very soon it’s going to happen…

I’m going to tell Funny Guy about the blog.

I can’t stand it anymore, having this secret from him.

ON THE MINUS SIDE

Yes, I’ll lose this ‘private space’ for talking about him.

If a crisis occurs in this relationship, I won’t be able to run it by my readers ‘privately.’

But ON THE PLUS SIDE

Really, after almost nine weeks of spending time with him, I ought to be able to run any crisis directly by Funny Guy himself. We talk very openly, and we have to continue doing that. And I do have a psychiatrist, though for various reasons I haven’t seen him for over a month.

And this is the real reason: I can’t stand having this secret from him (as I said above, in more or less these same words). I told Performer and Plan C about the blog much earlier in our relationships, and it didn’t affect my blogability.

I don’t know whether Funny Guy will read it or not, but I’ve got to tell him. It’s preying on my mind.

* * *

In fact, what I’d like to do is what I did in November 2007 with my friend Marion, namely, co-write a post with Funny Guy, after I’ve told him about the blog.

I think it would be fun if you heard his voice directly.

Now, whether he would agree to that, I don’t know.

Maybe not.

But depending on how things seem, and how he takes this bit of information, we might do it.

* * *

I’m thinking that I’ll tell him Friday, because then we’ll be spending a few days together, and I won’t have to be anxious about what he’s thinking, because he’ll be with me and he can tell me how he feels.

* * *

So whatever the result, this is something I have to do, and the sooner the better.

* * *

The next post should be interesting…………

* * *
UPDATE
11:49 PM Wednesday

Funny Guy just went home after watching the Tour de France highlights here.

As we were embracing goodnight (and talking), he said, You’re the most honest person on the planet.

All the more reason, I think, to tell him about the blog sooner (Friday) rather than later (in 3 weeks), though my commenters think otherwise.

And believe me, I take you guys seriously…

* * *

After our conversations tonight (during the commercials; Funny Guy loves the Tour de France, and it’s fun to watch it with him; far more interesting, I have to say, than the tedious golf tournaments I watched with Plan C; a fast sport is more exciting to watch), I think I can anticipate a little better Funny Guy’s response. He sees me as bruised by a lot of bad treatment at the hands of men, and he wants to ‘make it up’ to me. (I saw myself more in terms of the bad choices I’d made…duh.) He thinks I’m braced for something bad to happen with him, from him; that I’m super cautious, always expecting that he’ll be angry or irritated — when he never is, or at least hasn’t been yet.

Thus, I think, he’ll see my dithering over this matter, when I tell him about it, as an inner debate about how much self-protection I need. To wait till three months, to delay telling him about it, is to preserve a space of privacy away from him, a space I might need if something unpleasant happens; whereas to tell him sooner is to act with more faith in him.

Of course (from the practical point of view) I believe that telling Performer and Plan C about the blog, which I did much earlier in our relationships, had no significant effect on those relationships. Telling them was probably a sign of trust, misplaced in the case of Performer, but ultimately it made no difference whatsoever.

* * *

My own feeling is this: I’m simply no longer comfortable with having the blog a secret from him.

* * *

funny guy & mimi at fort tryon park, 4 july 2009

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one less thing to wish for

I started my middle-aged phase of dating, i.e. internet dating, on Sunday 25 June 2006.

Between then and 10 May 2009, the day I met Funny Guy, I was “dating someone” steadily 26 June – 16 December 2007, 10 February – 3 August 2008, and 31 October 2008 – 19 January 2009.

You can do the math, but it’s easy to see that for an awful lot of days I was not dating someone. And so on those days, I was scanning the profiles on match.com or jdate regularly.

I had lots of sites to check out when I logged on: my regular email, my dating email, match.com, jdate, and facebook (sometimes).

Now I only have my regular email and facebook to check.

* * *

How to waste time on the web?

I might even have to read the news.

* * *

With a regular bf in my life, I have to shave my legs more often.

And I have to do my nails more often; and sometimes I even do my toes.

So I guess those activities take up the time formerly spent surfing the dating sites.

* * *

I just can’t believe I’m part of a couple now.

I mean, I know I am. He phones all the time; he emails; we see each other weekends and at least one other night a week. And if I weren’t working, we’d see each other more.

Of course, I’ve been part of a couple before, but Performer never really had a lot of time for me; and Plan C lived in another state, at least two hours away, door to door. Funny Guy lives at most half an hour away. If I needed help with a mouse or something, or if I had any kind of crisis, he could be right here. Or I could go to his apartment if he needed me there for any reason. We’ve even gotten together on Wednesdays, something that never happened with Plan C.

* * *

It’s hard to accept that he really wants me in his life. This is such a novelty.

Why did it take 57 men (he was #55) to get to this point?

* * *

Okay, well, really, why did it take me to age 62?

* * *

I guess if I were 100% convinced of the stability of this relationship, instead of 97% convinced, I’d tell him about the blog.

But it’s taking me time to process this amazing fact.

There’s this, you see: Performer seemed better to me than my ex-husband; and Plan C than Performer; and now Funny Guy seems much, much better than the whole lot of them put together. So each successive man appears — from the romantic POV — ontologically superior to the previous ones; e.g., for each one, I said, I know this one will last.

So I hesitate to say that now, though I feel it.

The point is, then, how do I know that some man won’t come along who will appear superior to Funny Guy?

* * *

Well, first, Funny Guy and I would have to fall out of love, and I don’t think that’s going to happen.

