After a decade of disastrous dating, (I prefer to call it research), I have learned much about myself , the male species and mankind in general. Those heady days of scouring the internet on dating sites and attending singles do’s in the efforts of luring a male to fill the huge void I felt after my marriage failed, have been filled with a bucket of self-respect and sense of self-worth I never knew I could possess. I've done the “mahi” my kids would say over the last few years, and have got to a place where I can confidently say “If you don’t enhance my life, you are not in it”. I'm OK with that now, and its probably the biggest reason I am happy as a dog with two tales surrounded by a bunch of unruly bludging animals, and working every hour god give on the piece of paradise I now call home.
I wasn’t surprised a month ago when I received a screenshot of an ad that was in the personal column of the paper from my daughter. She lives in fear of the fact that as I age , one day I will end up on her doorstep with my menagerie and she will have to look after me so doesn’t miss an opportunity to try and get me hooked up with an alternative care giver! A senior gentleman had placed an advertisement in the Press seeking the company of a female to enjoy some of his guilty pleasures – traveling the world, the arts, eating out and going on adventures.
How people deal with being alone continues to fascinate me and while I had no desire to be contacting this gentleman , I couldn’t help but admire his proactive efforts, and the fact that he had been brave enough to put his phone number in for women to call him to discuss. You see many years ago I went down the same path except I had people reply to a private box number provided by the press. (Those replies were a story for another day!) I thought about it for a while and remembered back to that time when my aversion to loneliness had driven me to the same sort of measures. I sent him off a text. It was encouraging, short and rhetorical . In other words, it said “Good luck, I admire your efforts. It’s a minefield out there” 😊 The smiley face surely indicated the rhetorical answer of the message and in my mind, no answer was required.
The next evening I got a call from Fred. He wasn’t sure if he was meant to reply or not, so he had decided to phone and thank me for my message. I knew the minute I heard his voice we were from different eras and had a slight chuckle to myself as I explained I had no desire to meet him, the purpose of my text had been encouragement only. He spoke beautifully and his carefully crafted sentences about his life travels and business exploits kept me on the phone for a bit before sending him on his way to sift through the 16 other replies he had received to his ad. I think Fred must have a few bob and over the last few weeks he has obviously met up with a few of these women who took the effort to reply and shared with them stories of his business and academic success, property portfolio and love of the finer things in life . He probably looks like a pretty good catch to many of these women I expect, but he is most dissatisfied with the results to date evidently.
You see he phoned me again about a week ago and after reminding me who he was went on to tell me the story of his unsatisfactory search so far. He said “They are all gold diggers , some are still hung up on their exe’s and I had nothing in common with them”, in fact out of all the women I have spoken with you are the one I feel I have really connected with!”
For 45 minutes I empathised with Fred. I’ve been there and have no desire to go back there so as he tried to persuade me on the phone into meeting up with him, I kept my self-deprecating humour to a minimum and was a gentle as I could be with him. I explained about my busy life and as he reassured me that its only friendship he wants , (hes not interested in sex), I breathed a sigh of relief as I told him I would rather have a cold pie than sex myself these days and we had a good old chuckle.
I think Fred has become infatuated from a distance with me and yesterday I cleared a message on my phone asking “could the Ashburton Rose of Tralee” return his call as he would like to take me to the pictures? FFS – the pictures changed to the movies back in the 90’s so that was a clear indicator that despite the fact I say age is only a number, the generational differences would be subtle but there for sure. I’m definitely no Rose of Tralee, but connection on an intellectual level has always been a big turn on for me and one of the downfalls of being a sapio sexual for sure. I expect Fred is a bit of a sapio sexual as well , which is why as he works through his list of potential companions he has struggled to find some common ground with them and built me up to be some beautiful mythical woman who would be the perfect match. If he only knew lol!
Infatuation is fantasy. It erodes self-worth and its destructive to real relationships. Love tells the truth, infatuation lies. I believe Love is the answer to everything and while someone pursues an infatuation they don’t realise its still a wolf in sheep’s clothing. I need to pour cold water on Freds infatuation with me because he has built a picture in his mind of his perfect partner in crime – sex excluded. I'm not that person because past experience tells me that if you spend your days trying to meet the needs of others which in this case are companionship and filling a void of loneliness, then you will never meet your own which are far more important.
On reflection I have decided that maybe I would rather have a passionate romp in the scratcher with Mr Right than a cold pie when I finally meet him. For a moment I had forgotten I was gluten free!
