Drink up the monarch's plague

Drew Carey once started a bit with, "You know that look women get when they want to have sex?  Yeah, me neither."

I spent all of last night talking with a woman who seemed... knowledgeable. Some people are just clued in in a way that I, for example, am not, and I met this woman online and I suspected she was one of them.

I was right.  For one thing, she knows Andy, my boss, Amelia, and Matt -- a random collection of people scattered across a metropolitan population of 7 million people.  I wondered if she knew Catherine but couldn't bring myself to ask.  Plus, she knows a stunning number of sexually eclectic people around the area.  I told her a lot about my life, and she seemed interested in helping out.

Even personally.  She met me because she was looking for a romantic connection, but scotched that as soon as she found out I was married.  As we talked, though, in her cluttered, deserted office in a warehouse-turned-office-building downtown, she made it quite clear that although she wouldn't date me, she would cheerful go down on me if I asked.

Why didn't I?  Sad to say, I just wasn't attracted to her.  We talked until one in the morning, and I toyed with the idea of just saying, "You know, I realize we aren't right for each other, but I could really use a blowjob right now."  I was 90% sure it would work and was curious if I was right, but eventually decided that satisfying my curiosity and whatever else wasn't worth the various complications and the unkindness of leading her on.

And then today, a woman at work who I like but am not attracted to made a moderately subtle but unmistakable pass at me.  Fortunately, it was subtle enough that I could let it go by, pretending I didn't notice, and she wasn't embarrassed.

There's a certain J. Geils irony ("you love her / but she loves him / but he loves somebody else / you just can't win") to life.  These women are attracted to me, but I'm attracted to (for example) Amelia, who is living with some guy.  And then there's Catherine...

Ah, Catherine.  Hope there, once so bright, is fading.  She likes me but not enough, apparently, to overcome the distance and all the other complexities of her life.  I'm sure she would deny that if asked -- she'd say it's just a matter of time, but it will happen -- but I'm forcing myself to be realistic about things nowadays.  It was short and sweet -- tragically short but intensely sweet -- and I don't want to ruin the almost-perfect memory of it by trying to force it to become something it can't be.  I've only come to grips with these facts over the last few hours and I'm getting blue about it intermittently, but then I remember the feel of her mouth on me, the memory I get to keep forever, and I cheer up.

There's the right woman out there.  She may be as different from Catherine as chalk from cheese, but the fact that Catherine exists makes me certain that she's out there and hopeful I will find her soon.

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all