But — okay, you said it first — Only Time Will Tell.

* * *

Two people who’ve seen us together have commented on how ‘comfortable’ we are together. The most recent was a friend of Funny Guy’s whom we met last weekend.

And hey, here’s an example of how we get along: I was telling Funny Guy about my history with men and movies, and mentioning this date from last September, what became my shortest date ever, because (this was the best I could figure it out) the guy was offended when my interpretation of a film was contradictory to his.

So I started telling Funny Guy the story, and I had no sooner told him what the date had said, his interp, than Funny Guy burst out laughing.

He hadn’t even heard what I said, but he got it already, why I would have disagreed, and how the date was nuts to have said what he said.

He’s fast, is Funny Guy.

* * *

Here’s what we’re doing for the Fourth of July: we’re going to the Cloisters, and then we’re going to see the new Woody Allen movie.

Is that patriotic or what?

It’s what we both want to do, and we’re happy at the prospect. If you’re going to be at the Cloisters Saturday, you might even see us there.

* * *

So anyway, it’s so nice to have someone to play with: if I want to see a new movie, I’ve got someone to go with. If I want to see an old one, he’ll sit on my sofa and see it with me. If I want to get rid of old food in my freezer, he’ll eat it. And if his friends call and invite him for a weekend, he takes (it is take, isn’t it, and not bring?) me with him. And if he has news of any sort, good or bad, he phones to tell me. And there’s someone who knows the minutia of my life, like how my mother is feeling, or whether the men have arrived to install my new a/c, or how far I’ve gotten in my current work, or whether there’s any strawberry sorbet left, or when I’m going to wear the new dress from Gap, or what longlost friends I’ve suddenly heard from, and so forth.

* * *

I’ve been there before, with Plan C most recently and most significantly. But this is so much more relaxing. Funny Guy doesn’t go on rants about Lincoln or Hillary, and he likes my crazy socks, and he wants to see me as often as I want to be seen.

And I know that Funny Guy — unlike Performer, or Plan C, or T — is not implicitly comparing me with some previous wife all the time.

* * *

So now I’ll have to find something else to be anxious about, and something else to wish for on stars.

* * *

I already have.

I’m moving on.

* * *
UPDATE

Funny Guy and I are not Facebook friends, though we’re both on Facebook.

Somehow, I just can’t see sending him a message to “confirm” that we know one another…

men: they all look alike

The Last Saturday in September, 2007

A bunch of my cousins and aunts and uncles who were in NYC gathered for dinner at my apartment and incidentally met Performer, my then bf, known in blog categories as “manhattan violinist who went back to his fat ugly wife.”

The Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend, 2008

Some of the same cousins etc. were in NYC for the weekend, and Plan C and I joined them for dinner at a restaurant near my apartment.

At the end of the meal, the wife of one of my cousins, who had been sitting at the far end of the table from us, said a polite hello and goodbye to us as she was leaving. “Nice seeing you again,” she said to Plan C.

She had never met him before….

A Recent Saturday Night

Funny Guy and I were at a hip birthday party at a bar in Brooklyn. One of the guests had been at a party at my apartment a year ago for the birthday girl and her husband. We were talking across a table at the bar, and the guest, addressing Funny Guy, reminded him of the time last year when they were sitting at my piano going through a songbook and singing together.

She had never met him before….

Why does this happen?

No two of these guys look alike.

Performer was fat with a fairly bald pate and one lock of wavy grey hair. He had olive-brown eyes, a round face and wore glasses and was a sloppy dresser.

Plan C was tall with broad shoulders, receding frizzy brownish-grey hair, dark brown eyes, and glasses. He was a tidy, snappy dresser.

Funny Guy is of medium height, with bright, glow-in-the-dark silvery white hair, extremely thick, a whole lot of it, lavender-blue hooded eyes, and glasses. He was (that Saturday night) wearing an off-white jacket.

* * *

Really, if you saw these guys in a police line-up, you’d see that no two of them look alike.

But Plan C and Funny Guy were seated at the times they were mistaken for their predecessors, and they’re all middle-aged men with glasses (Funny Guy looks much the youngest).

And most importantly, they were all with me, so they were identifiable as “Mimi’s Man.”

* * *

On Memorial Day weekend 2008, I didn’t bother to tell my cousin’s wife that she was not seeing Plan C “again.” She was out of the door of the restaurant before her mistake registered with me.

On that recent Saturday at the bar in Brooklyn, after a little more conversation, I stood up from the table and motioned for the guest (a very pleasant entertaining young woman who was great fun to talk with) to stand up also. I whispered in her ear, This is a different man!

She took in the information with, I guess, some amusement, and must have noted that I thought the confusion was funny. Funny Guy didn’t seem to care.

* * *

How different, I wonder, would a man have to look, for him not to be confused with a romantic predecessor? Red hair? long hair? different race?

* * *

I’ve got it. Next time I’ll introduce him this way: This is Funny Guy, and he’s a new one. You haven’t met him before.

Here follows a picture of Funny Guy’s hair; apologies for the primitive cropping job (and I don’t mean the haircut, which was good; I mean my cropping of the photo).

photo credit: ANO

an interview with mimi about her new and (with luck) final beloved

YO MIMI!

Long time no hear.

WHAZZUP?

Lots.

SUCH AS?

Funny Guy.

YEAH. I HEARD. HOWZIT GOING?

