Geometric Proof

Enough dithering. I can journey internally and externally and neither need preclude my search. In fact, I'm wondering whether my talk is serving as a smoke screen - to avoid having to step into the internet dating world.

I've largely avoided it so far - either being introduced to the men I've gotten involved with since my divorce, or met them in the course of daily life.

But "searching" implies action. There are lots of ways to act and I can try them all, but the one right at my fingertips, literally is internet dating.

I signed up on one site awhile go and have garnered some attention. But I don't respond. Probably because I figure the men tagging me as a favorite, must be losers if they need to meet people via the internet. Of course, the corollary to that is that I'm a loser if I'm internet dating, which is far more difficult to admit.

Unless I flip it around. Influenced by my son's geometry class, I could prove that if one is a loser, it is less fun to be a lonely loser than a loser who's meeting new people, doing new things, at which point one is no longer a loser.

Sour Grapes

Yesterday I had lunch with a woman who founded a rug weaving business for impoverished Afghani women, incorporating a literacy program, healthcare, schooling for their children. My girlfriend Lynn leaves at the end of the month for Africa, where last year she built an orphanage for Masai girls.

And I'm looking for a soulmate.

Is that small-minded of me? Should I be aspiring to make a difference in the world instead of how to fill up my Saturday nights?

At some point during the meal, my lunch mate exclaimed how great it is to finally be focused on women.

I nodded in agreement, but what I was really thinking was: "Right, that's easy for you to to say. You're happily married."

Which definitely sounds sour grape-ish. But I'm not, at all. This woman is amazing and doing fantastic work. It was an honor to meet her. I'd like to be like her.

It's just that...I don't know. Maybe I need to get myself a dog.

Half Life

I wonder if a prerequisite for finding a soulmate is letting go of the last one. My hunch is yes. I haven't seen my most recent “true love” for two months now, but he's still lurking around my inner life, causing all sorts of distractions. I keep hoping he goes away, and he does, a bit here, a little piece there. But not enough to leave me in peace.

My son is studying absolute age in science class. Radioactive decay, half-lives, that sort of thing. For homework last night, he had to calculate how long it would take for 40 grams of C-14, which has a half-life of 5730 years, to convert into 36 grams of C-14 and 4 grams of C-12. Could it be that a failed love story decays in a similar way? If so, what is the half-life of love.

Oh to be like Tosca, who has her Mario. “Our love fills the world with hope and light…” they sing, or something like that. Granted, within minutes of belting it out, he was shot dead by a firing squad, and Tosca flung herself off the castle wall, falling to a certain death. But at least they experienced the feeling that could lead to those kind of words. The best I could get out of my ex was “I enjoy your company.” No, wrong. Once, in an emotional moment, he said "I more than enjoy you're company."

How could I put up with it? Simple. I am a master of that deadly skill - filling in the blanks. I told myself that he absolutely, positively felt much more, he just couldn't say it due to some strange character flaw that prevented passionate words from reaching his lips..

I know. Go figure.

Ode to a Peach

This finding a soulmate business, I realize, is going to have an unexpected payoff. I get to find my own soul. I get to find out who I am and even better, who I want to be. Not that I don't like the old me, or rather the current me, but that me always ends up choosing the same variation on a theme. With some exceptions, thy've all have been pretty nice guys, but if it's "true love" I'm after, I better get cracking. Cracking in the sense of beginning, but also as in opening up.

Oddly enough, without my even trying, I think it's already begun.

Yesterday, on my way home from the hair salon, I stopped at J. Crew to check out the sales. The personal shopper there (note: I had never even talked with a personal shopper before) put me in tight, skinny purple cords, a size smaller than I'd have chosen on my own, and a light, peach colored sweater - a color I was absolutely positive until yesterday, that I should never wear.

Peach was the color soft, lovely girls wore. The kind of girls who seemed to float on clouds when they walked, whose voices opened the imagination, who turned men's heads wherever they went.

Not that I haven't had my own rippling affect, but never from a peach-leaning kind of man. I wonder, could something as simple as wearing my new sweater allow a different part of me to emerge, a part who not only attracts different kinds of people, but finds different kinds attractive. I'm going to see my 13-year-old son singing Tosca at the Lyric Opera this afternoon. I'll wear the sweater and find out.

Negative Capability

How can it be? Already? Here I am, sitting by the phone waiting for a man to call me back. Granted, he's the man in charge of the celibacy support group, but still, the waiting place is all too familiar. I know I'm not alone. Everyone hates to wait. It's why the English poet, John Keats, championed Negative Capability - the ability to be in "uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact & reason."

I try, but this morning I'm too jumpy inside, like I need to break through some kind of bond. I take a deep breath. It can't be personal, obviously. I've never met him or even talked with him. Still, my hair does need a good cut. And a color touchup wouldn't hurt. I have work I should do, but beauty calls.

Cupid's Mistake

Taking action and making things happen, could be harder than I thought. It's probably why so many people don't. The notion of love striking like a bolt of lightening, that cupid's arrow hits or misses, provides a ready excuse to just sit around and wait. I have a friend who avoids the whole messy love issue altogether simply by declaring that since she has no power to control it, why even bother.

Call it fate or an odd coincidence, but this morning, just as I was trying to decide what pro-active step I should take next, I read about a Celibacy Support Group. Who's in it, I wonder. Are the members choosing to be celibate or are they celibate by default? I bet I'll find answers here, though I'm not sure to which questions.

Feet

After two marriages, a good dozen boyfriends, who knows how many misadventures (at least they weren’t missed), and eighteen up and down months of trying to twist my mind around the fact that the current man I’m “in love” is Mr. Wrong, I’ve decided it’s time to seriously search for my soulmate.

No more lazing about watching Fate while away. No more hiding behind this excuse or that. I have a choice. I can take action. And I will, starting now, every day for a year. Even on days like today, when I’m stuck at home working, I can still do something.

So I begin.

My girlfriend, Kimberly, who last month celebrated her second anniversary to her third husband, recently gave me a book titled, 101 Ways to Get and Keep His Attention. I open the book at random and land on #12: “Feet…Are they clean and neatly manicured, or are they hard, calloused, and looking worse for wear?..Just remember, if you don’t take good care of yourself, who will?

Enough said. It may not sound like a big deal, but as the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu once said, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” I can tell you right now, mine is going to be redolent with Intensive Moisturizing Foot Cream.