Funny Guy and I met Sunday, May 10th at 6 pm, so as of that time on Tuesday, November 10, we’re six months old.
This semi-anniversary deserves a post, but it will have to wait till the weekend.
It’s hard to believe I’ve known him for half a year: as I keep saying to him (as if he were a Christmas present), “You still seem so new!”
* * *
Needless to say, we’re very happy together.
But that’s not a very interesting way of putting it.
More to come.
****************
This isn’t about sex.
It’s about talk.
* * *
Okay so in this post I wrote about the way Funny Guy talks to working-class male strangers, usually policemen or doormen, and makes little chummy comments as he walks by: “Too bad about the Giants” (or, today, “Too bad about the Phillies,” but not in New York, duh) or some little manly comment.
I first noticed this, I think, at a street fair in August. Funny Guy said something to one of two policemen watching benignly over a peaceful (though disgusting — the rats must have had a feast that night) scene. They seemed perfectly happy and were talking to one another. As we walked by, Funny Guy turned to them and made some comment about some play in whatever game in whatever sport had been on the previous night. And one of the police said something back, and that was that.
“Why did you say that to them?” I asked.
“It’s such a boring job,” Funny Guy answered — as if to say, hearing comments from passing strangers about sports livens up their afternoon.
* * *
I don’t think I said anything at the time, because the feeling wasn’t strong enough, but the feeling was, They really didn’t seem unhappy. Or bored. I didn’t see that they were dying for companionship or sportstalk; they had one another.
* * *
Well, I noticed this tendency — not just policemen, but also doormen and men at cash registers or floor-walkers (they don’t call them that anymore, do they?!) at Duane Reade etc. — more, as described in the post linked to above, but the large drama of it became clear to me in the marathon last Sunday.
* * *
I had been in the environs of the west side of Central Park with a date a year ago at the very tail-end of the marathon and had noticed how exciting it was, so I suggested to Funny Guy this past Sunday afternoon that we hang out there for a while. He was game.
So we were standing at a barrier with a lot of other people, somewhere around 74th Street I guess, at the point where people are visible on a huge screen as they straggle (or run, but at 6 in the evening, just barely, because these are the slowest of the slow) over the finish line. Next to us was a crowd of about 10 policeman, just hanging out and chatting with one another. It was dark; there was a rock band playing; there were lights and human activity and kids and stuff going on. It was peaceful and pleasant.
It was then that I realized I could feel Funny Guy listing in their direction. He was holding my hand, but there was just the slightest, almost unnoticeable pull to the right, as his body veered toward the police.
And then I understood: Funny Guy can’t resist a policeman. He was going to go over and talk to one of them. It was going to happen. His body wanted to turn all the way to the right, and if we hadn’t been holding hands, it would already have happened. He absolutely had to talk to those guys.
And so, suddenly enlightened with this epiphany, I said to him, “You can’t resist a policeman.”
Funny Guy smiled, but the great genius behind my insight hadn’t hit him. He walked two feet to the right, said something to them, and came back to me. This action took less than a minute.
“What did you say to them?” I asked.
“I said, ‘I heard your sergeant say he’s going to put you in that race next year.’”
“And what did they say?”
“One of them said, ‘Oh, I’m ready! I’d like to run!’”
“And why did you say that?” I asked, knowing the answer already.
“Oh, it’s so boring to be a policeman! They’ve been standing here all day — “
“But Funny Guy, they don’t seem in the least bored! They look like they’re having fun. They’ve got one another to talk to, and their work’s almost over, and it’s peaceful and pleasant here. Nobody’s doing anything violent, and anywhere there’s 10 or 12 of them there! They’re actually having a good time!”
“It’s a long day for them.”
* * *
And so I began to understand what I was up against: Funny Guy absolutely had to talk to those guys. Absolutely had to. He was going to talk to those policemen no matter what. It was gonna happen.
“You can’t resist a policeman,” I said again, hoping the brilliance and genius of my insight would ‘take.’
Funny Guy smiled slightly, but I didn’t see acceptance or acknowledgment register on his face.
