I don’t expect every date to feel like the chemistry experiments my lab partner and I muddled through in high school, the ones where the desired outcome was an exciting, and sometimes explosive, reaction.
That word desire, however, continues to confound me just like Chemistry class did.
In a romance, it’s certainly more fun when there's a mutual desire that clicks. But finding it and keeping it feel a bit like digging through the earth's crust to China.
I’d been in the dating pool for two years when I met a blue-eyed guy who resides in a charming beach town a couple of hours from my desert home, one who swiped right on his cell phone about the same time I did. There is a sweet ruggedness about him, plus he has a razor-sharp wit that’s number one on my list of requirements in a relationship. He didn’t miss a beat when I asked him to tell me a joke within minutes of our meeting: “A dog walks into a bar…”
Kudos for his quick thinking, but his curiosity about people and things were the traits that disarmed me most. He’s a dreamer who uses some serious left-brain skills in his work, coupled with a right-brain sense of wonder. He’s unlike any man I’ve ever dated.
I was intrigued by our first coffee date and eager for our second, which took place 40 stories up at a downtown hotel bar with floor- to-ceiling windows overlooking San Diego Bay. The panoramic sunset layered in orange and a couple of glasses of a crisp Sauvignon Blanc were all we needed to start snuggling together like teenagers in side-by-side club chairs.
After long-distance dating for a few months, he sent me a recording of a Keith Urban song, “Female”: Sister, shoulder, Daughter, lover, Healer, broken halo, Mother nature…Technicolor river wild, Baby girl, women shine, Female…She’s the heart of life, She’s the dreamer’s dream, She’s the hands of time, She’s the queen of kings.”
He had me at queen of kings.
We continued to text, talk and meet to see if that initial, indescribable something still fluttered around us. What I knew for sure at the time was this: When a man sits across from me at lunch, looks straight into my eyes, asks me not to look away when our talks turn to feelings, and my vulnerabilities pop up like they’re bracing for a storm? I know I’ve met someone with the capacity to look directly at the scorched landscape of my past without batting an eye.
But my post-divorce senses work 24/7, so night after night, phone call after phone call, there was one devious detail that unraveled what I thought was a strong relationship with a future. I heard it the first time we spoke on the phone, I heard it the last time we spoke and sad to say, I heard it during many of our other phone conversations. I heard the crystal-clear clink, clink, clink of ice cubes in a bar glass, as he rocked it in his hand, back and forth, right and left, to chill the vodka.
I know how to pick ’em, I think, these guys who are seduced by other lovers. Although this brand of Russian operative may not wear thigh-high boots and a sultry perfume, it’s still a dealbreaker for me.
When I looked at myself in the mirror after those phone calls, I saw a face that wore the look of concern, with the apostrophes between my eyebrows etched just a tad deeper than the day before. But the Linda who looked back at me was the new, improved version who won’t settle for someone who prefers the company of a spirited beverage over me.
Although he was willing to look at my scorched landscape, he wasn't ready to own his. I sobbed on the phone when I told him I wouldn’t see him again.
Exactly one year after ending that relationship, I swiped right on a guy who wanted to meet because the dating profile picture of me literally mid-air, jumping for joy for a photography project, “made him smile.”
And his photos–and him in the flesh upon our first date–certainly made me smile: Tall, muscular and boyishly cute, he had good skin with nary a pore visible on that sweet face, eyes the color of Colombian coffee, plus he’s a true creative both in vocation and avocation.
This nuts ‘n bolts girl was intrigued.
At our next date, I saw him leaning against the wall outside the restaurant scrolling on his phone when I walked up. He looked like a catalog model in a John Varvatos patterned button-down, navy sport coat and slim black jeans.
"You look hot," he murmured as he eyed my leather pants and black lace moto jacket that made the cut after a half dozen prior outfits were nixed. And I was a smitten kitten from the first time we made out in a parking lot following a cozy dinner at the Belgian restaurant he'd chosen after I mentioned I liked their mussels in white wine.
It also helps that he’s nearly a decade younger than me, seems financially viable as the owner of two homes, and hasn’t developed the old man stoop and shuffle that some of the guys in my dating pool have. This guy would never, as my first date did, roll up his pant leg to show me the wound that was left after skin cancer was scraped off his shiny white shin.
This new chemistry that bubbled up immediately with mr. boyish was mutual–as we continued to see one another, he sent me flirty texts about the spark he felt–and for the first time in a long time, I saw that the kind of chemistry and conversation combo I’m seeking may exist.
I’m old enough and smart enough to know that physical sizzle can’t carry a relationship forever, but when he took my face in his hands before he kissed me, and then I leaned into his chest to feel his arms pull me closer, his body hard against mine–now that’s what I call a good start to something.
This man-boy was the best kisser I’ve had since a guy I dated when Carole King was on a turntable and not the Broadway stage.
So, I was stunned when he texted rather than called after two months and said, “I haven’t exactly been truthful with you.” His situation was “complicated,” and he wasn’t going to make our next date. My Spidey senses told me he has a steady girlfriend back home in Canada, and she was probably coming for a visit.
Hmmm, I thought after blocking his number, I’m not signing on to be anyone’s second option.
The good news about these relationship chemistry experiments? Each one taught me that I can still get a shiver when a guy I’m attracted to puts his hand on the small of my back to draw me closer. I can still feel the giddy anticipation of what’s to come after we make plans for dinner or a movie or a road trip. None felt like a complete failure on anyone’s part because I learned something about them, and myself, every time.
There’s a sweet satisfaction that comes as I break into a big smile when my date walks into a room, and I think, "That's my guy!"
But chemistry is not my primary focus, and I’m skeptical if it feels too fast, too soon. Physical attraction coupled with the baggage of addiction, cheating, dishonesty or anger is a failed experiment in the world of Linda.
In high school, I was never great at chemistry—it was the only C I ever got on my report card.
Fifty years later, though, I'm making straight As: I see the warnings coming before things blow up in my face.