Half of the Time We're Gone But We Don't Know Where and We Don't Know Here

What I said to him:

So, even though I think it's really your turn to initiate this discussion, I'm already tired of being annoyed and passive-aggressive about it. Do you know that you're giving me the impression that you want us to be more than just friends? I talk to you, who I didn't know that well before I moved, more than I talk to people I've been friends with for 10 years, and I love talking to you, but I'm becoming unpleasantly confused. I know we already had a similar discussion, which is why I hate myself for bringing this up again, and you said you had a girlfriend, and I haven't heard that that has changed, but six months have passed since then and we seem to keep getting closer. If you genuinely aren't interested in being anything more than friends, then I think we need to take a step back here so you can evaluate how to bring the way you're acting in line with the way you're feeling (and so I can see if [Don Juan de Morocco] is still available). If you do have some more-than-friendly feelings, then I wish you would tell me so we can talk about it (and by that, I obviously mean so we can make out).

What he said to me:

I really have enjoyed getting to know you, mostly over email since you left [my former city]. You are wildly funny, a beautiful person, very insightful and have a unique perspective on life. Which is why I've gotten so drawn into emailing with you regularly, more so than people I've known my whole life, even though we didn't really know each other well before you left [my previous employer]. But I'm sorry that our conversations gave you the wrong impression and/or left you feeling confused. I do have a girlfriend and have viewed our closeness as friendship. Our friendship is great and I enjoy it tremendously, but I understand that we each need to treat it in a way that's best for ourselves. I'm not sure what the end result of this email should be, but I did want to be honest with you.

I've Seen Your Flag on the Marble Arch and Love Is Not a Victory March

The thought of facing the week without talking to The Only Living Boy in New York saddens me. Realistically, I know it's unlikely that I will go the entire week without speaking to him (and that isn't even really the goal -- the goal is to sort of phase him out in something approximating the natural cooling off of a friendship), but I feel panicky anyway.

Over the past 10 months, The Only Living Boy in New York has become my safety net. He's the person I go to with everything from the important to the banal. Beyond that, he's the person that I wish I was waking up next to every day. The problem is that while he comes to me with all of his issues from the big to the small, he doesn't seem to share my wish for us to be together all the time or we would probably be together all the time (or at least as much of the time as possible considering that we live in different cities). And the truth is that if you're in a relationship, it's a democracy, but the decision to begin or end a relationship is more of a totalitarian dictatorship. No matter how much I want a relationship to happen or what my feelings are, it's ultimately up to him because he knows how I feel and he's the hold-out. It makes me feel so small and meaningless, like what I want counts for nothing. I hate it.

In an old blog of mine, I talked about the nature and significance of soul mates, and I concluded that a soul mate is someone who moves the ball forward in a person's development but who creates too much tumult to be a permanent partner. I never thought that The Only Living Boy in New York was my soul mate because he didn't swoop in and turn my life upside down, leaving me to reorder it in a new and better way like, say, Doug Funny. He just came into my life and shone a bright and flattering light on everything. He made me laugh, and he made me feel good, and he became the person whose opinion I most sought on any issue. I thought that we would make a good team, that we had the right similarities and the right differences to complement each other in a lasting way. I'm not so young anymore that I think love is enough. If love were, as the Beatles say, all you need, then I would be married to Doug Funny right now because we loved each other even though we weren't ultimately compatible. But with The Only Living Boy in New York, I thought we lined up in the right way. Now, I think we don't, and it just breaks my heart.

I want to talk to him about this because I've grown accustomed to talking to him about everything and also because it's my nature to talk everything to death. (I even have this blog so that once I've exhausted all my friends and relatives, I can continue to obsess about things to my heart's content.) But I think the time for me to talk is over, and if anyone is going to talk now, it has to be him. I've already told him what I want and how I feel, and as much as I would like to belabor the point and tell him I love him every day, it's not a good idea if he's not going to say it back.

I'm hurting now, but I know that deferring dealing with the pain will only make it worse when I inevitably have to confront it. (Heartbreak is like credit card debt that way.) I won't pretend that I'm not hopeful that withdrawing will, as I mentioned before, cause him to stop taking me for granted and embrace the possibility of our at least trying to be in a relationship with each other, but I can't allow those hopes to become too great.

I am drawing comfort from one thing right now. I love asking couples how they met, and a large number of the people I ask tell me that there was a period of separation in the relationship before they got back together and decided to get married. In other words, it often happens that people meet the right person at the wrong time, so you can never totally count someone out. The actress Carol Channing is 87 years old and married to her middle school sweetheart with whom she reconnected after he read the nice things she said about him in her biography. If you can reconnect with someone after 75 years, anything is possible.

It Was Awesome But We Lost It, It's Not Possible For Me Not To Care

It's easy to talk a big game about severing, or at least loosening, ties with The Only Living Boy in New York, but it's much more difficult to actually do it. It's more difficult even to think about doing it.