* * *
As, after a while, we strolled along Central Park West and soon came upon another, smaller group of police, I noticed and felt again that slight list toward the officers.
“Uh, oh! Policemen, watch out! I can feel it’s about to happen. Your whole body is veering towards them. You’re going to talk to them. ‘Too bad about the Giants!’”
* * *
I had at last made Funny Guy self-conscious. This time he smiled with recognition of the true fact that he couldn’t resist a policeman.
“Why do you think you do it?” I asked.
“Their job is so boring — ” he began again.
“No!” I said with new confidence. “It’s not their need; it’s yours! They’re perfectly happy standing there kibitzing. It’s you who need to talk to them. You absolutely cannot walk by them without — uh oh, more of them up there! Another temptation! Let’s see if we can get by them. ‘Too bad about the Giants!’”
We managed to get by this next group, also, without a Funny-Guy-comment. He seemed not only to have recognized the truth of what I was saying but to have taken it in more deeply.
* * *
It’s not that I thought it was bad to make manly-sportsy small talk with every policeman he passed; it’s that I thought it was odd, an interesting eccentricity with some explanation that Funny Guy was not, himself, aware of.
So I began to hypothesize.
“Why do you think you do that?” I asked again.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“I think it’s because — let’s see — you want to let them know you’re friendly. You want to make friendly connections with these guys, to assert and to affirm your friendliness.” I was getting somewhere. “It’s — it’s to show them that you’re not like your father. To make a friendly connection.”
Funny Guy’s father, you see, was a violent man, who would use his body against anyone he thought had offended him in some way. He guarded his personal space belligerently. Funny Guy had told me stories, like the time his father tried to pull a man’s arm out a half-open car window, because of something the guy had done, or seemed to have done, with the car. Or something violent he did with a grocery cart in a super-market, for reasons I can’t remember. And then there was also his road rage…his violence was not just inflicted on family members; strangers got it, too.
* * *
And so Funny Guy, a strong athletic man but a very peaceful, gentle person, grew to manhood wanting above all things not to be like his father.
And so, as I began to see it, the apparent irresistibility of policemen was really a matter of Funny Guy’s definition of his personal space: he wanted to move closer to them, to signal his friendship, to be not-like his father, to be, in a manly way of course, friendly and warm and peaceful and chummy; to affirm his good, peaceful feelings toward them, the men-on-the-street.
* * *
I ran this analysis by Funny Guy, and he actually seemed to accept it. It made sense to him. At least, he didn’t deny or resist it and even sort of nodded agreement.
* * *
And so, when the game ended last night and the Yankees won, I said to Funny Guy (who has now been living in my building for about three months — gosh! it’s been that long!), “Are you going to tell the doorman?”
He got up instantly, opened the door, and went out. A moment later he was back.
“He had the radio on? he knew?”
“Yes.”
Funny Guy was smiling and sat down again; smiling because, I think, the brief exchange with the doorman made him feel good.
* * *
You always notice, there are certain people who are always talking to doormen or policemen or whoever. And now I know one of those people, and — I think — I know why he does it.
* * *
And things continue with Funny Guy in my life. It’s wonderful. Watch for a six-months-anniversary post next week.
* * *
When — in bed last night, of all places — I discovered that Funny Guy was only half-Sicilian, I kept saying, “Omigod! Omigod! But you were so insistent that you were all Sicilian. I even remember that when I asked, you said yes, both sides of your family were Sicilian” — anyway, when I kept saying that, Funny Guy said, “I guess you’ll have to do a post on your blog about it. You can call it ‘Funny Guy Exposed as only Half-Sicilian’.”
“Why would I do that?” I answered. “It’s not that interesting or that funny. It’s just amazing that you would lie to me about that!”
“Well, that’s the side of the family that’s important to me.”
“Yes, but why would you invent an ethnicity for the other side?”
“It’s only the Sicilian side that’s important to me.”
“Do you know the ethnicity of your mother’s family?”
“They’re Calabrese.”
“Where’s that?”
“Calabria’s in the boot.”
“Is it near Sicily?”
