Posted November 18th, 2003 by Michelle

Suddenly I realize that maybe lightning won’t strike.

All this time, all these years, I figured that it would be in the moment I met him. I thought I’d know immediately that he was the one. Lately, when I shake a man’s hand for the first time, I either consider him or completely write him off. It’s a phenomenon in my life. When you hit your 30’s, you’ve never been married, you’ve been single for almost three years, you start to evaluate parts of your life in broad brush strokes. Every time I’m introduced to a man, I wonder if he might be the one I marry. I’ve yet to shake the man who will get that particular honor; this doesn’t stop the thought process. But I’ve been waiting for it- the moment that I look up and meet the right man’s eyes and maybe there won’t be music suddenly but it, “it” will happen.

Just tonight, Carole mentioned something about one of my old friends, how she wished that something might happen with him, and my dad cut her off. “Just… stop…” he said, smiling, holding his hands out as if to halt a car about to roll off a cliff. Her comment meant little to me, in that I feel no remorse about this guy who is just a friend. First of all, I’m lucky to have his friendship, but also, I long ago categorized him, filed him away. According to my current thinking, he will always be to me exactly what he is today.

Now I’m about 95% sure about this. I’m know he’s categorized me in the same way. We have a great time together but we’re not entirely compatible. But tonight I doubt myself. Could I actually fall in love with someone who didn’t knock me over at first conversation? Could it eventually happen with someone I see every day? I wonder, I wonder. I have little doubt that I’ve already met and lost him. In fact, I’m sure. I do know that I’ve invented something that wasn’t there about a hundred times, and once, not too long ago, had something real and beautiful that just wasn’t meant to be. But… I don’t know… my life is so different right now and I barely remember what I’m supposed to do, who exactly I am sometimes. It’s strange to not be lonely or sad, particularly since those two dark feelings dug in, threatened me more than ever the minute I decided to move here. They were pretty sure they’d get their hold and find a home in my new life. But they’ve yet to find me. God knows they hovered around my New York apartment, patient, waiting for a chance to strike.

I’m 31 years old. I’ve not fallen in love since I was 22. I’ve never had a partnership, never had a truly good man as a partner in my life. I’ve never chosen anyone who had any capability to take care of me on any level. I’ve never had the right guy, only the wrong, be totally blown away by me. I’ve had many shallow relationships, days or nights or months that left me with my head in my hands, cross-legged on the floor, amazed by what the need for companionship would sometimes drive me to do. I invented so many people who simply didn’t exist. True to form, I sampled parts of people’s personalities, like so many chocolates, and ignored the parts that weren’t to my taste. I’m infamous in my family for biting open six See’s candies and then leaving the rest when I found the caramel one. I did this with the people in my life. Such strange bedfellows, so to speak. The friends I chose, the lovers, the short-lived relationships, the longer-lived relationships, some so insignificant I didn’t bother to mention them, even when they dragged on.

And yet, I do not despair. Why?

I really don’t know. I do not know why I’m not beside myself that I have yet to find love. It’s not even that I have faith. I just, I just cannot be unhappy about what I cannot control. I can only feel good, and sleep soundly at night, that I haven’t made any more terrible decisions.