I had a long drive today, and it gave me way too much time to think about The Only Living Boy in New York and listen to Miley Cyrus songs (she is a poet). In the 10 months or so that I've known him, The Only Living Boy in New York has become my person. He's the one I want to tell everything from the important stuff to the dumb stuff. I think I've become his person too, judging by the fact that he emails me over the stupidest stuff, like if the vending machine malfunctions and gives him two pieces of candy when he paid for only one. It's hard to think about going through next week without being in constant communication with him.

I'm trying to remind myself that talking to him all the time is a habit, and habits can be changed. It's not easy, but it's possible. In this case, I would say it's necessary. If The Only Living Boy in New York and I are going to be each other's person, then he should at least be having sex with me and introducing me to people as his girlfriend. I'm tired of being in these relationships that have emotional intimacy and no other kind. I deserve and want more than that.

When I talked to my mom about The Only Living Boy in New York last night, I tried to frame my decision to take a step back from him as a win-win for me. If I pull back, he must either pull back as well (thus getting me out of a dead-end relationship: win) or surge forward (thus moving us forward into an actual relationship: win). I wish that he and I could have a real discussion about what is going on, but I think the onus is on him to bring it up since I already told him I like him, and I don't really see him doing that. I want to tell him that I know what I want (him) and that while he acts like he has feelings for me, he's not actually doing anything to make a relationship with me happen. If he doesn't have those feelings or if he can't or won't do anything about them, I can't continue to invest in him.

This whole situation really blows. I really care about this person, and I don't want to lose him from my life. The obvious response to that complaint is something like, "Well, if you like him so much, then why can't you keep him as a friend?" My answer is that he's not a very good friend because if he doesn't actually have the kinds of feelings for me that he acts like he has, then he is, as I previously suggested, just using my feelings for him to feel better about himself and that's a shitty thing to do to a friend.

There was a time (let's call that time "two days ago") when I thought The Only Living Boy in New York and I would end up getting married eventually. If I had to predict right now what the future of our relationship will be, I would say that he's going to pull back out of embarrassment and uncertainty, and I'm going to pull back out of embarrassment and irritation, and what was once a nurturing and rewarding relationship is going to turn into an awkward mess. I wish that weren't the case, but I don't know how to avoid it. I could pretend that I don't feel the way that I feel, but papering over the problem just means it will come back later down the road and we'll have to deal with it then. I could also initiate the discussion about it, but I think that is the road to disaster. I think the only way this might turn out well -- and this possibility is a slim one at best -- is if he misses me and reaches out across the distance. But I don't think that's really going to happen.

What I Need to Hear Now: Your Sincere Apology. When You Mean It, I'll Believe It, If You Text It, I'll Delete It.

I'm so angry with The Only Living Boy in New York that I could spit. And I'm at least as mad at myself.

He sent me an email this morning forwarding me some photos from an event at his office. Normally, I would have written him a wry reply, but today, I just ignored him. Then, around lunchtime, he sent me an email letting me know that one of the top guys at his office, a guy I used to work for, quit to go to a competitor. That piece of gossip was juicy enough that I had to respond to him. I tried to steer the conversation around to the fact that I was mad at him, but he wouldn't bite at any of my admittedly lame hints.

I approached the situation stupidly. I should have either confronted the situation head-on or not addressed it. But after I had chosen to tell him I was sulking and he didn't ask me what was wrong, I got angry with him. At that point, I decided not to force the issue on the basis that he was obviously trying not to talk about it and that told me what I needed to know.

Where does this leave me? Mostly, it leaves me wanting to punch everybody in the entire world (except you). I have denied it as long as I can and tried to be friends, but I can't do it anymore. I like him, and I want the two of us to be together. He is thinking one of only two things: (1) He likes me too but is refusing to participate in a course of action that brings the two of us into a relationship; or (2) He does not have romantic feelings for me, but he flirts with me and fans the flames of my feelings for him because it cheers him up. Neither scenario appeals to me since it's basically a choice between cowardice and douchebaggery, but while he could rehabilitate himself from the first scenario, the second scenario is reprehensible.

I've been involved in a plethora of situations in which I had feelings for someone, and I wasn't sure if he might have feelings for me. In each and every one of these situations, there comes a point when a choice has to be made, and I think we're at that point, and I don't think he's ready to make any changes in his romantic life. There is something to the idea of timing, but I'm not sure my pride can endure the idea of waiting around any more for him to choose me. Either he wants to be with me or he doesn't, and right now, he doesn't. So, I guess it's time to disengage.

You're Vain, Your Games, You're Insecure, You Love Me, You Like Her, You Make Me Laugh, You Make Me Cry

I need to slap myself in the face over The Only Living Boy in New York. We had a fight today (he wouldn't characterize it that way) over some straight-up stupid shit, and it made me realize that I need to take some control over this situation and stop letting him dictate the terms of our relationship. (Tough talk considering what a big wimp I am when it comes to him, but I'm trying to change that.)