Well, really, I could use the word ‘amazing’ and be accurate. This coming Sunday it will be seven weeks since we met, and things keep getting better and better. Every now and then there are mild — very mild — misunderstandings on one side or the other that are always resolved immediately, never with the slightest bit of unpleasantness, and always with new insights into the way we both work romantically.

HARD TO TELL EXACTLY WHAT YOU MEAN BY THAT UNLESS YOU GIVE ME AN EXAMPLE.

Okay, well, ever since we met, Funny Guy has been communicating a lot, more than any of his predecessors. And not in any programmatic way, such as a goodnight call or email or a good morning one; just a flow of messages or calls when he feels like it. On Tuesday night at the end of a 7 pm phone call he said Good night, which struck me as odd, because it seemed a little early. And there were no emails from him that evening, and by 8 the next morning there weren’t any either. He had warned me on our second date and on several subsequent ones that he had ‘black moods,’ so I thought maybe he was having one, though I hadn’t seen any signs.

So I wrote him a quick message that just said, grey mood?. As soon as he got it he phoned me to ask what it meant. I told him, and he said that all was fine; that I had told him the previous night I was going to get some work done, and he assumed I was working and he didn’t want to bother me. And he had gotten engrossed in his new blog! I had felt early on that Funny Guy was a natural blogger, and finally this past Monday evening, when we had time, I set him up with one (he was initially baffled by some of the technical procedures) and he was blogging away, writing five posts within the first 24 hours.

OH! I said. Well, the rhythm of your communication changed, so that’s why I thought something was wrong. But now I see.

At any rate, last night we had a long talk about ‘us’ — our favorite subject, I must admit, though the American political scene is a close second — and Funny Guy said he had never met a woman as direct and as honest as me. He said that I was able to articulate (these are my words, not his; I can’t quite remember his, but this is the gist) nuances of emotion, and to talk about them with great clarity. In fact, he said, he felt clarity was what I was after; that I had no agenda (and that absence was refreshing to him, he said) except to express feelings clearly and to understand them; and he liked that about me; and it required him to be equally clear, direct, and honest, and that was good for him, and this was the first relationship in which he’d been like that.

WOW.

Yeah. Good.

CAN YOU COME DOWN A FEW LEVELS AND TELL ME SOMETHING MORE — UM — CONCRETE ABOUT HIM?

That would be a pleasure. Okay, well, in previous posts I’ve talked about Funny Guy from the sartorial POV, so now I’ll discuss him from the gustatory POV. When, a while back, I asked Funny Guy what he liked to eat, he said, Everything. Apparently the only exception is raw fish, which is not something I buy or serve or eat myself.

So I’ve taken advantage of his bias-free tastes to empty out my freezer. I was brought up with the maximWaste not, want not, so I always save leftovers religiously. The result is that I can barely close my freezer. T (remember T? the guy from November, December, and early January? thank god he is out of the picture) would only eat ‘new’ food, never anything that had been frozen. Funny Guy is sweetly, charmingly undiscriminating: I’ve served him all sorts of things, including previously frozen bread as toast for breakfast, and he cleans his plate nicely. Now I can close my freezer drawer.

And in gratitude, I’m going to serve him a nice dinner Friday.

I should mention, that recently he has bought me dinner, and last night his dinner was a ham sandwich and potato salad that he picked up on the way over, so we’re pretty much splitting the cost of provisions.

WHAT KINDS OF THINGS DO YOU GUYS DO?

On weekdays, when we get together (approximately twice midweek), we just have dinner and talk talk talk; and sometimes he spends the night and sometimes not. On weekends, we’ve gone to a party, out to dinner, and to movies. This weekend I’m meeting friends of his for the first time: I’m really, really curious to meet them, to see what his friends are like, especially the way they relate to him. Funny Guy amuses me, and I have a feeling he amuses everyone.

GUESS WHAT?

What?

I FORESEE THE END OF THIS BLOG…

That’s really interesting, because just last night and this morning, with Funny Guy, I was beginning to foresee the end of my shrink.

AND THE BLOG??

Well………I haven’t told Funny Guy about it yet. He never seemed curious about how I came to know so much about blogs. But we are so honest with one another that I’m beginning to feel a bit uneasy about having this separate life in which I talk about him.

DID YOU TELL YOUR OTHER RECENT BOYFRIENDS?

Yes, I told Performer about the blog, and Plan C. Both took in the news with a mixture of uneasiness and interest. Plan C had strong feelings about what went into the blog — nothing about what goes on in bed, he said, thereby inspiring my use of #$!!&*(^!!! for sex — but he didn’t read it when I was writing pretty regularly about him and he doesn’t read it now.

HOW DO YOU THINK FUNNY GUY WILL REACT?

He’ll say he isn’t a bit surprised. He knows I’m working on a novel about my dating life, and he knows I know a lot about blogs and talk about them a lot, so even though the specific fact will be new to him, the idea will make perfect sense to him.

WHY DOES THAT MEAN STOPPING THE BLOG?

Well, it doesn’t; it doesn’t exactly. But he may read it, and then I won’t feel the same freedom to talk about him as I do now. So I’ll have to reach a point when I feel the relationship is really stabilized.

AND WHEN DO YOU THINK THAT WILL BE?

I’m thinking maybe our three-month anniversary, which will be August 10th.

