Are You My New Boyfriend?

The adult equivalent to writing out your name with your crush’s last name in your third-grade notebooks might be: arranging, in your head, how you will get to each other’s houses via public transportation once you find out where he lives, and whose house will be nicer for Sunday morning breakfasts. Or ascertaining, upon learning said person’s occupation, whether he’ll mesh well with your friends. Or envisioning the kind of jokes you’ll make together, or the things you’ll fight about, because you’re sick of being the one to make sacrifices of your time, dammit, you’re busy too and if he’s not even going to re-prioritize once in a while, then…! And, of course, there’s the end to think about. Because all the others before this have ended, haven’t they? And you have no inclination to think this one will be any different.

Of course, this is all assuming you’ve even met the person and had more than a ten line conversation with them.

It’s what breeds the cynicism, because most times, things don’t pan out – it was only a passing flirtation, or a drink in a bar, a quick conversation at a mutual friend’s party. But by the time he doesn’t call, or you go out for the second drink and you realize he’s so boring you want to slit your wrists with the cherry skewer in your drink… you’ve already had an entire relationship with him, alone, in your head. You stop letting yourself get so romantic about prospects.

I posted a Missed Connection last week. It was a whim! I was out by myself shopping for gym clothes, and wandered into a bookstore to buy an instruction book on Dreamweaver, and found myself drawn to the cute boy who checked me out (as in, rang me up, as in, made me pay for my book). As I left I glanced back through the window, and it lifted my spirits a little, having had this little witty repartee with a cute stranger, and I thought, I’m going to post a Missed Connection. I knew his first name and last initial thanks to the nametag, so when I got home that night, I remembered it, and jotted off a quick post with several allusions to our encounter.

Three days later, I got an email from him. He said a coworker had shown him the posting, and though he was often cynical lately, too, he was trying to be more adventurous, and would be up for coffee with me.

And then, believe it or not, we fell in love and moved to Paris, where I immediately found work as a photographer and he did something vaguely political.

No, but really. We’ve been emailing back and forth for almost a week, and everything points to promise so far. Verbally, I can find no fault. He seems to be interested in my emails and they grow longer and more in depth every day, and until I get one from him, usually sometime in the late morning, I’m jittery and obsessive about checking my email. I have no idea when I’m going to get to meet this person; coordinating times has been difficult so far (see, it’s going to be the end of us! I can already tell!), but we have made loose but earnest plans to take a walk together at some point and continue our conversations of literary, culinary, and other kinds of adjectives ending in –ary variety. I don’t know, a third one escaped me.

There’s already so much for me to doubt: like the fact that the internet played matchmaker (just… ugh), or that I really had no reason for being drawn to this person except that my overly materialistic instincts told me he was cute, and what does that count for? But then… there’s the fact that he can write, and that he numbers his points in this tidy and Virgo-an fashion, and that he remembers me as the one attractive girl he’s ever seen buy a book on web design.

So bear with me as I go through some mental calisthenics, trying to open a mind that’s a little tight from scar tissue and a growing time span of cynicism. I promise I will keep you posted, as accurately as I can, given my runaway imagination.