“It’s pointing toward it.”
“And what’s the great superiority of Sicily?”
“It’s beautiful. It’s so beautiful. In the springtime, in May and June, there are all these little flowers….and there’s this Greek theatre… it’s beautiful.”
photo credit: inthewild.org
“And what’s wrong with Calabria?”
“It’s ugly. It’s barren.”
photo credit: iho-ohi.org
(Surprise: I couldn’t find an “ugly” “barren” photo of Calabria on line. Oddly enough, tourists and tourism cites only want to post beautiful pictures.)
“Are both your maternal grandparents from Calabria?”
“I don’t know.”
“So it could be just your maternal grandfather.”
“It could be.”
“And your maternal grandmother is the one you look like.”
“Yes.”
“So she could be Sicilian, even.”
“She could be.”
“Why don’t you find out what she is?”
“You mean, go back to the parish church somewhere…”
“Wouldn’t the Ellis Island records have it?”
“Maybe.”
“Or isn’t your Uncle Richard still alive? Wouldn’t he know?”
“If he’s alive, he’s in his 90s.”
“But don’t you think he’d know what part of Italy his mother came from?”
“He might.”
* * *
A little background info:
It’s Funny Guy’s father who’s the Sicilian one, and he — to put it mildly — doesn’t “identify” with his father, an angry man who was only partly tamed by a happy marriage to his second wife, not Funny Guy’s mother. But the father’s mother, Funny Guy’s maternal grandmother, is the one he adores, the one whose love he cherishes and around whom all his family love centers. His mother’s side was full of strong, vivacious, attractive women, and men about whom Funny Guy has never said very much, but his mother left the family when Funny Guy was very young, just walked out, and thereafter he lost touch with that side of the family.
So Funny Guy’s Italian geopolitics are somewhat gender-driven, but (as they say) “it’s complicated.”
* * *
Funny Guy visited Sicily when he was in his 30s with his first-wife and their child. She had gotten a huge settlement in an insurance claim, and they blew it all on a wonderful, three-months trip to Europe, which they enjoyed entirely, and which Funny Guy alludes to often.
So that’s when he saw Sicily, the land of his paternal ancestors and maybe, for all we know, some other ancestors. At the time he asked his (paternal) grandmother if she wanted to join them there, and her response was a definitive No. She had left extreme poverty there to come to America; why would she want to go back?
But Funny Guy remembers it, now, as a place of beauty.
* * *
So anyway, so much for Calabria! Those ancestors don’t count, even though he gets his good looks (bushy white hair, lots of it, dark eyebrows, deep blue eyes, and a nose that I gather was beautiful until a football hit it when FG was a teenager) and I suspect his intellect also from that side of the family.
* * *
I guess what amuses me is that Funny Guy would lie about something so insignificant to me! I have three German-Jewish grandparents and one Russian-Jewish one (my father’s mother); I don’t think I knew those exact statistics till I was in my 40s or 50s. Of course German Jews look down on Russian Jews, but I find that snobbery funny, and I wouldn’t erase the one Russian-Jewish grandparent from my ancestry, if someone asked me…..I just think it’s funny that Funny Guy identifies so strongly with Sicily, Greek theatre and Mt. Aetna and flowers and Mafia (yes, that too) and all. Maybe that’s why his insurance is Aetna, and oh! I just figured out why an insurance company would give itself that name.
* * *
Anyway, the fact that Funny Guy is only — contrary to what he told me when we were courting — half-Sicilian is not a deal-breaker.
* * *
But it does show me how deeply he’s invested in that part of his ethnicity, so invested that he has re-created his past.
* * *
Ciao! from Mimi.
No, I’m not interested in sports or that game earlier this evening; whatever it was, baseball or football or something.
It’s Funny Guy I’m interested in.
So we were going to Bed Bath and Beyond, Funny Guy and I, to buy a new electric kettle. Funny Guy, as you know, has been living with me since almost the beginning of August. The doormen have (I think) gradually gotten used to the fact that he’s here, not just passing through. As we went out the lobby door to the street, Funny Guy turned back and said to the doorman, “Joe: too bad about the Giants!” and Joe muttered something I couldn’t hear (I was already on the street) in agreement.