PARDON AN OBVIOUS QUESTION: YOU GOT TO 3 MONTHS WITH PERFORMER AND TO 3 MONTHS WITH PLAN C, BUT NOT BEYOND 6 MONTHS WITH EITHER. WHAT MAKES YOU THINK THIS THING WITH FUNNY GUY WILL LAST ANY LONGER?

I’m glad you asked.

Yesterday I had lunch with an old school-friend, and by ‘old’ I mean we met in 1952, when we were both 5. She said she liked the sound of Funny Guy (the ’sound’ from the blog) because of what she called my ‘comfort level’ with him. And that’s true: we were comfortable together instantly, from our first date on. We’ve never been uncomfortable together. Any minor misunderstandings, such as the one described above, have occurred when we’ve been apart, and have always been minor. We’re just very relaxed and happy together.

And we’re more alike than Performer and I or Plan C and I were.

IN WHAT WAYS?

We both hate hot weather and bright sun; we both hate arrogance and pomposity; we’re both sceptical about everything; we’re both very smart and very witty; we’re both readers; we tend to have similar responses to things; and our taste is the same in many ways. Plan C’s idea of a good vacation was to go to some island in the Bahamas and play golf. Funny Guy is entirely, utterly turned off by that kind of thing: he said the only thing he’d do with a golf club is kill someone. He said he went to a tropical island with his first wife, and It was like Coney Island without the rides.

SO AGAIN, TELL ME, WHY DO YOU THINK IT WILL LAST?

Because it gets better and better; because there are no obvious signs of stress or disagreement, as there were fairly near the beginning with Performer and Plan C; because Funny Guy has a better and more precise vocabulary of relationships than any man I’ve ever met, and he uses it to understand himself and to understand us; because Funny Guy understands me better than anyone else ever has; and because he says wonderful, loving, kind, appreciative things about me all the time.

OH DEAR.

What?

I THINK YOU’RE RIGHT. THE END IS NIGH.

End of?

THIS BLOG.

Hey don’t count my chickens before they’re hatched. Funny Guy and I haven’t had a fight yet. We have to see how we weather that. I haven’t met any of his friends or family, and he hasn’t met all of my family or very many of my friends. It’s still early in the morning in this romance.

WELL, MIMI, I THINK YOU MAY BE ONTO SOMETHING…

Remember, I’m a cockeyed optimist. And I’m dogged. I’ve been determined to stick it out with online dating till I met someone right, someone final, ‘the love of my life.’

AND YOU THINK YOU HAVE?

Stay tuned.

* * *

the mickey mouse club & other little stories about funny guy

HIS CLOTHES

Funny Guy looked terrific last night: he was wearing light, sort of beige-colored pants, very crisp-looking, a pale blue striped shirt with button-down collar, beige suspenders that matched the pants, and an off-white jacket (with a Lord & Taylor label) bought at a Harlem thrift shop. I gather most of his ‘nice’ clothes are bought at that thrift shop. The colors were perfect for his coloring: ‘off-white’ skin, lavender-blue eyes, and silvery-white hair, a lot of it, very straight and thick on top and on the sides.

MY FAMILY

He was so ‘dressed-up’ because he was meeting my mother and younger child for the first time. A family emergency required us all to be at my mother’s apartment. When Younger Child arrived, I was in a room with my mother, and Funny Guy was standing in the hall. As YC opened the front door with her key, her eyes lit immediately on Funny Guy, who was standing in the hall. Who are you?? she asked in bewilderment.

I guess I had forgotten to tell her he would be there. The day was logistically very complex, as we were all coping with the emergency, and lots of information was being texted and phoned and emailed back and forth. I had told my mother that Funny Guy was dropping by her apartment to pick me up and take me out to dinner, but I had forgotten to tell YC.

I’m your Mom’s friend, he said (I was told all this later), and they introduced themselves to one another.

They appeared to get along fairly well, all things considered. He drew her out on her work and studies and intellectual/social/political passions; what she thought of him I don’t yet know.

My mother (who kept informing me, before meeting Funny Guy, how much she still liked Plan C), admitted later that she liked Funny Guy very much. They talked for a while, and he kidded her a bit about her accent, which is pronounced (and not New Yorky). The only questions she asked me about him later were What is his marital status? and Does he have children?

* * *

I’d love to see the text about that encounter that I bet YC sent to her older sibling.

OUR TALK

Because I was spending the night at my mother’s, Funny Guy and I had a sort of 1950s date: he picked me up at my mother’s, took me out to dinner, walked me home, stayed here for about an hour-and-a-half (while we sat on a sofa in the room that used to be my bedroom, kissing, but talking more of the time than kissing), and then went home.

All very decorous and chaste, not that (at 65 [him] and 62 [me]) we need to be. But it was that kind of date.

Given the impossibility, or at least inappropriateness, of having sex in the evening in my mother’s extra bedroom while she was awake in the other, we had a long talk. Or maybe we were due for a talk anyway.

Funny Guy said, of us, I want this to work.

Those are the most beautiful words….everything they imply is good, including, naturally, an awareness that it takes conscious effort to make something ‘work.’ I don’t suppose 20-somethings would use those words, but 60-somethings do. The words convey a sense of history — romantic history — i.e. the knowledge that all the romances in the past have not worked.

He had no doubts about my part in all this whatsoever, but he was concerned that he might get preoccupied about other aspects of his own life and grow distant from me; and then, he felt, I would ‘not be loved’ as I should be.

* * *

Now is that a good man or what??

