0.5 Only straight lines

“Be a fool. For love. For yourself. What you think might possibly make you happy – even for a little while – whatever the cost or good sense might dictate.”
Anthony Bourdain.

To even the most casual reader, it must seem I fall in love at the drop of a clipboard. Hard to argue against. I feel attuned in a way I haven’t before and when there is a, to use a Limerent Community term, glimmer – I definitely respond. Despite that, I’m still cautious. Very. But a smart, articulate woman can still find my defences callow.

Despite my best efforts and intentions, I find myself tethered to the dating site. I hate myself for it – daily. But the dopamine hit of a message or a match is a strong draw. I like to think myself better than this, but it seems I’m not despite my newly declared intentionality.

I chat with a woman in London. Hackney Girl. She is my age, and very EQ’d. I share my blog (why I’m doing this, I’m not sure but I have a thing about honestly despite being ON A DATING SITE!). We agree that exchanging notes on our experience is all we should do.

Sunday, I check the site and there is a new view of my profile. I check her out. She is lovely. More than lovely. As soon as I look at her profile pic my heart flutters. It’s as though I know her already – a disturbance I still can’t shake. This happens every time I look at the picture. I look at it a lot.

I message her and she responds and makes me a favourite. I see she looks at my profile a number of times. We begin to chat. I’m trying to be on guard. The previous experience with plait-girl was not good. So, I proceed with some caution that I will eventually cast to the sea, but we’ll get to that later.

The chat gets good quickly. She is sparky, bright, open and intelligent. Careful Lim, you’re wide open and own-goals are highly likely. Her name is Ellen (oh boy…) and I like her a lot. Ellen talks about how easy it is to get hooked on the dopamine of messaging. It creates a false attachment. I sense a fellow traveller at my end of emotional bandwidth. I agree.

My name is Lim and I’m a dopamine addict!

After a few more messages I blurt out: as she is going to be in London, would like coffee. Wait, wasn’t I recently pondering if I could ‘actually meet someone’? She writes back, yes that would be good but will stop messaging:

‘because I don’t think it is healthy’.

Whilst I agree with this, I feel disappointed. Yes – dopamine, but also connection. I like this woman who is nearly a foot and a half shorter than me but is hitting all the emotional keynotes. I respond:

“I’ve made a very strong commitment to honesty with myself and this process. I do have intent – strong intent to find that connection. It’s fair to say I’m pretty vulnerable but also looking to give to someone – in a big way. The road ahead is too short and the accelerator seems stuck: best to enjoy the ride while we can.”

I send a link to this blog. Why? In the end, I put it down to hubris. Ellen had admired my writing and I was keen to impress with my EQ and how I am able to communicate it. Right. I’m sure it’ll be fine. Hubris.

20 mins later, a new message. I’m thrilled, my ego perhaps a little stoked for positive feedback:

“Lim, have read your blog. I am honoured that you shared it. It made me cry. So much pain. Please don’t regret sharing it and I am so sorry but I can’t meet you…. I know I would care for you too much”

No, wait – hold on. I feel sick. But things really are not simple. Ellen explains her situation. It has been difficult (to say the least) and not to be shared here. At all. But she deserves a break – a big one.

Despite my best efforts, I had invested quickly and the ROI was looking bad, the trend isn’t my friend. Ellen cannot expose herself to any more emotional insecurity and is pretty tapped-out in the giving department. Damn. Why did I send the blog to her? My, admittedly lopsided, honesty imperative was not operating how I designed it!

Ellen is clearly distressed. Me too. I write back:

I was so excited I told my pal, Signal about the coffee date. She was thrilled. Thank you for your kind words about my writing. It’s what I should have done when I left uni. It’s a long story and one that starts on a council estate in the north Midlands and should not have ended in the City. It would no doubt tickle you – but maybe on the other side of things for both of us, I’ll get to tell you. Thank you for getting me. Jesus, I’m crying now.
Lim

She replies:

Fuck. I’m sorry. Just can’t go there. I can’t afford to, I really can’t. I need straight, simple lines to cartwheel down.

