Men gone mad

There’s a saying that’s so familiar that I need only say the first few words for everyone to know what I’m talking about: “if you love something ... ” I’ve done so much letting go in my life, especially in regard to love, that it’s becoming easier to do. But I haven’t had much experience with the “it will come back to you” part, despite how much I daydreamed, longed or prayed for such a return.

But I’ve recently had a couple of instances of the coming back part, one of which turned out to be unwelcome and the other that has yet to be determined.

The first came while I was spending a month in India. My roommate reported to me via e-mail a phone message from someone I’ll call “Steve.” He gave no last name, but I guessed it was the Steve I had dated about 11 years ago. We remained friends even after my less-than-praiseworthy break-up with him. He married within a year or so and we kept in touch through mutual friends.

To make a long story short, we met for coffee one evening to catch up on old times, or so I thought. But when his hand lingered too long on mine, that was my first clue that he had more than swapping stories in mind. “What about your marriage?” I asked. “We have a … good marriage,” he said, taking a little too long to choose an adjective to describe his marriage. I don’t mean to be unkind, but I wouldn’t want to do more than chat even if he were single. There were good reasons for my breaking up with him. I told him that if he wanted to invite me to his house to meet his two boys when his wife was there, I’d be fine with that. But I declined to meet with him behind her back. I hope something clicked in his mind to convince him to work things out with his wife.

That’s certainly not the kind of coming back to me I ever longed for. When the man I mentioned in an earlier post (I’ll call him “Joe”) seemed less and less interested in spending time with me, I decided not so much to set him free as to put myself out of my misery. So after weeks of hearing, “I’m too busy to get together with you,” I sent him an e-mail that went something like this: “This isn’t working for me. Why don’t you call me when you want to have a relationship with me?” Then, over the coming days, I deleted his saved voicemail messages. I deleted his e-mails, as well as my e-mails to him. I dumped the photos I had of him on my hard drive. I wrote up a witty profile and signed up on as many singles websites as I could find. I won’t bore you with those details, except to say that I found there were men on the singles websites every bit as non-responsive as “Joe.” I didn’t find any keepers there, but at least I wasn’t thinking about Joe.

Months came and went, including a month I spent in India. That could take up a month of blog entries in itself; suffice it to say for now that it was a tremendous experience. One of the best things about it was that seemed to satisfy that empty place in me that I’m always trying to fill with a man. The satisfaction lingered, giving me memories to savor when my mind wandered from the theology books I was supposed to be reading.

One evening as I sat at my computer, the phone rang. I let the machine answer, as usual. The male voice was familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. When he identified himself as “Joe,” I was frozen in disbelief. It didn’t matter that it was April 1, because I couldn’t believe it was him calling, whatever day it was. I even had to play the message for a roommate later to be sure I wasn’t imagining it. I would have bet my last penny that I’d never hear from him again.

To be continued ...