* * *

I couldn’t exactly resolve that ‘issue,’ but I made it clear that he was the man I wanted, in spite of that risk.

* * *

He moved me to tears, which I got on his nice crisp striped blue shirt before I was able to reach a kleenex.

* * *

This morning he emailed, I know you’re up and busy. I wanted you to know that I care about you deeply and hope that our talk last night brought us closer and did not keep you up with big questions….Any big questions, let me know….If you need me to do anything today, I am home or reachable on the cell.

* * *

FUNNY GUY AND THE MOUSEKETEERS

During one of our early dates, Funny Guy and I were talking about our shared cultural heritage.

For one, we both watched the Mickey Mouse Club on tv.

But we watched it for different reasons: Funny Guy assures me that all of male America watched not to see how cute Karen Pendleton & Cubby O’Brien were, and not to hear Doreen or whoever it was say Meeska Mouska Mouseketeer: Mousecartoon time now is here! —

No, male American was watching to see when Annette Funicello’s breasts would poke out of her Mouseketeer t-shirt, and to monitor their progress.

* * *

FUNNY GUY & MY MOTHER & ME

One thing we have in common: a relish for sex scandals involving evangelical Republicans.

Thank you, Republicans, for being such pious hypocrites! Bring it on!

* * *

the answering-machine message

‘Hi, this is Rachel. You’ve reached Rachel and Funny Guy. We can’t get to the phone right now, so please leave a message.’

* * *

I was a bit surprised to hear that message.

As you can imagine.

* * *

Deep down, I knew not to be worried.

But not so deep down, nearer the surface, I was a little perturbed.

So I phoned again. And again. Curious to hear her voice, and taking in the togetherness of the single message for two people, the couple known to all their friends, Rachel and Funny Guy.

* * *

What could be the explanation?

She had moved out, I knew, a few weeks earlier. They had been living in separate bedrooms since their breakup last autumn, and she had finally found an apartment. He had started dating in the spring.

So, maybe

1) I had the number wrong. Maybe I was dialing his old landline, which was their landline;

or

2) he just hadn’t changed the message. Her move-out was pretty recent, and if he wasn’t calling his own phone, as indeed seemed likely, then it might never have occurred to him that he needed to change the message;

or

3) they had gotten back together and he hadn’t told me.

* * *

This was, I reminded myself, a case of Trust.

My Trust in him was being tested, no doubt unbeknownst to him.

He was somewhere out of reach of his cell phone, perhaps on the subway or in a corner of a building or in a movie theatre, and he obviously wasn’t at home, and I’d just have to wait to find out the explanation.

* * *

It wasn’t #1 above, because I checked: this was his new, post-Rachel phone number.

Very unlikely that it was #3: she had signed a lease on another apartment in another part of the city altogether, and she had moved out. He had carried the modem or router or something over to her new apartment when they switched the Time Warner account to his name. He was living alone. He was dating me.

And at 4:50 pm on Monday 8 June he had said to me, I love you to pieces.

* * *

I loved it that he had said that. No one had ever said that to me in exactly those words; in fact I don’t think I had ever heard it said that way. I thought it was wonderful; very sweet; adorable, to have said that.

I’ve been waiting a while to say it back to him, or some variation of it, though we sign all our email messages ‘love.’

Actually I’ve been signing mine ‘lots of love,’ to balance my not-yet-having-said ‘I love you’.

* * *

So it seemed, really, that #2 was the likeliest explanation.

In my anxiety, I kept phoning his cell phone, leaving one short message to call me when he could; and the landline, but without leaving a message.

Gotta stop doing that, I told myself, so I phoned the landline one more time, and said as lightly as I could, Hi Funny Guy, this is me. Get that answering-message changed! Call me when you get back. Lots of love.

* * *

He called as soon as he got back.

He had been on a bike ride around Central Park. Funny Guy is a former champion collegiate athlete (did I mention that? I think not), and he keeps his muscles in very good shape. He goes twice around the entire park, 12 miles, several times a week, or maybe it’s every day.

* * *

‘Yeah, I know: the message. Rachel has the code; I’ve gotta get it from her. —– How are you?’

* * *

And that was that!

He was entirely unaware of my anxiety. He hadn’t heard it in my voice — I guess I had disguised it pretty well — and for him it was just one more little irritating chore to attend to, something he hadn’t done. I know little about the varieties of answering machines, but evidently theirs had some code. Obviously, he’s not phoning his own number, and if he were, he wouldn’t be as shocked by the sound of Rachel’s voice as I was. For me, that sense of them as a couple, an established couple, Rachel and Funny Guy, was a shock. I hadn’t been coupled that closely to anyone in years, and when I was, we didn’t have our names on the answering message, just our number.

* * *

So my Trust was a bit shaken, but not too much. It’s still there. It has not been misplaced.

I think.

You see, recently I’ve been reading This Entire Blog, and rereading the posts from the summer of 2007, when I was dating Performer, I’ve been made very uncomfortable by my innocence and ignorance, by all the good things I then had to say about him, by all the issues and stuff I decided, always, in his favor, when with hindsight I know I shouldn’t have. I defended him or believed the best of him all the time, always.

And of course I did the same with Plan C also, though he’s a different case, because he is, I believe, imprisoned by his own neuroses; he means well.

And I did the same, though more doubtfully, with T. But always more doubtfully.

