 year old Jewess whose path through life mirrors my own. She wrote, empathizing with the fact that I’d just left a very long term relationship, “I've been there, and learned that it was a gift as when you are completely comfortable being single, then you are ready to meet someone.” By that metric, I'm not ready. I hate being single. When I was virtually married I was intrigued by the freedom that my single friends possessed. Now, my empty bed and all too quiet house are unnerving.