The Only Living Boy in New York and I have a mutual friend, a young woman who works with him (and, consequently, who used to work with me). He's been referring to this young woman as "Honeybee" in a play on her name that makes me very suspicious about the true nature of his feelings for her, so that's what I'll call her here. (As a side bar, I asked him point-blank if he had romantic feelings for Honeybee, and he denied it.) Honeybee has a fruit allergy. Back when Benessimo was still working with us, I made him this cake with cherries in it (which was delicious, by the way), and I specifically told Honeybee not to eat the cake because she would have an allergic reaction. She ate it anyway, and she broke out in some hives. For reasons I cannot possibly understand, she decided to tell The Only Living Boy in New York that I tried to poison her by feeding her fruit. He sent me an email accusing me of this and telling me that I was evil. I told him that I had explained to her that the cake had fruit in it and directed her not to eat it for that reason. He told me that Honeybees are attracted to sweet things and that I should have known she would eat it and then he called me evil again. I told him that I hated them both and that he sucks. I told her that she shouldn't have said those things to him, and her response was not to take it seriously.

I know he said these things to me to tease me. I know she didn't say anything to him to make me look bad. She doesn't have my overly-sensitive nature (that must be very nice for her), and she's a flirt, and she has stated that she can get any guy she wants to be interested in her. I don't think it would occur to her to exclude someone her friend likes from the universe of guys she wants to draw in. Even though I shouldn't take their comments to heart, I have, and I'm pissed at both of them, but mostly at him.

I wish I could be honest with him and say that I want him to resist being seduced by Honeybee (I mean that figuratively...mostly) and to stop teasing me and admit that he likes me as much as I like him. But I feel like we've already had the second part of that conversation, and if we can't have the second part, the first part doesn't matter very much. I've already made myself completely emotionally open to him when I told him that I liked him last Christmas. I can't continue to do it; it would be degrading and embarrassing.

Every month, I vow to unlink myself from The Only Living Boy in New York. I don't know what it's going to take for me to do that. If he comes back to me and tells me, let's say, that he and his girlfriend got engaged or, potentially even worse, he broke up with his girlfriend without simultaneously making a move to shove his tongue down my throat, I am going to be devastated and angry about wasting my time. The person I'll be angriest with will be me.

I can't abdicate responsibility for my own emotional wellbeing. No matter what happens with The Only Living Boy in New York, I have to be in charge of my own feelings. I truly believe that The Only Living Boy in New York likes me in a romantic sense, but he continues to stay with his current girlfriend and he continues not to tell me that he wants us to be together. Actions may speak louder than words, but words are not meaningless. His actions say he likes me, but his words say that he wants to ride things out with his girlfriend (in fairness, some of his actions, namely the inaction of not breaking up with his girlfriend).

I don't know where all of this leaves me. I have to do what makes me happy, and I have to work with the information that I have right now, not with the information that I hope will become true in the future.

If You Find Somebody to Love in this World, You Better Hang on Tooth and Nail

It's time for my monthly vow to put some distance between myself and The Only Living Boy in New York. I never keep this vow, and I'm not sure what it will take to make me keep it, but I make it every month or so.

Yesterday, we were having some more serious than usual discussions about a small life crisis he's experiencing over feeling like he needs to have a better grip on where he's headed. He asked me what I thought his ten-year plan should be, and I made him a semi-joking list of things he should do including, "Stop pretending that you're not in love with me when you obviously are so we can make out already." I put the jokes aside (or the non-jokes disguised thinly as jokes) when I realized he was genuinely going through something, and I told him that he's smart enough to succeed at anything he wants to do, so he needs to ask himself what's going to make him happy, and he seemed moved by that compliment. Then somehow today, we got on the topic of getting married (to each other) and having kids, and I said I didn't want to have any kids. He asked me if I was serious about that, and I said I was (and am) but that if I met the right person and it was important to him, I would be open to reconsidering. I told him that I don't want my entire life to be defined by being a mother and that I didn't want my kids dumped off on me the way my dad dumped my brother and me on my mom. And he said, "I guess we are all shaped, to a large extent, by our childhood. And you deserve no less from your future husband than someone who is going to be a true partner in every sense of the word."

I really care about this person, and the more time I spend talking to him, the more invested I become. Yet I can't seem to disengage. The Only Living Boy in New York is the person I want to talk to about everything, and I think he wants to talk to me about everything too, but he's not actually available to me. Since I'm not Carrie Bradshaw and I don't see love as a war of attrition, I don't think that waiting it out is going to produce a different result or magically make him available when he isn't, but I just can't seem to let go.

Little Red Riding Hood 3

I think I'm finally getting some traction on resolving this situation with the molester from the plane. For starters, he hasn't emailed me in several days, so that's a good sign. In addition, a detective from my local police department called me and, after hearing the story, proposed that I come down to the police station so he can write the molester an email from his police department email address telling him to "knock off the bullshit."