Distraught, I message Signal. Her response, to the point:

Dude, don’t share the blog with love interests. I say this because I love you 😂
If some guy I liked sent me a blog with recent entries about being besotted with someone else, I would not believe they were ready to fall in love with me. 😬

AGAIN!

Ellen had ‘got me’ really quickly and this place certainly helped. But, in a panic of self protection had come to the conclusion that I would lean too much on her. What if we actually meet, the volcano she was hoping to experience might actually happen and she would ‘care for me too much’.

I was hoping for a quiet day, one where I could eventually clear-up the floordrobe, get in the studio and work on my technique, go for a walk, be positive. Instead, I’m in an emotional death spin – AGAIN!

I explain to Ellen that I don’t want someone to save me (didn’t Helen say that to me?). I don’t. I really don’t. Because you can’t save someone else – ever. You can be the reason for someone to exit the place they find themselves, but you’re no saviour. And it’s too heavy a weight on the other to think of them that way. That really is pedestalisation.

Ellen loves easily too and her default is to care. She feels she would care too much for me (oh, please come on down, where have you been?). But there is jeopardy in this for her and wants to self-protect. It takes me until the next day to begin to analyse this position.

Ellen is on the site looking for connection too. She’s had a few dates with mixed results. I begin to question the notion that it is possible to find anyone, at our age, with any straight lines left.

I certainly don’t expect straight lines. Ellen’s lines are like a Pollack. But I don’t care, I’d jump in and trace them to her heart.

All this in a day. I’ve gone from zero to rock and roll in the time it takes to do a day’s work. This in itself should give pause. The effect on me hits hard.

I’m due at Jay’s house for a BBQ. I get in the car and cry. I message Signal (she deserves a medal, a lottery win and all manner of plaudits – her patience is forever). Her response, understated:

“Here I am with my fukin heart wide open and I should should just stay off the damned thing but I’m tethered by the possibility and I had it, today and fucked it up.
And Helen messaging from her [dying] dad’s bedside and I can’t get a single emotion out of her. Not one. Nothing. I mean, WTAF?” I despair.

Bit more circumspection I reckon, she says

I go to Jay’s, am late. I don’t really want to go. Things are still ‘difficult’ between us. He really hasn’t the first clue what has been going on. We talk about Helen and he somehow feels the need to point out that maybe messaging ‘us’ isn’t top of Helen’s mind. Helen had been messaging me about the new band but any attempt to talk about her father is gently batted away.

I am not hung-up on Helen anymore. I still have feelings but the sting has been drawn. The experience with her dad reminds me of what happened with her brother. A few years ago, just before the pandemic, her brother died. He lived on a boat and had drowned. At one point, there was as suspicion of suicide. He had mental health issues (who the hell hasn’t). It turned out to be a tragic accident.

In all that time, I only saw a glimmer of emotion from Helen – a slight sadness when asked about it. I’m reminded of Emily, the character from Elizabeth Taylor’s novel, The Sleeping Beauty:

She walked on at the same pace, her head erect, as if she noticed nothing at all, or else always the same thing ahead of her

Despite my ‘fall’ I cannot be with someone so closed-off and I cannot save her either. Like Ellen, I might be drawn to the idea, but custody of the emotional eyes is not for me. I need to see, be blinded by the possibility of life, of a love shared. Not cloistered.

I’m left wondering what Ellen expects to find on the site. ‘Straight, simple lines to cartwheel down’ suddenly feels an opulent expectation. Who arrives in their 50s and 60s without touching the walls, crashing into tables, fingerprints on the glass? If they have, do I want to meet them? What on earth would we have in common? How would they cope in adversity?

My expectations are too high and things feel disproportionate. I’m vulnerable but not helpless. I want a hand to hold, not a shoulder to lean on. I don’t want my own issues to be used as a pole to keep me away from anyone anymore. I’m me, the hallways I’ve walked have hand prints on the wall, worn tables, wonky chairs. But they have character, are my character.