* * *

So what’s the difference now? how can I know things are any different? why is it that my friends and some of my blog-readers feel that this relationship with Funny Guy sounds good or promising or the best, that it will ‘work,’ when I’ve had so many others about which I felt confidence in the beginning, and they didn’t work?

* * *

Two things at least to remind myself:

1) but now I have those experiences behind me, so I have, maybe, perhaps, who knows, developed some kind of appraising instinct. So one would hope. I’ve learned something, maybe? Me??? Maybe;

and

2) hey well it’s not as if I had to grade him or the relationship or anything. I don’t need to assign a number to Funny Guy, as in, this relationship is 88% likely to succeed….I don’t need to compare him to the others and say YES he’s better! (Though of course I can’t help thinking that way, all the time…well, I mean, all the time I’m not with him.) All I have to do is continue being with him & accepting his love & loving him back (& one of these days, when it feels right, telling him that) & using common sense about issues as they arise.

* * *

So, really, I don’t need to come to a stable judgment about whether the relationship with Funny Guy is better, more viable, more likely to last, than my relationships with Plan C, T, Performer, or 2 ex-husbands. I just need to stay — ah, this phrase that makes me cringe and laugh and want to use only in quotation marks, but use it I do — in the moment.

* * *

And Funny Guy, who is not untechnological but is not super-techie, and who is doing lots of household chores right now, chores he doesn’t enjoy, like drilling holes for shades etc. — Funny Guy needs to change the fucking phone message.

* * *

And instead of being a polite wimp, I need to tell him that the message bothers me, and that I’d appreciate it if he would get rid of it ‘at his earliest convenience.’

!!!

Yeah. I need to do that.

* * *

modified rapture

Not knowing when he was going to spend his first night in my apartment — not knowing, to use his lingo, when we were going to have our first sleepover — Funny Guy was in fact packing clean underwear and a toothbrush in the messenger-type-bag in which he regularly carries water, a book, and other stuff. Just to be ready.

Not that he was ever a boyscout or anything, Be Prepared and all that: he told me that when, at age 11, he went to his first scout meeting, the 10-year-olds in the back room were smoking and playing cards, and he thought, Unh-unh, and told his mother he wasn’t going back there.

I don’t mean to ruin his reputation and suggest he’s free of sin: far from it, thank god. But I mean, if he was “prepared,” that was his own inspiration.

* * *

NB Dating Trooper! So he doesn’t ask me to hold stuff for him! He’s got that bag.

* * *

Juliette emails me and asks, Are you starting to bond yet with FG? It’s strange, I don’t get a feeling that you are as connected with him as you have been with all of the other men in your life since I’ve been reading your blog. It seems like you are very blasé about it all, where I would be jumping for joy!! OR maybe you are not sure yet?

And I write her back, I am pleased, but [as the Gilbert and Sullivan story goes] what I feel is ‘modified rapture,’ because I can remember so well how happy I felt at the beginning of Plan C, not to mention Performer and T. Stupid dumb me. So I’m still feeling very, very cautious. Yes we are really Quite bonded. Very. We feel very comfortable and ‘easy’ with one another. He just phoned, having napped all afternoon [little sleep, hot day]. He told me just now that he is very glad we can ‘talk’ so ‘openly,’ and that I am so forthright etc.,. Anyway, I’m not jumping for joy, but I’m relieved and relaxed. And glad. I told him yesterday how nice he looked sleeping, and he said yes, he has often been told he is an ‘adorable’ sleeper! He meant men also, as well as women, have told him that, when they were sharing a room or a tent etc. Actually he is the ONLY man of the 57 who is ‘boyish.’ His walk is bouncy and his face and voice are boyish.

* * *

The underwear is black, though I think one pair was black with a pattern.

* * *

One of my children has heard all about him and keeps sending me jokes to pass along to Funny Guy so he can be even funnier.

* * *

A good time is being had by all.

* * *

Modified rapture.

* * *

Oh and PS: Funny Guy is not reading a book about Lincoln!

Finally I found a man like that: just 1 man out of 57.

so what is funny guy like?

funny guy is funny

We were sitting on the sofa the other night, talking about serious stuff, i.e. family I think, and the following conversation took place:

MIMI Life is painful…

FUNNY GUY May I write that down?

*

And again, we were sitting on the sofa, embracing and almost but not entirely fully clothed.

FUNNY GUY: This would make a good screensaver.

*

funny guy is like most men trying to persuade a woman to go to bed with them

Funny guy has said he is “crazy about” me and that he is “besotted” (he has said that twice). He has also said that I’m “well put-together.”

That’s a new one!

*
love?

From date #5: Imagining a telephone conversation with one of my children, Funny Guy began, “I’m the man who’s falling in love with your mother…”

I was so surprised to hear the phrase “falling in love with” that whatever he wanted to say to my child never registered with me.

That same night, he signed an email message (written when he got home) “Love” for the first time.

*

Because of my experiences of the last couple of years with Rolly, Performer, Plan C, and T, I’m being extremely cautious about everything. Funny Guy understands that I am, and he understands why. He has said that each of us has already made him/herself vulnerable to the other one. He has also said that he is “willing to go to extreme lengths to make you comfortable and happy.”

*
funny guy’s friends & family

He talks about them a lot. And he talks about me to them. One of them called the other day just after he arrived chez moi, as we were standing in the kitchen kissing.

“What am I doing? I was kissing Mimi when you called.”

*
As he was leaving to come over here, his daughter called. The following conversation took place:

DAUGHTER Hi Dad, how are you?