It made me feel better that the detective didn't minimize my concerns. I was afraid to report the harassment because I thought the police would say I was being hysterical or wasting their time, and that's the response I felt like I got from that female minister last weekend (though I might add she's the only one of the people I emailed who made any response at all, however inadequate it might have been), but the detective was pretty cool.

Little Red Riding Hood 2

I am so pissed right now that I could punch something.

I received a response this evening from one of the people I emailed about the ongoing harassment from the asshole from the plane. This person, a female minister, said the following:

"I am an in receipt of your email dated June 20, 2008. I am not certain how you obtained my email address but I will address your issues and concerns regarding your experience."

What the fuck? I sent this woman (and I think it's important to note here that the person I'm talking to is a female) an email saying, in essence, "Someone you invited to your church as a guest molested and harassed me" and the lead-off in her response is to query how I got her email address? Motherfucking Google is how I got her fucking email address, something I pointed out to her (albeit more tactfully) in my response. Does she seriously not think her email address (which, by the way, was her work email address, not her Gmail account or something) is not publicly available information? I sent her a link to the webpage I got it from for good measure.

It makes me so angry that the response of any human being, but particularly a woman, to the email I sent is to insinuate that her privacy was somehow unjustly encroached upon by my informing her of this problem. She should try being in my position and having some creepy guy who won't take no for an answer bearing down on her and see how invaded her privacy feels. It may be unfair of me to judge her more harshly as a woman than I would a man, but I expected a woman to be more sympathetic to a problem of this nature because I think that the problem I'm dealing with is unique to women. Men can be the victims of harassment and stalking and men can be molested or have inappropriate sexual advances foisted upon them, but I think that these are more likely to be offenses perpetrated against women by men. I have no statistics to back me up here, but that's what I think. Because of that, I would expect a woman to be more understanding or at least not to have her first response be a suggestion that I was somehow bothering her or invading her privacy (her non-existent privacy, I might add, since her email address is published right on the internet, freely available to anyone who Googles her name).

I don't think I would even have been so angry if she had just said she couldn't or wouldn't help me. My hope in emailing these people with whom this asshole is affiliated was to shame or alarm them into not inviting him back in the future and possibly putting some pressure on him (or him via his local minister) to stop bothering me. This woman who responded to me tonight is involved with what looks to be an extremely worthwhile charity and the asshole from the plane was here with his choir to participant in some kind of party or fundraiser for this charity. I'm sure the charity would not want it publicized that someone it invited to this country now has a police report filed against him.

I just want to scream.

Little Red Riding Hood

The disgusting molester from the plane will not desist. Last night, I had the inspired but ultimately flawed plan of telling this asshole that he was sending an email to the wrong person in an effort to make him think that I had given him a fake email address and that he was bothering some other innocent party. Unfortunately, he is a psycho but not a total idiot. I was able to piece together through his pidgin French that he was looking for me, that he said what I do for a living and the city I live in (though he erroneously stated that I live with my parents, giving me some hope that he didn't grasp everything I was saying though he seems to have gotten the salient points). I again stated that he should stop emailing me, and he sent yet another email. This is the second time I've directly told him to stop doing something and he didn't stop.

Even though I know it is unlikely that he will get a visa and come here from his country to attack me, I believe he is mentally unbalanced and that he believes he is in love with me, and that combination of factors makes him a loose cannon. I am afraid of him. Ignoring him does not dampen his ardor and flat-out telling him to stop emailing me makes him continue to email me. So, I decided to go back to solving the problem kindergarten-style and told an adult I could trust. In other words, I called the fucking cops on his ass.

I'm not sure whether the fucking cops I called on his ass can actually do anything to help me. I know enough about jurisdictional issues to know that they are complex. It would be hard enough for a police officer in my city to do something about harassing emails authored in another state, let alone another country, let alone a blip on the map in west Africa. My best case scenario is that the police report I filed today and whatever happens when I talk to the detective on my case will come up in the computer the next time this asshole applies for a visa to have the privilege to come to our beautiful country and he will have his fucking visa denied.

For good measure, I also did a Google search on the event he was in this country to attend and emailed every church official mentioned in connection with the event to tell them what happened and to suggest that they should not have him back here next year lest he come after me or molest someone else.

This situation makes me frightened and angry. Why can't this guy just fuck off? Why can't he take the hint that seven unreturned emails in a row is a brush-off? Why can't he take the hint that someone's saying to stop emailing means to stop emailing?

The King and I

I decided on southeast Asia over Peru. Peru fell in my esteem after a friend of mine who lived there for six months told me about a girl he knew who had two guys jump in the back of a cab with her and throw a bag over her head and drive her around to ATMs until her bank account was empty. Machu Picchu is undoubtedly a world treasure, but that is a fucking terrifying story.

Around the World in 80 Days

I can't stop researching travel on the internet. After I decided not to go to India next year or indeed until I can afford to throw some more money at the trip, I was left with a two-week gap for travel in 2009. I could go visit friends in Australia and New Zealand, to Russia, to Southeast Asia or to Peru. How to choose?