Okay so we were on our way back from BBB with the electric kettle in tow (and curses on you, Braun, for no longer making the world’s best electric kettle, because my old Braun one lasted ten years of heavy use, and I loved it; but that’s another story), and we stopped at a Duane Reade to pick up a few things. And as we’re paying for the stuff, Funny Guy says to the man at the cash register, “Too bad about the Giants!”
* * *
Yeah, Funny Guy likes to connect with people…you could call him Friendly Guy. Or Friendly-with-strangers Guy. Or Friendly-with-working-class-male-strangers Guy.
He does that kind of thing.
I remember at a street fair in August, he went up to one of the policemen surveying the scene and said something about the game (baseball, I guess it must have been) the night before.
* * *
Okay so here’s what I want to write about: the things about Funny Guy that all his women have noticed; and that some of them have been annoyed by.
Well, first, there’s a habit I call the Curbside Pull.
* * *
Funny Guy is very worried about cars.
Because his father was a practitioner of road rage, Funny Guy has never had a driver’s license or owned a car. He managed to live in the suburbs for years by taking public transportation or being driven by his wife or a friend.
And he’s anxious about vehicular safety in many forms. Crossing the street causes him anxiety. (This is the kind of thing I guess he must have been alluding to in his Match profile when he said something about “the good stuff balancing the strange stuff.”) And so, if we’re walking along holding hands, as we are most of the time, and if there’s a red light when we get to the curb, Funny Guy pulls back on my hand.
The purpose is to prevent me from getting run over.
Now, it’s true, for 62 years before I met Funny Guy, I didn’t get run over, and for about 53 of those years I was crossing streets by myself.
But hey, you never know, do you?
And so there’s that curbside pull, quite pronounced sometimes, on my hand, as we reach the curb.
Once I already had part of my foot over the curb, and Funny Guy’s pull caused me to slip over the curb. It was sort of funny…sort of sort of funny. I can’t remember what I said.
* * *
So anyway, it turns out that at least two of Funny Guy’s previous women, an ex-wife and an ex-longtime-girlfriend, both found this habit very irritating.
* * *
The same ex-girlfriend and one of the ex-wives also found irritating Funny Guy’s habit of striking up conversations with strangers, the “too bad about the Giants” phenomenon. Sometimes those conversations go on for much longer: Funny Guy often makes friends (“but those aren’t real friends,” said the second ex-wife) this way, through extended conversations with strangers who happen to be near him in cafes or subways or wherever.
Hey whatever, that’s just his way.
* * *
But every time this evening I’ve passed through the room he’s in from the room I’m in, on my way to tea from hot water boiled in the new electric kettle (inferior to the old Braun, but what can you do?), I’ve said, “Hey Funny Guy!” and he has said, “Yes?” and I’ve said, “Too bad about the Giants.”
* * *
I think the joke may be wearing thin, but I still love it.
* * *
And the third thing that the ex-women noticed, or failed to notice, was the issue discussed in this previous post, Funny Guy’s need for regular, every-two-or-three-hours-or-so food, or his demeanour, mood, and face change, and he gets really down. The first ex-wife never cottoned on to that; the ex-girlfriend sort of did. But I’m very sensitive to it, and I knew, when we were at BBB, that Funny Guy was experiencing one of those lows, though he kept saying he had just eaten. But when we got home, he ate something, and finally his smile returned.
* * *
I’m going to go downstairs now and say to him, Too bad about the Giants!
Five months and one day with Funny Guy.
Now that I don’t have to put so much energy into dating, I’m actually working.
More to come: just wanted you to know I haven’t forgotten you. I’m saving some goodies that I’ll probably have time for next weekend.
In the meantime, all fine on the home front. Today I’m throwing out books (that no second-hand bookseller will buy) to make room for Funny Guy’s books, and Funny Guy is (helpfully) putting my DVDs in order. So it’s spring cleaning here, in the autumn.
