He's a writer -- fiction with a noir twist.
I'm a writer -- features and opinions with an upbeat or a religion incline.
And never the twain will met.
Except that we did, one day, at a local mall, thanks only to a phone call from him.
Because I did something I've never done before to a potential date -- I forgot I'd made it.
And when he called, after waiting for me until a less polite person would have gotten up and left, I wanted to crawl into a cave somewhere. But I didn't. I hopped into my car and drove to the mall.
We weren't "meant to be" -- if there is a "meant to be." But I was impressed by his intelligence, his sense of humor, and the fact that he seemed, in spite of the subject matter of his novels, quite normal. Genuine. Hopefully, in spite of the religion-themed subject matter of my columns, I did, too.
Oh my goodness, a nice guy.
Today, as I idly scanned the status updates, I noticed that his had changed. He's gone from "single" to "in relationship."
Yippee, I want to yell. Good job, man! You beat the odds.
But I quietly checked "like" instead.
And as I did, I confessed to having a small pang of...well, not envy so much as wistfulness.
I sometimes wonder what it would feel like to be a moderate person in a relationship with a guy of the same temperament. To go for a walk in a state park with him on a Saturday morning. To eat bagels on the deck or watch a cable movie. To read (how old-fashioned) the Sunday newspapers and share pieces of it across the sofa. To talk to him last thing at night, just checking-in.
I don't know if that will ever happen for me. To this point, I haven't been willing to risk sinking in the acid bath of bitterness and drama that often accompanies guys (or women) on their trajectory out of a previous relationship.
I'm not sure how much, frankly, I'm willing to risk. There are downsides to being congenitally temperate, yanno.
It's not that I've ruled out magic -- but I still expect to find that little guy behind the curtain, making the thunder clap and steam shoot out.
A good guy, yes.
But a very bad wizard.