Love Will Be the Death of Me, Love is So Fickle, It Starts with a Flood and Ends With a Trickle

I decided I had to respond to Don Juan de Morocco's inquiry about applying for a visa to come here so we could be together. I didn't want to, but since I initiated contact with him, I felt responsible for his feelings to some degree. In addition to that, I at least try to treat others the way I want to be treated, and I would not want to be ignored.

The email I sent was perhaps not as strongly worded as it could have been, but I told him that I don't want him to come here just for me, even though it would be fun to see him. I suggested we see how things go and talk about it later. His response made me feel bad initially and then, as I considered it further, confused me. He said that, basically, he got the message that I didn't want to be with him (the part that made me feel bad, even though it is true), but that he didn't understand why I would say that he's only coming here to be with me and that he can just get a business visa instead. I would have to say that I thought he was only coming here to be with me because...those were his exact words. So, now I'm not sure whether I need to have some mild concerns that he's just going to turn up at my work.

I'm Sorry, I Can't, Don't Hate Me

Me: Part of me just wants to go ahead and marry [Don Juan de Morocco].

Mom: That part of you needs to shut the fuck up.

I'm still stymied on what to do about Don Juan de Morocco, so I decided to distract myself by going to see Sex and the City. I hadn't initially wanted to see the movie because I had serious problems with how ridiculous it is that Carrie and Big end up together when they are so clearly wrong for each other. ("Reformation of a cad" is one of my least favorite themes in film, TV and movies.) However, in the midst of all my blubbering, I came away with something from the movie that I think I can apply to my own life. In one scene, Carrie and Miranda take food from Pret a Manger (I love to eat there) to eat in Central Park and discuss Miranda and Steve's progress in couple's therapy. The therapist has forbidden Miranda and Steve from having any communication with each other for two weeks at the end of which, they have to turn up at a predetermined meeting place and leave the past behind if they still want to be together. Miranda, as she talks to Carrie, is agonizing over what she wants to do and whether she can show up to meet Steve at the appointed time and says she has a lot to think about. Carrie, in essence, corrects her by saying she has a lot to feel about. Carrie reminds Miranda that, as a lawyer, she can argue both sides of any argument but that she's ultimately going to have to follow her heart. Oh, Carrie. It's like you're talking right to me, girl.

In my own situation, my instincts with respect to Don Juan de Morocco are not to trust him. My heart says no, but my mind is trying to argue both sides. I was talking to Shorty, a friend of mine I met on the trip who accompanied Don Juan de Morocco and me on our date, last night about this issue. Shorty hated Don Juan de Morocco, but now that we're back in the U.S., she feels more sympathy for him, as do I. He's a young, well-educated, intelligent man in a country not exactly awash with opportunity. It's not hard to imagine why he might lock on to a woman that he likes from a first world country and try to leverage a mutual attraction into a ticket to a better life. I rarely think of myself as patriotic, but in thinking about Don Juan de Morocco's unfortunate and unfair situation, I have never felt luckier to be born in the United States. I don't think Don Juan de Morocco is a bad person or that he doesn't actually have fond feelings for me, and I don't fault him for wanting to take advantage of his window of youth and hotness to take a shot at better opportunities abroad (it is telling, in my opinion, that his previous girlfriend was British and that his Facebook friends are almost all women from first world countries), but that doesn't mean that I want to be the stepping stone he uses to get to the life he wants and probably deserves. I don't think that would be the life that I deserve.

Considering how little time I spent with Don Juan de Morocco, I have spent a lot of time thinking about him and I think he's changed me more in one meeting than other men have in far longer periods of time. He reminded me that I am not invisible to the opposite sex, and he made me feel good about myself. He also made me realize that I'm not as desperate as I feared I was, because I don't want to marry him even though I think I probably could. I was worried that my heart had turned into a cynical corn husk, but maybe there is still a little bit of romance pumping through there after all because I'm not ready to give up on the idea of meeting someone who is genuinely as excited about me as Don Juan de Morocco says he is and about whom I feel the same way.

Shorty asked me if I was sure that I didn't want to be with Don Juan de Morocco, and I am.

On the Boats and On the Planes, They're Coming to America

I heard back from Don Juan de Morocco, contrary to what I thought would happen. (This was also contrary to what my mom thought would happen, and she and I got into a big fight over how I was ruining a nice vacation memory for myself by pushing it too far. If only she were right.) He says he's filling out visa paperwork to come here to visit me so we can be together. (By "visit," I suspect he means "live indefinitely" not "hang out for a weekend.") I am in a state of sheer, unbridled panic. When I emailed him, I thought that if I received a response at all, it would be as colorless as my initial email and give me an update on how he has been doing since I left. As Lisa Loeb would say, "This is not that. I think that I'm throwing but I'm thrown."

