7.15.2009

Death by Affection

And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful house!
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful wife!
- David Byrne

It's not you, it's me...
On second thought, it is you. Definitely you.

Stephen and I share a mutual friend at work, who noticed we both loved going to the beach - maybe we could go together. During dinner, he opened up about losing his wife almost 2 years ago (on my birthday!) from cancer, after 19 years of marriage. A sign. Indeed.

He told me that he and his 13 year old son were going to Panama City Beach over Memorial weekend - would I like to go with them? I agreed, not realizing how excrutiatingly slow three days could drag.

For lack of a better adjective, Stephen is sweet. When I couldn't make up my mind at dinner, he ordered my second choice so I could try both meals; decided Bud Light was his favorite beer (after a lifetime of Miller products), then remembered he loved 80's music (after hearing what I liked). He was affectionate, constantly trying to hold my hand, hanging on every word, staring and telling me how beautiful I am. Sweet? Smothering and vomit-inducing. Too much affection apparently makes me crabby.

He was ready to put his house on the market and move to my town 45 mintues away. I told him I admired his decision to date, but it would probably be difficult for his son to handle other women in his mom's place. "Teenage boys bottle up their emotions," I wisely told him. "You might want to hold back with affection" (which was a much nicer way of saying, "My personal space. Your personal space. Back off!")

I really want to like him. I really can't. Women want spineless, romantic men? Give me an unstable, emotionally unavailable man any day. I've simply decided I don't trust anyone this much into me...call when you have better taste in women. [The good news is that breaking up is finally getting easier to do. I even threw out the "let's still be friends" card, knowing that will never happen].

5 comments:

flooz said...

Your last paragraph--so funny and unfortunately true of most women (I believe of all women, but I guess that there might be one or two who would find that behavior attractive). I guess there are two possibilities--he's the kind who fast-forwards a lonely woman into loving him and then he disappears; or he'll be forever in love with you now because he is also drawn to the unavailable.

Sultan said...

It is amazing how true to life this post is.

Anonymous said...

All true.

Can I take that as a "no" then?

junquedujour said...

is there really a woman out there that is not attracted to the 'bad boys'?
i'm thinking not - or perhaps i just have not met one.

Haphazardkat said...

Like Elton John sang, "I need a rougher kind of love"

I totally get that.