How Do You Know?

Not so long back, a young lady asked me: "how do you know when you find, The One?"

"The One" what? I could have played it dumb, but I knew exactly what she was talking about - the “Mister Right” thingy.

Pah, humbug, why me? Another kick below the time belt for this middle aged baby boomer who has conceded defeat in the relationship wars and given up on a dream of a biological offspring tax credit!

Now, just because I’ve disengaged a legal relationship doesn’t mean I’m an instant access, dummies guide to love, lust, and wot not to marry. On this occasion, and for the sake of man kind, I put aside my mangled and mutilated self esteem in favour of a philosophical approach. You see, if you’ve done time with a willing and almost able partner of some description, or other, you don’t always know if, in my experience, he is a Mr Right-Now, Right-for-Ever, or Right-With-A-Lot-Of-Patience-And-Persistence.

For me, Mr Right-Let’s-Just-Coast-Along-Because-You-Can’t-Do-Any-Better-Than-Me, assumed marital bliss was a matter of rituals, routine, solitary pursuits, and… erm… best not go any further, here.

What I have discovered, inadvertently, is that when you meet a “love of your life”, you’ll know it. When it happens, you don’t have to ask anyone if it’s right. There’s that little voice, deep inside, hammering away on your heart so hard, you just can’t ignore it. The reason I know that is because I’ve had that hammering on my heart for sometime, now, and it just won’t go away. You see at the time Mister Drop-Dead-Gorgeous paid me a compliment my self esteem was at an all time low, despite the face I put on for the world. Of course I fancied the snug fitting pants off him, but my ill advised logic insisted I wasn’t good enough. He left me sitting there, shocked into silence, desperately sad and alone in life. He just walked away as easy as he walked in through the door. Maybe I should have noted his middle name: Doesn’t-Try-Hard-Enough. Anyhow, there has been contact since, but it’s as though nothing ever happened. Still, he managed to get his leg over using a hard copy of the same chat up line he used with me… How do I know, I hear you mumble? Cos his huntress had great delight in telling me about her "anonymous" gift!

I guess love isn’t always mutual when it comes to the different levels of affection and tangled emotions. A lovely, yet cantankerous, man once told me he loved me. In fact, it was the last thing he ever said to me, and in front of witnesses, too. On a number of occasions, I had made it crystal clear, that there was no way in hell there would be anything between us. Maybe I should have been more blunt and told him who had won my heart, but alas, I couldn’t do that to him. You see, that lovely man was someone I would have liked to have called a friend, but some guys yer just can’t be friends with, and he was one of them. He gave me some good advice, once, too. Which I ignored! Yep, in some situations guys are all the same, be careful of fists flying…

So, it seems that for some of us, the love of a good partner for sharing the most intimate moments in life is a treasure that can be hard to find. Sometimes we think we’ve found our heart’s desires only to discover that it was no more than an optical illusion, with the passage of time eroding the rough edges of attraction.

The only thing I can say, for sure, is that spending half a lifetime with the wrong man is toxic on the soul. People DO change, over the years, but not in the way you expect. The bad habits they give up, or hide, WILL come back the minute they think they have you in your place, and they won’t be so endearing when there’s no affection tendered.

So if yer heart is lying dormant and someone shakes it up, don’t think you’re not worth it, cos you are… Love is a magical gift, to give and receive. Find it, enjoy it; don’t lose it.