Say What You Want to Satisfy Yourself But You Only Want What Everybody Else Says You Should Want

I decided to email Don Juan de Morocco. It was a two sentence email basically saying that I was sitting in a boring meeting and wondered what he was up to.

I agonized for days (as you may have noticed) over whether to email him at all and eventually deconstructed my feelings into what became yesterday's post. I have to say, it's a damn shame that Don Juan de Morocco doesn't live in my hometown because a relationship based principally on physical attraction would be a welcome change from my current life. (Maria von Trapp got more action before she left the convent. Climb ev'ry mountain indeed.) But as I hemmed and hawed and tried to talk myself out of emailing him, I finally thought, "Fuck it. Why not?"

Why not? I mean, it's obvious that I over-analyze everything. I have a blog, which is a sure sign of an overly analytical mind. In one way, I'm glad that I think about things because it's important to understand why I do what I do so I can change or keep habits as is helpful and appropriate for my goals in life. In another way, I'd like to become a little bit more impulsive because people who live in the moment always appear to me to be having more fun. I decided that it was sending an email, not getting a tattoo and that I obviously wanted to do it since I had considered it for several days and still hadn't put it out of my mind.

That being said, I don't really think I'm going to hear back from him. I'm mostly okay with that. Obviously, I'd like him to continue his unabashed fawning, but the actions I'm taking are more about me than him.

I Can't Forget the Glamor, Your Eyes Held a Tender Light

Having not heard from Don Juan de Morocco since we friended each other on Facebook, I surmise that I am not going to. This bothers and does not bother me in equal measure.

On the one hand, the relationship is not a runner. I believe that it is possible to fall in love with someone almost instantly; most people I know who feel they have met "the one" say they knew within a date or two. I also don't think it's necessarily an impediment to falling in love that two people be from different countries, cultures, religions. So, it was possible for Don Juan de Morocco and I to fall in love, but we didn't. I didn't, anyway, and I suspect he feels likewise. That said, I know he's someone I'll always think of from time to time with fondness because he was so refreshingly interested in me. The stumbling blocks to our having a relationship (the aforementioned differences of country, culture and religion) are not obstacles that I have ever faced in any serious way. The stumbling block I usually face -- the "he's just not that into you" problem best exemplified by my relationship with The Only Living Boy in New York -- was wonderfully absent. Don Juan de Morocco made me feel beautiful and chosen and he showed me a good time, and I love him for that, even if I didn't fall in love with him.

On the other hand, the exhilaration I felt at Don Juan de Morocco's locking onto me like a cruise missile is not a sensation easily forgotten or set aside. It is emotional crack, and I would very much like to continue feeling the same high over and over again. I forgot (or never knew) that dating could be fun and uplifting rather than a campaign of blitzkrieg for the self-esteem. For that reason, I can't seem to tie a bow around the Don Juan de Morocco experience and put it on a shelf.

I know that Don Juan de Morocco and I could never have a long-term relationship because of one simple thing: conversation. As an avid collector of "how we met" stories, I can state with some authority that a common thread in virtually all of them is that the couple said they just loved talking to each other and felt like they could continue their conversation for hours. I was really done talking to Don Juan de Morocco after about an hour. It's not that he is dumb or boring -- quite the contrary -- but we just didn't have a strong connection on that level. Our connection was more at the physical level. There are all kind of relationships out there, and I would not characterize any of them as "good" or "bad," but I will say that I am looking to connect at a mental and emotional level as much as or more than at a physical level.

Unfortunately, the man with whom I feel the strongest emotional connection and to whom I never seem to run out of things to say is The Only Living Boy in New York, and he is endlessly frustrating. I, who never think anyone likes her, know that The Only Living Boy in New York likes me and has liked me since we met. I also know that I told him at Christmas that I like(d) him, and he said that he and his girlfriend had been together for over a year, that things were going well, and that (in so many words) he did not intend to chuck her. My sneaking suspicion is that his relationship with his girlfriend is going to end (I have no idea what kind of person she is, but I am certain that she has "he's just not that into you" problems with him), and we are headed inexorably toward revisiting the issue of our being together. Part of me craves that moment, and part of me dreads it because part of me thinks uncynically that we are meant to be together and part of me, while still believing we are meant to be, wants to wring his neck because he should have broken up with his unsatisfactory girlfriend as soon as I told him how I felt. I love him (though I am not saying that I am in love with him, not exactly), but I am going to be a little bit annoyed if my fate is to marry an emotional coward. If he can't take the comparatively tiny chance of breaking up with a girl he's patently not that excited about to pursue an enticing alternative, what does that say about the chances he'll be prepared to take in the future? Idiot.

The ideal would be to combine Don Juan de Morocco and The Only Living Boy in New York into some kind of superman. So far, we have not found the science.

Do I Attract You? Do I Repulse You, With my Queasy Smile?

