Will Someone Fill In Those Dang Potholes?

An old friend of mine was visiting from Minneapolis last week. I hadn’t seen her in six years, and was delighted to hear that “Kat Tales” had kept her completely up to date. However, as we walked little Lily through Madison Square Park, she revealed that she didn’t believe half of what I wrote. I stifled a guffaw and asked which entries she was talking about. “Well”, with a sideways look that reeked of skepticism, “the cowboy/roadie guy and the angry man? Is that for real?”

Her reaction wasn’t original.

People call, send private emails or publicly comment on the blog about my interludes with the opposite sex. One person even sent me a prayer card. If I had a chick lit book in the cards, I would call it Still Looking for Mr. Right, Still Sleeping With Mr. Wrong. It’s a good title.

Naturally, I take a tiny margin of poetic license. Let’s call it 5%. I’m certainly not James Frey here trying to pass off a work of mostly memoir and I don’t relish the thought of getting bitch slapped by Oprah, but I’d rather use my trip down the rabbit hole to entertain rather than subjecting you to the fine print. I replied to Andrea, and not a bit proudly by the way, that they were all true. Everyone has their cross to bear in this lifetime, mine happens to be relationships with men. OK, cigarettes could fall into this category… and when to say “No” to coffee.

For most of my twenties, “relationship” did not exist in my vocabulary. I was too busy, too self involved, too ambitious to allow any sort of intimacy in my life, but I seem to have fast tracked this path, getting caught up for all the years I’ve been on the career turnpike of life.

I don’t pretend to know that much about the male species. I try to think of behavior as gender non-specific, but there are some things that definitely fall into the X/Y factor. For example, there’s a “Sex & The City” episode where Carrie meets Baryshnikov, (who manages to grand jeté his sixty year old self over a taxi at least once during his romance with Sarah Jessica Parker). After declaring that she’s going to take him as her “lovah”, Carrie realizes that after multiple copulation engagements, it’s no longer a sexual relationship, but a pathway to a real one. “Nesting” as Carrie says, “is in our DNA”. As I marked over a 150 emails I had received since November, preparing to delete, I pondered over where it went wrong. How had I fallen into the same pothole again?

My current situation with the Soccer Hottie has abruptly terminated. I should have known what I was dealing with when he told me that he thought he was incapable of having a serious relationship, but it’s as if I have an invisible hearing aid and the volume has been turned down on. And when this sexy guy is saying the blah blah blah, but whisking you off to a mountain retreat in Vermont where you spend almost every last second not skiing, well, I’ve always been taught that actions speak louder than words. In this case, the words were loud and clear, the actions were… well, I don’t think I need to elaborate. When this same someone arrives almost twelve hours after you’ve touched down in New York with birthday cake and sweet nothings, it’s easy to go deaf. But when he later says to you, “I’m attracted to you. I’m attracted to a lot of women”, this is probably the right time to turn up the volume. My ex - the speedracer/townie/metrosexual - actually laughed right out loud at that sentiment.

The bitter end began when I pulled the girl card and brought up direction. Where was this going? I wasn’t sure how I felt, and after the past weekend, I wasn’t getting a read on his feelings either. When he relayed that the next time he visited, he would be staying in a hotel, feeling that we needed to put the brakes on; I’m thinking, and maybe I’m crazy, but I’m thinking that it meant he want to take things slowly; let it marinate, when the translation is I AM NO LONGER INTERESTED IN YOU. I WANT TO BE FRIENDS. My relationship hearing aid was beginning to hum and crackle.

Towards the end of a five-hour conversation spanning two days, (if you think I talk a lot, I have nothing on the SH), navigating this murky marinade while simultaneously consulting the ancient scrolls of mantalk, I demanded from the Soccer Hottie a clear explanation of his feelings. His reply, and I quote: “I feel that we’ve exchanged information. I feel that we have a rapport with each other.” These are not feelings. These are facts. And although I reiterated this during the course of this deranged and extremely tiresome circumlocution, I couldn’t help but push Mr. Hottie into a corner where he thrust this finality: he was not interested in me romantically, that he didn’t love me and could never be in love with me.

Well, thank you, it’s very clear now. There was a nasty last minute rant where colors were exposed; truly a notable spark of emotion, and the phone appropriately went dead. I don’t expect to hear from the SH; my repeated sentiment was that friendship had been taken off the table when he started adding spicy innuendo to the lengthy daily communication we had begun.

My approach to disaster relief: I spend the morning bleary eyed. Call back up and got both support and criticism. Two of my favorite reactions: “You can really pick them, can’t you?” and “What is wrong with you!?!” My sage, Dr. Crosby, reminds me in an email “Montaigne said you can't know a horse until you've seen it trotting in the street, charging on the battlefield, and resting in the stable.” Taking all this advice into account, I hop the 6 train to Soho’s DopDop Salon for a super chic haircut, reverse directions uptown for free Friday nights at MoMA where some of the worlds most incredible art hangs, including a few of my favorites, Chagall’s "Birthday”, Klimpts “The Park”, Hopper’s “Gas” and Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”.

Longfellow said “Look not mournfully into the past. It comes not back again. Wisely improve the present. It is thine.”

Today, I decide on candy apple red lingerie and the fabulous mascara I have discovered (by the way girls, after years, and I mean years, of looking for the perfect mascara, I’ve finally found it, Benefit’s Bad Gal Lash), turn up the Rolling Stones’ “Made in the Shade” and dance around the apartment singing Bitch and Happy with the drapes wide open, letting in the rainy grey light.

Fully clad, I don my rose-colored sunglasses. This is how I prefer to see the world. And the next time I spot a pothole, I'll take a different street.