One of the hazards of growing wrinkly is memories seem to be regurgitate themselves in day–dreams.
Now, I’m happily attached, and that’s not changing, but I find myself recalling some of the might–have–beens. The current regurgitation theme seems to be chemistry.
Two women stand out in my mind, two women with whom I shared some chemistry. The most recent was actually a couple of years ago, long after I became attached. It’s really rather humourous: whenever I was nowhere near the young woman, I told myself I had to tell her I was attached, but whenever we came in range of each other, the chemistry would revive and my brain would turn to mush. My conversation intentions evaporated. I couldn’t tell her anything! It took me a whole year of chance encounters to tell the poor woman. She must have realised something was up because I never attempted to take advantage of her clear and obvious interest. I do feel rather guilty, though, about taking so long to tell her, even though the only reason I didn’t was that she she melted my words before I said them. Welcome to the human condition! No one’s to blame, nothing happened, we’ve both moved on.
About thirty years ago, there was another young woman with whom I shared an intense chemistry. I must have asked her out about a hundred times, and she always said no. I must emphasise that she clearly appreciated and enjoyed my enthusiasm, and I always respected her answer—until the next day. She was a colleague, and I eventually found the situation so frustrating that I left the company. What I didn’t understand is that, when I bumped into her at a reunion five years later, she told me it was my fault that we weren’t husband and wife.
She was wrong, but I do partially see her perspective. There’s detail. Because our chemistry was so strong, I wanted to have a pre–dating negotiation with her: I was quite convinced that if we started dating, and presuming the chemistry didn’t die after the first kiss, it would trap us together; it was that strong. I wanted to ensure she knew a key fact about me before we let rip, so she could make an informed decision on whether to go ahead. It was something about myself that I disliked (and still dislike), so I wanted to tell her where no–one else I knew was around. I suggested a conversation in a pub. The great advantage of a pub is there is no implied responsibility to hang around as there is with, say, a meal in a restaurant. If she didn’t like what I needed to tell her, she could walk out without compunction. A pub is neutral ground.
Because she refused that pre–date negotation, we didn’t date. She knew I had to tell her something, because I told her so. That she refused to let me tell her was her error, not mine.
What I got wrong, perhaps, was to insist that I told her my information where there were no colleagues, or other people, about. In retrospect, I should have been more self–confident (an eternal problem), I should have insisted she knew, I should have told her in range of other women’s ears. That way, should she decide that I wasn’t for her, which was what I expected, then office gossip would probably mean my dilemma was mentioned, and if there happened to be another young women looking for a partner such as me, she might have let me know.
Anyway, after those hundred nos, despite me telling her that I had to tell her something before we started dating, I gave up and decided to offer her was I thought she clearly sought: a traditional date over a meal. I emailed her my offer. She didn’t even bother to reply. It was that lack of reply that led me to resign my contract and move on: I just couldn’t handle the situation any more.
Clearly, her thinking that her refusal to date was my fault meant we have a quite different perspective on things. I see that as a nascent personality clash. Now imagine a situation where we were together, held and trapped together by an intense chemisty, where my unsaid confidential caused her mental damage, where that nascent personality clash turned into the real thing. We’d have ended up hating each other. That’s why I think, in retrospect, it might have been for the best that we stayed apart.
I regret we didn’t explore that chemistry, but it was probably the right result.