So, Don Juan de Morocco confirmed me as his friend on Facebook, but he didn't respond to my brief message to him regarding my safe return home. He also seems to have a large proportion of female friends, at least one of whom refers to him by a vomit-inducing diminutive version of his name. I'm disappointed on both counts, even though both were what I expected. Given that we didn't seem to have hit a conversational geyser on our one date, our prospects for being good pen pals are bleak. Again, I am disappointed but unsurprised.

Am I Too Dirty? Am I Too Flirty? Do I Like What You Like?

So, continuing my tales of what went on in Morocco...I kind of met someone there. Let's call him Don Juan de Morocco. Don Juan de Morocco works two jobs, one of which is at the carpet store where I met him, and has a masters degree in psychology. When we met at the carpet store, I looked like the wreck of the Hesperus, but he still zoomed in on me. He was chatting me up while he showed my married friends and me around the weaving area and the view over the city, and he asked me if I have a boyfriend. Since I thought he was smoking hot and rocking the body karate (we were all invited to the guns show), I admitted that I do not. He said, "The men in your country have no eyes." Swoon. He tried to get me to have dinner with him, but I said that I couldn't because I was obligated to have dinner with my tour group. He wanted to give me his contact information anyway, and while he was off fetching one of his business cards, my married friends urged me to give him the address to our hotel and suggest meeting for coffee or tea after dinner. He agreed to meet me at 11 that night. We spent the rest of the group's time in the carpet store chatting. He even asked me how many kids I want.

It occurred to me after setting up this date that it might not be the smartest idea in the world to go off late at night by myself in a strange city where I don't really speak the language with a man I've only just met. Occasionally, I use my brain. So, I invited my married friends and my other friend to tag along and keep me from being dragged along to the raperie. My tour guide was not so thrilled about my going out with a local, which I understand because if I disappear like that poor Natalie Holloway girl in Aruba, he's going to be the one to explain to my furious mother and the international media that he let me go because I'm a grown up and he couldn't physically restrain me. He visibly brightened when I told him that I intended to bring along chaperones.

The date was a mixed bag, but I had a great time. At the carpet store, we had been chatting pretty casually despite obviously being into each other, but he came on stronger when we grabbed a drink. I had spruced myself up as much as I could considering that I hadn't brought anything appropriate for a date, and he told me I looked beautiful, which was very nice to hear. He also wasn't any too amused that I brought my friends along. At one level, I understand his disappointment but at another level, he ought to at least make an effort to understand that you don't develop enough trust in a person to be certain he won't date rape you or abandon you late at night in a sketchy part of an unfamiliar city after knowing him less than one hour. My friends sat at a different table, so we had some privacy.

He gave me a lot of compliments during the date, which I enjoyed. Who doesn't like to hear that she has beautiful eyes and a beautiful smile? It's something I never hear except from my mom, so it was really nice to hear it from a hot guy. He also told me that he wants to be in a serious relationship, and that he really likes me and that he wants me to allow him to love me (whatever that means). That was also nice to hear. I have struggled for the past decade with the issue of always being the pursuer, so it was refreshing to be pursued, especially by someone much hotter than the guys I've been chasing around for ten years.

There were also things that I didn't like so much about the date. Mainly, there was a lot of talk about s-e-x. It wasn't dirty talk exactly but rather puns on the words "come" and "eating" and a soliloquy (by him) on the difference between having sex and making love. (Frankly, the only person I want to hear say "making love" is Sami Brady.) I am prudish when it comes to talking about sex. Even if friends want to tell me a story that involves a sexual escapade, I like them to plow through (no pun intended) the sex part as quickly as possible and get to the part about the emotions so I can give advice. He also laid it on pretty thick with a couple of stories that seemed a little dubious. Namely, he supports his parents and younger siblings financially (I tended to believe this part, and I have heard that it is actually somewhat common in Morocco for this to happen, especially given the country's high rate of unemployment) and that his last serious relationship ended two years ago when the woman died in a car accident. My friends did not believe his stories at all, for the record, and thought he was way too smooth.

I don't know what to think. He invited me back to his apartment, but he didn't push the issue when I declined. He wanted me to promise him that I would come back to Morocco to visit him and suggested that we could keep in touch via Facebook, instant messenging, Skype, and so forth. We discussed whether he would ever move to the United States (yes, if he met the right person, which is a fair enough answer), and whether he would want me to convert to Islam (he said I didn't have to but that he would be my slave if I did). We also discussed having kids (he wants two or three compared to my none and volunteered to take care of the kids under the belief that I would eventually grow to love our children). Did I mention this date took place in under an hour?

The other thing that I felt ambivalent about was the fact that he kissed me at the restaurant twice. We were seated outside, in front of Allah and the world. In Morocco, public displays of affection between the sexes are just not on. Men are more affectionate with other men than they are here and women can be affectionate with other women, but there is no public crossing of the gender line really. He's a good kisser, so I liked that part, but I felt a little uncomfortable about it as well because I doubt he would have done that if I were a girl from his own country. So, in that sense, I felt a little bit disrespected even though he asked my permission before kissing me. That doesn't make much sense, but even though I wanted it to happen, I felt like he should treat me the same way he would treat a girl from Morocco.

