Now that I have a boyfriend (he prefers “paramour,” by the way), it’s time to do some reflecting on the search.
As my readers know, there have been a few guys who let it slip that they weren’t looking for anything serious, which led me to break things off.
The guys were always surprised, even though the only box checked on what I was interested in was “long-term relationship.”
So did I want to date a guy who says that he’s never been in love (even though he’s divorced), who says I’m obviously lying to myself about wanting long-term when I don’t like living with people, who says the twenty minute drive to me was too much for something real.
Did I want to date the guy who confesses that he is still very much in love with someone else, but he’d like to keep things casual with me, since it will help him have sex with this other woman less?
C’mon, guys.
After I realized that our interests were not aligned, I called things off.
In these cases, the guys would make the same request:
Why don’t we just date casually and see what happens?
In other words, why don’t I (the guy) get what I want and you not get what you want, which will lead to a frustrating end in which I reiterate that I was never looking for something long term?
And in these cases, the guys came back, sometimes weeks after, sometimes years after, saying they’d made mistakes.
That they didn’t appreciate what I had to offer or the ways in which I’m different from most women.
Maybe they should have been different from most men.