FUNNY GUY I’m just going out the door right now.

DAUGHTER Where are you going?

FUNNY GUY I’m meeting someone.

DAUGHTER You have a date??

FUNNY GUY It’s more than a date.

DAUGHTER Oh Dad!

*

the sartorial man

I spoke too soon when I said, in a previous post, that Funny Guy’s clothes were “dreadful.” He has been getting new ones — at the thriftshop. I complimented him on his outfit Saturday night (better to say good stuff about the good clothes than bad stuff about the bad clothes [as Funny Guy might say, "May I write that down?"]), a nice rich medium blue long-sleeved buttoned shirt and tannish pants with a very soft texture (he invited me to feel the fabric….). He said that he had been indecisive for a long time about what to wear, putting things on, inspecting himself in the mirror, and then changing to something else.

The funny thing is, I had been in the identical state of sartorial indecision, and probably at the same time he was.

Last night, Sunday, he wore a black shirt and white pants. I liked the color combo, though the shirt was hanging loose outside the pants, and of course that didn’t look too wonderful. But he was evidently pleased with the black shirt (another treasure from the thrift shop), so I was too.

our dates

For a few of our six dates, Funny Guy has come over to my apartment for dinner (his apartment has some issues at the moment). He brings his dinner with him, and I have mine ready (Stoneyfield plain non-fat yogurt with sugar and raspberries), and we eat together.

*
Funny Guy says he always feels “calm” around me.

I find that amazing: no one else has ever, ever said that to me. I’ve never been considered “calm”; lively, yes; and excited, jumpy, and even anxious (who, me??). But never “calm.”

Gosh, what’s gotten into me?

Must be something I ate.

*

the balance sheet

ON THE MINUS SIDE
Funny Guy has no money. He has described hmself as living in ‘genteel poverty.’ He lives in a ‘modest’ neighborhood and shares his extremely low rent with a male roommate.

Funny Guy has no job. He would like to be employed. Professionally, he has had a habit of speaking truth to power, and we know where that leads…

Funny Guy has long had trouble being happy, at least for an extended period of time.

ON THE PLUS SIDE
Funny Guy is attuned to me emotionally. Even before we met — in fact the morning of the day we met — he sent me an email that absolutely hit the spot, said exactly what (on that particular day) I badly needed to hear. And (with some knowledge of me) he did the same thing two days later, in a different way, but also attuned.

Funny Guy is hilarious, definitely one of the two funniest men I’ve ever dated. Rolly was also very funny, but not as much, and there was often a bitter edge to Rolly’s humor.

Funny Guy is ‘good,’ as we used to say; extremely good. I mean, ‘good’ at ?!@#$?%@^!! — not that we’ve been to bed together yet, but hey, I can tell. No doubt on this point.

Funny Guy is very smart; he speaks my language. He is an intellectual equal.

Funny Guy has sought to comprehand his failed relationships. He is open to and eager for (the German word sounds better here) Selbst-Verständnis. Unlike Plan C (and T), he has a subtle vocabulary of relationships. He initiates conversations about ‘us,’ and wants us to understand, together, where we are and (as that quotation from Lincoln now up on the subways says) ‘whither we are tending.’ — This all sounds awfully serious, but Funny Guy is never serious for very long, thank god.

Funny Guy appears to have understood, immediately and intuitively, what I’ve been through over the past almost-three years of dating, and, in fact, over the past 62 years.

And oh yes, he lives only about 25 minutes from me by subway.

*

on the informational side

Although not in any precisely calculated way, Funny Guy and I have more-or-less split the expenses of our six dates so far, and no doubt will continue to do so in the future. But we don’t run up many expenses: the groceries we buy and the restaurants where we eat are pretty cheap (and I am making dinner tomorrow out of leftovers from one of them). And there’s plenty to do in NYC that is free or inexpensive.

He has met two of my friends, because they were visiting in NYC on the days of our dates. The first definitely liked him; and the second said to me over the phone, ‘I have a good feeling about him.’

He has great hair, a kind of thick, straight, silvery-white hair. Not bad for age 65.

He grew up in a working-class family in an ethnic ghetto and went to college on an academic and athletic scholarship.

*

and??

We have learned a lot about one another’s childhood traumas and family life. Lots of misery all round. But we amuse one another a lot.

I am taking a long time to give myself over to him (trying to avoid the word “commit,” which I’m so tired of), emotionally I mean as well as other ways, though as you must have noticed in the previous post, I’ve burnt my bridges and stopped dating other people. I want to see if things will work…..but I’m asking him lots of questions about himself and I’m being careful what I say.

But as Funny Guy said to me over the phone yesterday, it’s a leap of faith. I need to remember that being cautious and careful and stuff before I decide to give this a try does not guarantee that it will work. But it doesn’t mean it won’t. Yes, my eyes will be wide open, but that only means that I don’t have illusions: what I will have is hope.

*

Of course, I’ve already written all those ‘Dear John’ letters, so I’ve begun the leap; I’ve cleared the way for it (and I’ve mixed a few metaphors).

*

Is it possible to make a zillionth mistake, to fail to be wise, to fuck up yet another time?

*

Of course it is!

*

I guess we’ll see, won’t we?

*

the ‘Dear John’ letters

May 31, 2009

1.

Hi Dave, thanks so much for writing. Very thoughtful of you.