Anyway, we ended the evening with his letting me know that he doesn't have any of my contact information and I have all of his, so I should get in touch. My friends were happy for me that I enjoyed my evening, but they thought he was way too slick and disingenuous and that all he wanted was s-e-x. I wasn't so sure one way or the other what his deal was. It was kind of telling that I didn't really feel that excited about continuing the conversation beyond the brief period of time we had together -- when I hear "how we met" stories from couples I think are good together, there is always a component of wanting to talk to each other for hours and hours.

Given my confusion, I decided to invite him to be my friend on Facebook. It's a non-threatening way to get to know someone. You can restrict how much information the person gets about you while still having email and even chat access to him. He has yet to approve my friend request, so I'm coming around to the idea that my friends might have been right about his unsavory intentions. I'm not too invested in the situation, so if he doesn't want to be my Facebook friend, I'm not too torn up about it. It still makes for a great story, and it really kicked my self-esteem up a notch to have someone hot and smart showering me with compliments and putting forth such effort, even if the effort was only to get me to sleep with him. It gave me hope that one day, someone more appropriate and accessible might come along and see those same things and put in that kind of effort to win me over.

You Choose, You Learn, You Pray, You Learn, You Ask, You Learn, You Live, You Learn

I returned last night from Morocco, happy to be home. Don't get me wrong -- I had a wonderful time on my trip. But it was intense and fast-paced, and I slept less on vacation than I do normally in real life, so it was a relief to take a shower in a non-handheld shower and sleep in my own bed with my own dog.

The trip started off horribly. I did not remember that my plane tickets were paper tickets rather than e-tickets due to the fact that I haven't had a paper ticket in at least five years. My travel agent had mentioned this fact to me six months ago when I bought the tickets, but I of course did not remember. She mailed me the tickets without mentioning it to me, and they didn't get here until after I'd already departed for the airport. Not having remembered that I was waiting for a paper ticket, it never occurred to me to worry. When I got to the airport and discovered the problem, I ended up having to buy a completely new ticket (essentially, they resold me my previous ticket) and fill out a lost ticket form. I now await a refund from the airline and am hoping not to be out $1200.

Having surmounted the ticket obstacle, I mistakenly assumed things would improve. In fact, they would get worse before they got better. My flight to Casablanca included a large number of passengers from a church choir in Ivory Coast returning from a singing engagement in the U.S., and my seatmate was a man in their group. He started chatting with me innocently enough, as one does with one's seatmate on a long plane flight, and between his English and my French, we made small talk reasonably well. In retrospect, I made several mistakes that seemed innocent enough at the time that I recommend you, gentle reader, avoid: (1) when he asked me for my email address, I gave him the real one; (2) when he asked me if I have a boyfriend, I said no; and (3) when he asked me if I have any problems with dating black guys, I said no. Before long, he was telling me he loved me, trying to hold my hand, and trying to put his hand in my lap or my hand up his thigh. I told him to stop and that he was being inappropriate, and he would not stop, protesting his love for me. It's kind of a funny story now, but at the time, I really freaked out. Here I was, sitting with this man who was trying to molest me, who refused to stop when I asked and told him to do so, and I had no place to escape. Not only that, but it was an overnight flight, and the cabin was dark and most of my fellow passengers were sleeping. I decided it was time to solve the problem six-year-old style and tell an adult I could trust. I told this creepy molester that I felt sick to my stomach (true) and went to tell a flight attendant what happened. While most of my flying experiences seem designed to denude me of the least little shred of dignity, I must commend the flight attendants of this airline for sympathetically addressing my problem and moving me to a new seat in the non-molesting section. I evaded the molester for the rest of the plane ride and escaped the Casablanca airport without seeing him. However, when I returned home, I had two emails from him, titled "salutation" and "love," both of which were deleted unread. As I said, looking back on the situation, I can see where I made mistakes. I should have been more aloof, and I shouldn't have been so worried about telling him the truth (rather than inventing a boyfriend or a husband for myself) or appearing racist. Women are socialized to be polite and friendly, and my first instinct in any situation is to tell the truth, but that sometimes leads to being taken advantage of, especially when interacting with someone from a culture that believes American women are easy and that women in general should behave more coyly.

The trip did get a lot better after that. Morocco is a beautiful country filled with delicious, if diarrhea-inducing, food and extremely good-looking men who all think I'm a hot piece of American hard candy. I made several good friends on the trip that I think will go beyond our shared circumstances of traveling together to be real friends in my real life -- two single girls and a married couple. The male half of the married couple was constantly mistaken for a Berber, the native people of Morocco, and his wife, the other two girls and me, were at least occasionally confused for his numerous wives. One merchant in Marrakesh asked him how many camels he wanted for me. I am glad he did not try to make that trade.