* * *
Because I often think of Funny Guy’s Match profile, whereby I first “met” him, and many of its phrases and sentences, I thought I’d reproduce it here with comments, so you (and he!) could see my thinking about it then and now. It has been interesting for me to consider to what extent Funny Guy has really turned out to be like the man I read about on Match.
*****************************************************
The heading /headline was Help, I’m surrounded by young idiots and need to be with a somewhat serious (not too) person of good character and better humor. Drinks?
I found that very misleading: it made me think he lived with a lot of guys in their 20s, or had messy or noisy roommates. What could it mean? It turns out he just was referring generally to “youth,” i.e. he was a guy in his 60s wanting to meet another sexagenarian. But the context in which he was “surrounded” was not at all clear, and the contrast between “young idiots” and “somewhat serious (not too) person of etc etc” was fuzzy and confusing.
Active within 24 hours
65-year-old man
New York, New York, United States
seeking women 55-65
within 10 miles of New York, New York, United States
Relationships:Divorced
Have kids:Yes, and they live away from home (1)
Want kids:No
Ethnicity:White / Caucasian
Body type:A few extra pounds
Height:5′9″ (175cms)
Religion:Atheist
Smoke:No Way
Drink:Social Drinker
“Atheist” — that was refreshing. Very few people, in my experience, say that. But then, Funny Guy is a pretty intense ex-Catholic.
In my own words
for fun:
I read, talk with friends and strangers alike. I ride my road bike and think about how lucky I am to be able to goof off as I am doing.
I liked the friendliness. I didn’t like the goofing-off too much: I’m always busy, myself, with projects of various kinds, work-related and not, and I wasn’t sure I’d get along well with a person who was happy to “goof off.” And also, I wondered, if his income was really as low as stated, why wasn’t he working or trying to find work? How could he “goof off” on so little money?
my ethnicity:
I’m not a committed white person. If given enough time on my bike I could pass for a Latino. I am Sicilian.
I thought the idea that “ethnicity” was a matter of “commitment” was sort of witty. I didn’t know what at all to make of the assertion, “I am Sicilian.” ——— Needless to say, now I do know what to make of it.
my religion:
I believe in Santa and my friends. That is it.
Okay, fine; that was consistent with “atheist.”
my education:
I am the first person in my immediate family to go to college. It kept me out of Vietnam and in higher education for a long time. I became a college teacher and college administrator of sorts…..
That he was the first in his family to go to college: intriguing. I wondered about “of sorts.”
favorite hot spots:
I would go to The Cloisters. It is a very special place and there is a small place on the grounds to get a bite to eat.
I didn’t like that word “special.” However, I liked that he put the Cloisters and not some expensive restaurant or “cool” jazz place etc. I suggested that we go — i.e. he take me — to the Cloisters on the Fourth of July, so I could see it through his eyes.
favorite things:
I like to eat almost anything…that’s a problem over the winter months. But, I like to workout and ride my bike. So, it balances out somewhat. I like to cruise the book stores and flea markets for non-essential-essentials.
I liked that he was honest about eating too much. I hated the “flea markets” bit: in fact, it really turned me off when men included the Match category “flea markets” among their activities. I grew up in an apartment with too much clutter; I don’t have much space; I’m always trying to get rid of books & things. The idea of acquiring more was a big turn-off. —– Oh, and now that Funny Guy is living here, I’ve told him, Nothing New Comes Into This Apartment! I mean, nothing besides what he already has. But he sees how little space there is here, and how stuff spills out of the closets, so he understands.
last read:
I am reading the following at the same time: Belano’s The Savage Detectives; Zizik’s The Ticklish Subject and Alan Wolfe’s The Future of Liberalism, and Bicycling Magazine –of course.
Nothing about Lincoln!!!!! a definite plus, a very strong plus. I thought these books, whatever they were, sounded interesting. FG is always reading several books at once. At my strong urging, he is now reading Emma.
