Women, coming and going

I hate being alone. I want a girlfriend yesterday and some other interesting people in my life to boot so I don't have to stay in my head on evenings like this. I went on a very good date on Saturday, with a girl who is pretty much perfect in every way but one. She's very pretty, but in a manner I've never really been attracted to. Cute rather than beautiful, she's 24 but could easily pass for 18. I am inclined to describe her as a less angular, younger and cuter Annie Hall. I could be full of shit but that's what I thought on the date. Despite this small problem, she really is pretty much perfect and I'm inclined to shut my mouth, thank the dating gods for sending someone so interesting my way and court, court, court like a French king trying to secure his position by marrying an English princess (even though I don't believe in marriage). She's an opera singer (a "baby" Soprano as she put it) and pays the bills by working for a fashion designer and waitressing. She's smart, funny and intense. I already feel like I have to work harder to be worthy, and that's fine by me. I think the people around you, particularly someone so close as a girlfriend, should inspire you to be a better person. Did I mention that she can dance? We were at some funny little French place in the LES when they started to play some pretty decent dance moves and like a man taking a car for a test drive, I offered my hand to see what she'd meant when she described herself as a dancing machine. What a machine! You know how hard it is to find a non-Hispanic girl in North America who knows how to follow on the dance floor? They played a few salsa numbers and some other stuff that I know the rhythm but not the name of, and dancing with her really was the most delightful experience. I asked afterwards how she'd learned to dance and she replied Cuban ex-boyfriend. See what I mean by having to work to keep up? She seemed like she'd had fun dancing with me, but how does a man relax knowing the girl he's with used to dance with a Cuban and his family? Anyway, the date went well and I was felt pretty good at the end of the evening. At this moment, not so much. I sent a text message the next day saying it'd been good to spend time with her and that I'd like to see her again, soon. No reply. Gah. She might simply be busy. Actually I know she's pretty busy, but it takes about ten seconds to compose and send a reply. I just wanted some ackowledgement that I wasn't the only one who'd enjoyed the date. And now I have to almost physically restrain myself from calling because I don't want to be too pushy and fuck things up. Anyway, that's what going on right now.

The Brazilian is leaving at the end of the week, and we've been spending a lot of time together in anticipation of that. As they always do, things have become more intense the closer to departure she gets. She's moving to Italy to work for the same fashion company she was working for here. She's got some trepidation because she'd rather have moved home to Brazil, but she couldn't get a job there so she took the position offered her in Italy. And now she's stressed about life and happiness and family and whether she'll be able to find fulfillment on all those fronts in Italy. One of the awkward aspects of the relationship between the Brazilian and I has been communication. I've not done much of it. I once mentioned how my relationship with her felt almost like an affair. Well, that's cause I treated it as such. There were reasons for that. One, we both knew almost as soon as we met that she was leaving the US at the end of March, thus preventing us from attempting to form anything too close in terms of attachment. Secondly and more damning for me though is that I never really thought I ought to be with her. Meeting her at a crazy Halloween party where she was almost unrecognizable, yet incredibly foxy in some crazy wig and a micro mini skirt, I thought of her as someone I'd have a one night stand with and then never call again. When she refused to give me her phone number, I ought to have known to leave well alone. But I didn't, instead going on a date with her where I failed to correct a small but rapidly snowballing lie I'd told on the night we met. You will probably like me a lot less after the following disclosure. It was a small lie. As we made out at the Halloween party in someone's ridiculous loft, she mentioned that she was 34 and asked how old I was. Calculating the likelihood of my ever seeing her again and putting that against the derision I almost always get from older women for being younger, I tacked on an extra four years to my age. A small enough lie right? I haven't corrected it yet. Yes, four months after I met her, she still thinks I'm four years older than I really am. of course in order to cover up that lie, I've had to tell a few more. I mean, my birthday was in January and I couldn't invite her to it or explain why I couldn't, so I simply didn't tell her about it. So when she asked a few days ago when my birthday was, I had to make up a date. You may reserve whatever vitirol you're thinking of spitting in my comment section. Whatever you're thinking of calling me, I've called myself worse. It really does bother me to deceive a person in this manner and it's created a strain throughout our relationship that's prevented me from being myself or opening up much to her. Strange now that I actually consider the possibility that we will stay in touch and maybe stay friends when she moves away. What happens a few years down the line when she realizes my deception? No, this is not one of the finer acts of my life.

While I don't make a habit of such horrendous deceptions, I do wonder what things like this do to my soul. Not that I believe in religion, but I do have some concept of an internal spirit that's damaged by our falsities, foolishness, greed, pride and all those other human foibles; and I wonder what condition mine is in. What right do I have to ask for happiness or love in a relationship, if I so cavelierly deceive someone who invests themselves, however slightly, in a relationship of some sort with me. Anyway, enough of the public self-flagellation. This isn't a request for pity or even a bid to be despised. It was a stupid little lie that I should have owned up to early in our relationship but I didn't because I wasn't really letting her in that close to me anyway. I suppose the more important point in the whole thing is what I was doing with someone I was so reluctant to let close to me. Our communication's never been great and I do still think we're definitely not right for each other. But I've grown fond of her and as she leaves, I do regret and am horrified at the deception and also at what it does to the possibilities for us to be friends in the future. As much as I consider marriage to not be for me, she's someone who clearly wants it and I'd have loved to be there when she found someone she thought worthy of spending her life with. As it is, I know it's far more likely that I'll allow us to fall out of touch so I'm nothing but a pleasant memory from the past for her.