Well, I could say, who left the economy in better condition, Clinton or W?! seems pretty clear which party has the stronger fiscal policy. Obama is stuck with doing damage control on the mess the Republicans left.

Okay, well, I don’t want to get into a political argument with anyone, let alone someone I haven’t met! It’s interesting that your opinions on social issues, which are so important to me, are quite similar to mine, while yr opinions on economic policy and foreign policy are so dif.

I have to say it: I really could not date a McCain voter. Now, if you were my next-door neighbor, we could joke about it and kid one another. But for someone I might, potentially, become very close to and spend a lot of time with, I know I couldn’t take it.

Many people assume that it’s only religion about which people feel so strongly, but unless it has political implications, I don’t care what religion a date practices or whether he has one at all. But politics matter a lot to me, and I find that ultimately I have very little (if anything) in common with people who voted for McCain.

I really appreciate your taking the time to write me at such length and so honestly about yr views, which of course I take seriously.

Thank you again and all the best,
Mimi

2.
Hello Steve,
I need to tell you that I will soon be taking my profile down, because I am going to be dating — exclusively — a man I’ve been dating for about a month now. So you and I will not be meeting next week, but thank you very much for asking me out.
All the best to you,
Mimi

3.
Good morning Charles,

Well — between when I wrote you yesterday & right now, my life has changed.

I’ve been dating several men during the month of may, with 2 of them gradually losing interest in me & vice versa, but last night the remaining man made it clear that he wanted to date me ‘exclusively,’ and I feel that’s what I want too, so I’ve taken my profile down from jdate (and from match, where it also was).

So I’m sorry I’ll never get to meet you, because you sounded great, but I’m glad to be spending more time with my friend of the last month. Truly, any bachelor in New York has a lot of choices, because the demographics are in yr favor. That sounds like a crude way of saying what can be said more delicately, namely, that I feel certain someone as eligible as you seem will have good luck in the long run in finding a woman to love.

With best wishes,
Mimi

4.
Good morning Louis, I hope you’re well and enjoying the spring in Bernardsville. Did you see in the paper where Obama & Michelle ate dinner last night? They were in a restaurant at 6th avenue & w. 4th st, right near where we were wandering around.

So Louis, I have to tell you some news that will probably make you a bit sad. During the month of may I have been dating several men and enjoying myself a lot (and wondering where all these guys were in February, which was a very boring month for me from the social point of view). — Last night one of the men made it clear that he already considered himself to be ‘dating’ me and was not dating anyone else, and that he hoped I would not date anyone else. We discussed this subject for a long time, and I feel that I would like to date him exclusively and see how things go.

So I will not be dating anyone else and will be hoping this new relationship will work. — I’m really sorry I won’t get to know you better, because you’re terrific — good-looking, smart, polite, fun to spend time with — but alas for the timing! It’s really the case, the men all come out of the woodwork in May….

I have to say, the demographics are in yr favor, and in the favor of any eligible bachelor in the ny area. As you know from the 100s of profiles that you said come up in your search, there are so many more women than men available for dates & relationships. I know it’s daunting to attempt to get beyond the profile of any of those 100s /1000s of women, but truly, you are among the more eligible men I’ve met, and most of those women are dying for a date. I know because I’ve talked to a lot of them!

So I wanted to thank you very much for the two singularly pleasant evenings I had with you ( oh and No, by the way, this is not happening because I paid the tip friday night!! I always offer to pay my share or a share, and sooner or later most men accept) and to wish you well and to say if you ever send an email my direction, I’ll answer. — But truly, keep looking at those profiles, because there are probably quite a lot who would be a ‘good fit’ for you!

With all best wishes and thanks again,
Mimi

5.
Dear Nick,

Those are terrific book reviews. I really enjoyed them a lot.

However, now I have to tell you what happened last night. — I live in Manhattan, as you know, and for the past month I’ve been dating several men. — I was losing interest in 2 of them (and vice versa, no doubt), but last night the one I was _not_ losing interest in made it clear that he wanted to date me exclusively. I began to realize that I felt the same way and wanted to give that a try. At age 62, with two divorces behind me (one of them 30 years ago…), maybe I could get something right for once? Well, there was only one way to see. — and so I’m going to give that a whirl and hope it works out. He and I will both be taking our profiles down soon.

– Most of the men in my Inbox are obviously idiots (they write things like YOU ARE ADORABLE!!!!), but you’re in a special category. That’s why I wrote you after viewing you in my ‘viewed’ list, even though you live in Boston. — Now, if this new relationship doesn’t work, I have yr ‘real’ email address and might write you, but in all honesty I hope it does work.

– However, you should know that the *several thousand* or so manhattan women of an age for you to be interested in are probably, like me, beset by idiots on match most of the time, so you should think seriously about the availability of eligible women in nyc. —— But you probably already are, hence yr viewing of my profile. ——– So thank you very much for yr wonderful, sparkling, literate messages. And go for the Manhattan women, because they will be grateful for intelligent attention. All the best, Mimi

6.
Dear Healthyman, thank you for yr charming letter. However, I am about to take my profile down — within a day or so — because a man I’ve been dating and I have decided to date one another exclusively. All best wishes, Funky Sexagenarian

* * *

Confirmation of membership cancellation
FunkySexagenarian , we’re truly sorry to see you go. We hope you’ve been successful in your search for a match. Your membership has been resigned and your account has been deactivated.
You can reactivate your account at any time.

* * *