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?

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

FUNNY GUY: This would make a good screensaver.

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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!

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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.

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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.”

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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.”

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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).

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

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Of course it is!

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I guess we’ll see, won’t we?

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