About my life and what I’m looking for
I am good with (some)people and can talk with almost anyone. I have no tolerance for bullies or self-important people. I have a bad attitude…even at my advanced age. I love to live in the moment and I do things because they feel right. I still have a lot to learn about being happy and I’m working on that…kind of. But as Popeye would say, “I am who I am.”
Definitely a strong plus that he had “no tolerance for bullies” and ditto “self important people.” The best of all was “I have a bad attitude” — it was that sentence that I commented on in my laconic first message to him: I told him he sounded like a “smart ass.” When he read my message, he knew at once that I “got” him. I, too, have a “bad attitude,” and was interested to read about someone else who did. Funny Guy put that in there, he told me later when I brought it up, because he knew that the wrong kind of woman wouldn’t like it or wouldn’t get it, and that the right kind of woman would. It would weed out the inappropriate women.
I wondered what he meant by living “in the moment” or doing things “because they feel right.” In fact, now that I’ve known him almost five months, I can’t say those are phrases I would use to describe him, though I can see how he might think they would fit. They don’t not-fit. And yes, Funny Guy likes to talk with people in the street, with policemen, strangers, people young or old, rich or poor, any color, and really just about anyone he meets or I introduce him to. He’s friendly and people sense his good nature and respond to it.
I am loyal to my friends and I take care of anyone when they’re down. More than that, you got to get me drunk if you want the complete sordid story.
I really liked it that he said he was loyal to his friends and takes “care of anyone when they’re down.” I liked it a lot, and I liked it that he would say that. And I have observed both statements to be the case. It’s not true that you have to get him drunk to hear his whole story; he has written a long ms. about it that I’ve read, and he talks openly about his past, and I’ve never seen him drunk.
Forget the perfect match nonsense. I know that people are complicated and the good stuff needs to balance out the strange stuff. That is why my friend needs a great sense of humor and good sense of her self worth. I want a person who loves her life and would like to have me in it because I amuse her. That’s it.
I really really liked “the good stuff needs to balance out the strange stuff.” Given my experience with so many other men from Match, several of them boyfriends, I had seen plenty of “strange stuff” by the time I met Funny Guy (oh and not even to mention marriages etc etc), so it didn’t scare me that he said that. And he began talking about allegedly “strange” stuff (e.g., he doesn’t drive and never has, ever; has never had a license) right away, on the first date.
And I really, really loved that penultimate sentence: I did / do “love [my] life,” and I thought it was terrific that he said “and would like to have me in it because I amuse her.” And why did I like that so much? First of all, I guess, because I like witty men — they’re always smarter than non-witty men — and I knew I would like to be amused. But also because the description was so minimalist: he meant, I thought (and I was right), that he wanted a woman who was not looking for a man to enhance her own sense of importance (a celebrity, a huge professional success, a genius), or to support her (a rich guy), or make up to her in any way for something she was lacking, or to do any of the conventional manly things (act like a father, a sugar daddy, an escort, whatever), but simply to “amuse her.” That really appealed to me a lot. ———-
On our first date I laughed so much that when I got home, I realized that my cheeks hurt. And Funny Guy continues to amuse me: every day, all the time.
UPDATE
The point of this post, in case it isn’t obvious, is that it’s very hard to distinguish the significant from the insignificant in a profile. Ergo a message to online daters: if you see, as I saw, a profile that seems to you “mixed,” it might be a good idea to give the person the benefit of the doubt, as I did in this case.
My mother (89), when I told her Funny Guy (65) was living with me (62):
“I hope you know what you’re doing.”
Funny Guy’s step-mother of 45+ years (82) (whom he sometimes refers to as his mother) to Funny Guy, after she met me:
“Let’s hope this one lasts a long time.”
**********************
It was Sunday 13 September, and Funny Guy and I were having company for dinner.
I was in the kitchen, and I looked over the counter to see Funny Guy with an odd expression on his face, a not-very- pleasant one.
Maybe he really doesn’t want company tonight, I thought. Maybe he doesn’t want to meet these people; maybe he feels we’ve already done too much this weekend. Maybe……anything.
* * *
But then I thought, That really wouldn’t be very much like Funny Guy. He likes company, he likes meeting people, he loved the play the night before that one of the guests wrote, he’s really eager to meet them.
