a romantic man

1. Plan C sent me a link to an article that shows statistically that men who help more with housework get more sex.

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Plan C is already a serious tidier — I get out of bed for 2 minutes and return to find the bed is made; the dishes are cleared, rinsed, and put in the dishwasher before I know it; the towels are always hung and folded in the bathroom; — but needless to say, he’s planning to tidy even more, now that he knows the results of the housework survey.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080306/ap_on_re_us/sharing_chores;_ylt=AkTB8.Gx
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2. Plan C is also a flower-arranger. He brings me beautiful flowers every weekend (red tulips last week) and then arranges them after I’ve opened them: showed me last week how you have to place each flower individually in the vase, prune the excess leaves, and angle the vase so as best to show off the flowers.

And he’s straight — truly!

3. He remembers every anniversary: one/ two/three/four weeks since he first emailed me, ditto first phone conversation, ditto first actual meeting, ditto first ‘waking up together.’

I tend to count the number of days; felt as if I’d known him for months and was astonished that it was only 25 days (today it’s 29 days since we met).

4. Told Plan C about the blog two weeks ago. His first response was unease: uneasy that his / our privacy might be violated, and uneasy that the blog placed him in the same category as ‘all the other men’ who have come and gone…. Then he ’slept on it’ (his phrase) and decided maybe it wasn’t so bad. I persuaded him that no one’s privacy was violated, and I even invented a name for his cat to protect her privacy. He doesn’t read the blog but likes to know what’s in it (and what isn’t in it).

5. Performer and I never did (fortunately!) sign that medical release form recommended by my Washington lawyer friend, the form that would allow us access to one another’s hospital rooms or to a doctor’s ‘confidential’ diagnosis of a partner’s medical condition. Without such a form, heterosexual unmarried lovers are in the position of so many gay or lesbian partners, with no kinship status in case of an emergency. Plan C (I haven’t mentioned this before) tends to be very insecure about ‘love,’ an insecurity I gather he felt when he was courting his late wife 40 years ago, a condition exacerbated by her death. He feels the woman he loves (and he tells me this is only the second time he has felt this way) may suddenly disappear or cease to love him. When I mentioned the medical forms described above, he was so happy; that made him feel that my love was dependable and true…he phoned his lawyer the next day to inquire what paperwork was necessary.

6. Plan C — wrongly, as it turned out – thought that my knowledge of the arts was too elitist. Once during my sleepover at his house, we were talking about songs, and he said to me, challengingly, ‘Broadway musicals!’
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An hour or so later, after I’d gone through the complete scores of Oklahoma, South Pacific, The King and I, Pajama Game, The Music Man, Camelot, and Oliver, and was just warming up for How to Succeed in Business.., he was begging me to stop and sorry he’d ever introduced the subject.

7. Plan C took his annual stress test on Friday 7 March. His 2008 results were better than his 2007 results: he got younger!

8. A True Story.
Assume, for the sake of the story, that Plan C’s last name is Schultz. This is what happened when he first laid eyes on me, through the glass door of the Italian restaurant where we met, about 5:25 pm, on that bitterly cold Sunday 10 February (a month ago today…). He had already ‘fallen in love with’ my profile picture, and as he caught sight of me, standing a few yards away from the door, he said to himself, ‘Omigod! It’s the picture!!’ and then, immediately after, ‘Okay, Schultz, Don’t f*ck it up.‘

9. While I’ve been on a business trip over the past few days, Plan C has been keeping my mother up-to-date, over email, on my progress and whereabouts. He told me she was ‘anxious’ to hear where I was.

I know my mother….have known her for almost 61 years….She was engrossed in the election news, the electrical fire in her building’s basement (which led to a party-like atmosphere with all the building’s residents in the lobby in their pajamas), and her favorite television programs, and had probably forgotten that I wasn’t at home.

Plan C (I was trying to persuade him) had imputed his own anxieties to my mother…but it’s nice that they’re corresponding and continuing to bond, because their ‘relationship’ will be a help when he finally meets my children.

* * *

I’m meeting his sons and their girlfriends next Saturday.

10. Meanwhile, I’m actually getting some work done, because the dating-game is over and done with.

Thank you, jdate: you’re vulgar and tacky and stupid, but Plan C and I would never have met without you.

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