Sailing

I had a couple of amazing talks last night. Since we were both bored and had nothing else we had to do, a friend of mine and I went out and got something to eat after work. We talked for quite a while about my ex-wife, and also about Penny and the guy she's with now. G could not initially understand why I chose not to have anything to do with Penny after Penny chose to give in to the insecurities that this guy carries around... basically I felt she should tell the guy to get the hell over his male ego and insecurities and acknowledge that yes, his girlfriend has male friends and that yes, maybe she had sex with them in the past. She couldn't do that, and I felt disrespected enough, felt enough as if I was being treated as second-class, that I could not see staying in contact with her. Better to take myself out of the situation than to stay there and be sour about it.

G kept telling me, "look, she made her decision, you should have stood by her." Well, sure, but in this case, the decision she made directly and negatively affected me, and there comes a point when you can't support your friends when they do things that harm their friends, particularly if you are that friend. Better to go away and let them live their life.

Anyway, we had a good dinner and I went home, and had a conversation with a woman we'll call Charlotte. It was one of Those Conversations... started slowly, a little awkwardly, then gradually got up to its flying speed and swooped and sailed all over everything... past relationships, our cats, our jobs, where we came from and what we like to do, why we are the way we are.

Charlotte is somewhat unusual, in that I didn't meet her through an online ad. Technically, I haven't met her at all, at least not yet. What happened was, a woman emailed me online through one of the dating sites probably a year ago, but then I got pulled into other relationships and fell out of touch with her. When things came apart with Melody, I noticed this woman's profile on Match, and emailed her. D remembered that we had talked, but in the interim she had moved and changed some things in her life, and was much more interested in someone living very close by (which I am definitely not, since D is in DC).

"But," she said, "I have a friend who lives up near you, and you two might get along." Several weeks later, she gave Charlotte my email address, and gave me Charlotte's, and stepped back out of the way. Charlotte and I have emailed a bit, and finally got to talk on the phone.

I am not entirely sure what to make of her, you know? I am impressed with the way she thinks, and that she adores her cats and her 1891 rural home. I'm not sure how to react to the fact that she's widowed (it's been a few years), to the fact that she's a fish vegetarian, or that she is rather highly focused on running, something I don't do unless I'm being chased.

Still, she intrigues me in a way that few online women have. And the idea that we could sail through more than two and a half hours of phone talk late, late at night and feel even more energized than when we started is appealing... something I very rarely experience any more.

Lots of tangible positives: she works near where I work, but lives near where I live. Sensible, but not simple. I've seen a few pictures of her thanks to D's website, and she's attractive enough. She's attractive enough that she makes me self-conscious.

No guarantees of anything. Just nice to feel that interest again.

I have not had sex in about a month.