Because I know you are dying to read...I give you the Operation First Date Update (Installment #3)

I met the Scot at 7 p.m. at a local pub. He lives in the suburbs of the city and does not have a car so he took public transportation--something he has scupulously avoided in the 18 months he's been here--to meet up (For those who are paying attention/keeping score-- we are both carless and don't live that close to each other--make of it what you will) with me. He was a little late, but he called. Not his fault. You often just cannot know what time you're going to get anywhere when you are at the mercy of the MTA.

We proceeded to enjoy a four-hour conversation that covered everything from the prevailing definition of postmodernity (incredulity toward the meta-narrative) to why I must, no, literally have to see the movie "Rambo" again in my life. He did impersonations of Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, and Woody Allen. He talked about his issues with theatre (he's a playwright), his program at a local university, his thesis proposal. He is a consummate intllectual (this is familiar territory for me), but also supremely accessible and grounded. I laughed so hard so much.

Because we had discussed the fact that I am a poet prior to meeting, he brought me some selections of local poets' work that he had because he would love to know what I think about it. He himself, isn't much into it, doesn't get it, etc. I know I've evolved significantly, because I feel no compunction to defend poetry or its validity to this person or anyone else. I'm getting too old and too democratic in my outlook to be bothered with such things. I said to him "You know, maybe you do get poetry. Maybe you get it, but you just don't like it."

Interior viewpoint

Here's what I was thinking for a good bit of the evening: I am neither attracted nor unattracted, physically, to this man. I have never been in a situation that was this intellectually charged where there also exists the possibility that the man across the table could also be interested in me. There is something here for the taking, if I want to pursue it.


Here's what else I was thinking: This man is very smart. He's a genius. He might even be more intellectually adroit than I am. My Now Former Thesis Advisor would love him! I feel invigorated by this discourse, yet it's also work... talking like this requires a lot of energy. I have always said that this is what I want, what I require from a romantic interaction with a man...

But in the interim of the last time I had a super charged intellectual convo with a man (who was not attracted to me) and this super duper smarty pants talk with a man who might be attracted to me, I have experienced an energy, chemistry with a man that is purely visceral.

It's not that this man is not a smarty. He is. But he does not experience or process the world primarily through intellectual discourse. He processes the world through vibes and energy and common sense. Before you imagine some bohemian (which he very much is), let me inform the picture thus: He used to be an engineer. Now he's a math teacher (for the time being anyway). When we met, he told me that he's just a paradox. The most restless, yet sedentary soul--grounded, but a little ethereal. We've talked. I know I enjoy him, conversationally. He can hold his own with me (he actually thinks I'm uptight and could stand to relax), which is important.

But he looked at me in such a way on that first night that I have never been looked at before. And what I was thinking was... nothing. His appreciation of me, as a woman, whose position on formalism vs. free verse, he did not know, made me brazen. It made me fearless. So I reached across the table and took his hand in mine, and he met me in that gesture.

And when he kissed me later that night, I knew it was coming. I understood, intuitively, that he would want to, so I was ready when it happened. And two weeks later, when I saw him again, and we kissed several more times, some little door that had been closed in me all this time, opened up.

I know that he may not be the one. Truthfully, the Scot is lovely and is already more consistent with the follow through than the other man-- he is not at all bohemian, not at all loosey goosey or vibey--and at this point, I'm not discounting him. It wouldn't be wise. I don't know what the case may be in a week, two, three... I know it's entirely possible that my ultimate choice will not come down to either of them. They're just two experiences I've had up to this point.

But for the record, all during that fabulous date with that fabulous Scot this past Wednesday, I remembered what it was like to be with a man who would rather feel his way through something than talk about the theories concerning it, and that is what I'm really longing for. I see that now.