Just Like A Bug On The Ground . . .

Astronomers detect new planets by carefully measuring the miniscule wobbles of a star over a period of time. If the planets are massive enough, their gravitation creates wobbles detectable only by the most careful, high powered telescopes. The planets themselves are not directly detected, at least not with the current technology.

Yup, I'm about to segue into another tortious metaphor. If you're a casual observer, watching me as I go about my life, interacting with people, you're not going to see anything unusual. I'll chat, smile at the right times, be polite, and act pretty regular. But those who know me well realize that I do have a slight wobble, one that's been there for the last year. A couple of friends ask me, "So how's the ladies front?" and I shrug nonchalantly--a sincere apathy as opposed to a superficial reaction to disguise frustration. When I've been out on dates, I'm aware enough to know that I'm just going through the motions of being charming and engaging--my therapist says "You're there but you're not there." Needless to say, those dates haven't led to anything. Three years ago, that would've gotten me down. Now, there's almost a palpable sense of relief.

Obviously, that massive planet orbiting around me unseen except for the influence it exerts upon my life is a Certain Someone, who left me almost a year ago (and a week after my birthday--I guess you can say I'm ambivalent about my birthday). I've already dwelled enough upon how that catastrophically impacted my life, catastrophic enough that I am in therapy. Don't worry, I'm better now. But the one positive--if you can call it that--thing that occurred is that it made my life a helluva lot simpler.

Call it what you will--labile personality, poor impulse control, ridiculously romantic, bipolar--but I used to ride my emotions instead of controlling them. And despite efforts to be positive, I was the type of guy who at the first smile of an attractive woman at the beginning of the night was already thinking about the slap on the face and slammed doors at the end of the night. Not exactly a healthy combination. That first wave of giddiness would always be followed by a depressive low. Soon, I was associating that giddiness with the inevitable lows so even when I was happy, I was sad. Anytime I began feeling interest, I also felt incredibly foolish.

Now, after Certain Someone, I didn't feel any of those highs upon meeting someone. I believed that ability got burned out of me. Sure, I went on dates, but then I'd go home, catch some Tivo and sleep well instead of having a sleepless but excited night thinking about potentials. Life was much simpler this way. I didn't have to think about meeting someone, having a relationship, that possibility of having to support more than myself, being a fulltime lawyer, a white picket fence, two kids, a dog and a cat. I could be content, living life aimlessly, trying to write and maybe get some side gigs as a contract lawyer. And, I certainly didn't feel foolish, redfaced and disappointed about my social life. Foolishness requires unmet and unrealistic expectations, of which I had none.

And now, well, let's say I'm preparing myself to feel foolish, redfaced and disappointed again.

Even though this might sound like the blogger protesteth a bit too much, nothing earth-shattering has happened. I didn't "meet someone," because that connotates a mutual interest. But for the first time in over eleven months, something is flickering. Think of it as a confluence of small things eliciting something larger, the way a cool wind off the beach hits you as you're listening to Jeff Buckley's "Grace" while eating fish and chips in Santa Monica can lead to a moment of perfection. So it's not so much that I "met someone." I didn't. It's the confluence of small things, perhaps a smile, perhaps random conversation, and now I'm feeling that flicker.

And although a part of me is trying to enjoy that flicker for what it is--a hope that what I thought was gone inside me is actually still there, there's also an equal part of me that's telling me to run for the hills, it can only lead to being let down again.

"One day, I am gonna grow wings,
a chemical reaction,
hysterical and useless"
- Radiohead, "Let Down"