But that expression on his face, that scowl…?
* * *
And then I remembered a similar moment with Plan C, one that I thought I’d written about, but I looked for it in the Archives for May 2008 and couldn’t find it, so here it is:
I was giving a party for two friends in their 30s (actually one was then 29) who were getting married, and at one point I looked into my crowded living room and couldn’t see Plan C anywhere. Then I saw him sitting at the bottom of the steps, not talking with anyone, and I got worried. I felt sure that he was bored (because he didn’t know anyone there) and upset that there was a party going on, and wanting just to be with me or wanting to go to bed or something.
I caught his eye — and he winked at me and smiled!
* * *
I was quite surprised, really taken aback, because I had gotten it firmly into my head that he was in a bad mood and would scowl at me.
He was just taking a little break…..watching the passing scene with interest….and happy to be with me in my living room, while there was a party going on.
* * *
I realized that I was so surprised because my ex-husband hated parties, hated social life, would frown and scowl at me during them, and often would just go upstairs to his study and do stuff at his computer. He didn’t like being around people, and he didn’t like parties, especially in his own house.
* * *
So when I realized that this was Plan C, not my ex, and that Plan C was different, and friendly, and enjoyed parties, and was well-disposed toward me — I was amazed, and thought that I’d better store that difference in my memory.
* * *
And so, ten days ago, when I looked over and saw Funny Guy scowling, I thought of the Plan C episode, and I decided not to make the same mistake again.
So I called over to Funny Guy, “Are you all right?”
And he said, “No. I need something to eat.”
So I said, “Come get something! What would you like?”
It turns out that if Funny Guy doesn’t eat regularly — and that means about every 2 or 2.5 hours or so — he gets low, and if the not-having-eaten-recently situation persists, he not only gets low, but he frowns and gets sort of upset.
And then as soon as food, especially carbs, gets into his system, he perks up and is friendly again.
* * *
So I told him the story about Plan C, and the history with my ex, and he said, “If this happens again, you need to know that it’s not because of you. It’s not your fault. I just need to get some food in me. It’s not because of you.”
And I said, “I didn’t think it was. It didn’t seem like you to be scowling at me, or not to be looking forward to company. But you definitely looked upset.”
* * *
Funny Guy told me that his first wife (the mother of his child — we’re talking back in the 70s and 80s) never “got” that about him; she didn’t realize the effect that not eating regularly and often had on him.
But I sure got it, and now when he calls me from work, I can almost always tell how long it’s been since he has eaten: if he sounds a bit down or is talking slowly or seems sleepy, then he probably hasn’t eaten for about two hours. But if he sounds perky and energetic and upbeat, even about a grim situation (as is often the case with his new job….), then I know he has eaten within the past half hour or so.
* * *
So the moral is (morals are):
1) Funny Guy loves me;
2) Keep Funny Guy fed;
3) Funny Guy likes other people & social life.
* * *
BTW Funny Guy has been living here more or less since the beginning of August. The only nights he hasn’t spent here in the past eight weeks or so were spent with a (male) friend (out of state) who had just had surgery: as Funny Guy said in his profile, “I take care of people when they’re down.”
* * *
Funny Guy still has his apartment: it’s sublet, and when the lease is up in February, he’ll get the rest of his stuff. He doesn’t have much.
In an email message to my mother a couple of weeks ago I mentioned the fact that he was living here. She has met him many times since last June, when they were introduced. We have dinner together often. Her response was simply, “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
!!!
I do.
* * *
This is for Funny Guy, to keep him perky:
photo credit: consumer network.
I was looking at my ancient email at my now-defunct dating-email-address and discovered that Match had been sending me
Funny Guy’s profile for almost three months before we began communicating. However, there was no picture, so I didn’t see that beautiful silver hair and never went after him.
* * *
FYI: Match said that he and I were an “84% match.”
* * *
So much for the quantification of the unquantifiable!
* * *
Okay, not exactly cropped, but identifying marks disguised with the “Paint” program.
