SWIFTLY SPEAKING

I wanna be Taylor Swift.

Not for her nasally voice. I think I’ve got that already. Not for her fame. I wouldn’t be able to handle the paparazzi. (My side profile shots are frightening.) And not for her closetful of trophies. Nothing could ever top my fifth place ribbon I won earned as a seven-year-old in the neighborhood watermelon seed spitting contest. (In truth, there were no ribbons. But it was a moment. With six of us participating, it was the first athletic endeavor wherein I didn’t come last. A victory of sorts. I fashioned my award by tearing a strand from my bed sheet, thinking my mother would never notice. That’s another story...)

I want to fall in love like Taylor does. Swiftly. Did her name create a self-fulfilling prophecy? Perhaps I’ll change my last name. Forget Swift. I’m no groupie. How about Lovemore? Or Firstglance? No, I think I’ll go with (You Had Me at) Hello. Why not? If kids are getting names like Apple and 7, I am going to be James (You Had Me at) Hello. Nice ring to it, no? And I like the parenthetical homage to The Carpenters’ “(They Long toBe) Close to You”. No one else will make the link, but the name is for me.

Perhaps as James Hello I’ll become socially ept. (Clearly, I’ve mastered inept. Why can’t I be ept? No such thing?! By god, how am I supposed to right things?) Maybe the whole name thing needs more thought.

Back to Taylor Swift. This is a woman who falls in love. A lot. True, guys line up for her. Fame, money, trophies. Maybe I’ll go back to wearing my bed-sheet ribbon.

Joe Jonas.

Taylor Lautner.

John Mayer.

Jake Gyllenhaal. (Ah, Jake. This one was the keeper, Taylor.)

Conor Kennedy.

Harry Stiles.

These are all brief relationships. According to my trusty Wiki research, none has exceeded four months. But Taylor would never call them “flings”. Love. Truly, Madly, Deeply. (Aside: Whatever happened to SavageGarden?)

For me, it’s not about the fact the relationships end. My focus is on getting something to start. For the past decade, I’ve been this sad sack, stranded on a quasi-island, failing miserably at survival. Lots of rubbing stones together to try to make a spark, a fire. Nothing. No matches. No light.

Taylor believes in love. Taylor finds love. She is known for bashing her exes in song, but her lyrics are also laced with hope and romance. Listen to “Love Story” again. “Today Was a Fairytale”. Sense the longing in “Teardrops on My Guitar” or “You Belong with Me”. All summer her duet with Ed Sheeran, “Everything Has Changed”, squiggled through my brain like an earworm. It amused me as a tale of falling fast.

All I knew this morning when I woke
Is I know something now, know something now I didn't before.
And all I've seen since eighteen hours ago
Is green eyes and freckles in your smile
In the back of my mind making me feel right.

'Cause all I know is we said, "Hello."                            [As in (You Had Me at)!]
And your eyes look like coming home
All I know is a simple name
Everything has changed.
All I know is you held the door
You'll be mine and I'll be yours
All I know since yesterday is everything has changed.

The jaded part of me dismisses it all as the thinking of a young mind. So naïve. So open. I was that once. An ex (and his mother; both cynical) once described me as a deer in the headlights: innocent, hopeful, and wholly unaware of the harshness ahead. Now I am guarded. I’ve been cheated on, abused and, of late, completely passed over. Yes, Taylor, there is a country song in me if I can ever feel comfortable leaving off word beginnings endings and tossin’ ‘round apostrophes.

But I’d like to get back to being hopeful or, at the very least, suspending disbelief.

Hope is a start. Opportunity is another hurdle. Someone hold the door. Green eyes and freckles or not, show me that smile.

I can’t keep rubbing rocks together. I have no interest in being on “Survivor”. I need a spark, a flame, some warmth. Bring it on. 

Swiftly.

“COMMON” SENSE

What makes a good match? About two months ago, I signed up for another online dating website, Match.com, feeling that a moratorium was in effect at Plenty of Fish. (Not that overfishing ever occurred, but stocks were clearly depleted.)

Sad to say, the prospects at Match.com are even less promising. Still, once or twice a week, the site generates a list of possible matches for me. I get an email, suggesting that I take a look at GnomeLover49’s profile and pointing out some commonalities in our profile.

Like you, he is a non-smoker.
He also goes to the gym.
He also likes to travel.

Wow. I know I’ve said in the past that I’d just be relieved if the guy breathes, applies deodorant and washes his hands after urinating—yeah, I know, that last expectation eliminates a lot of guys, but it’s a non-negotiable. A non-smoking, gym-visiting traveler? Jackpot!

Or maybe not. How much should a date or a potential partner and I have in common? When I was new to dating, I genuinely thought there was great potential because the slightly inebriated guy chatting me up also liked a song by Ce Ce Peniston. (Sadly, neither the guy nor Ce Ce lived up to their potential.) In retrospect, I was probably slightly inebriated too...and a little too smitten by the guy’s high cheekbones. On another occasion, I felt a spark with a guy because we had a two-minute sharing about our dislike for Geraldo Rivera. Another time, I got excited because a guy with thick, curly brown locks liked all the Golden Girls. Even Dorothy!

I was surprised—no, shocked!—that none of these relationships lasted longer than, well, a night. In those days before cell phones, I’d rush into my apartment, unimpressed by my unblinking answering machine. Blankety blank. Seems some people don’t immediately think in terms of for better or worse and happily ever after. And so began my jaded period.

In time, however, I changed my perspective on what to look for in a potential mate. Maybe having things in common didn’t matter at all. I told myself that it was about mutual respect. Understanding and accepting the differences was more important than liking Savage Garden and “Murphy Brown”. I decided to embrace differences. Let my guy be a Hulk Hogan enthusiast. Listen as he rambles on about how Ross Perot would have been a fine U.S. president. Allow him to waste his Sundays watching golf on television. I’d love him, warts and all.

With a fresh new outlook, I hooked up with a guy who quit a successful career in real estate and moved into a camper trailer while training to become a personal life coach. Next, I dated a guy who’d found his spark after joining a women’s knitting club. During each date he’d spoil me with a special gift, a small hand-crafted knit square—actually something between a square and a circle--, lovingly rendered in a shade of my favorite color, green. I never figured out what to do with the quasi coasters so I shoved them in a shoebox where I keep the latch-hook bookmarks I received from a nun I used to know.

Okay, sometimes differences are just too, um, different. Seems I’ve spent too much time on the far reaches of the pendulum. As I’ll share in my next post regarding my latest dating adventure, having at least one core interest or belief in common can at least provide a solid base. And if he can name at least one CeCe Peniston song, well then, bonus points!