Category Archives: dating

The song remembers when*

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(this will be the first of a series of posts)

During the move, I found a box full of old cassette tapes. Most of them were mix tapes I’ve made at one point or another…I thought it might be fun to pull them out and post the track listings with a bit of background as to what was going on in my life at the time.

I’ve arranged them more or less in chronological order. People who know me well will notice some major holes, and here’s why…after every breakup I’ve ever gone through, there’s been a massive purge. I made *dozens* of lovey-dovey mix tapes for K in college, and they’re all gone. I just couldn’t bear to have them around, and putting them in a box and hiding them wasn’t enough…

Ahem, anyway. The first one is titled “And So It Goes…”, and it was made during the summer of 1993, between my freshman and sophomore year of college. Earlier that year, I had broken up with J, and when I came home for summer vacation, I briefly dated this guy (we’ll call him E) with whom I’d engaged in mild flirtations with the previous summer. E was also freshly out of a relationship. We tried to do casual, but neither one of us seemed to do that very well…and when he finally broke it off, I made him this mix tape:

Side A

This Night — Billy Joel
And So It Goes — Billy Joel
Take This Heart — Richard Marx
Kiss — Prince
Send Her My Love — Journey
Can’t Fight This Feeling — REO Speedwagon
In Your Eyes — Peter Gabriel
Something About You — (I have no idea…I don’t even know what song this is.)
If You Leave — OMD
The Longest Time — Billy Joel

Side B

No Ordinary Love — Sade
All Shook Up — Elvis Presley
Kiss the Girl — from The Little Mermaid
Fever —
If — Janet Jackson
Paradise City — Guns ‘n Roses (this one had an inside meaning)
Can’t Help Falling in Love — Elvis Presley

(I had thrown in a couple of lame instumentals to fill up space. and as with most mix tapes, the first side is much stronger than the second…)

Was I in love with E? Did he break my heart? I don’t know…I was in a pretty vulnerable place that summer. When I think about this tape, I remember sitting alone at night on a swing at the park, wondering if anyone would ever love me again, though I know that was more about J than it was about E…

I linked to the lyrics to “This Night,” because that song, more than any other one, sums up that short-lived romance with E. We’ve been in contact since then. He’s married. And I, after a few wrong turns, soon will be. I have no hard feelings, and I smile when I think about him and the summer of 1993…

*post title is from a Trisha Yearwood song that I always powerfully identified with. Music is so strongly tied to our emotions, isn’t it?

A thank you to Ron Hawkins

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Just a little more than three years ago, I came across a profile in Yahoo! personals. Before I even read the whole thing, I could see that this profile was different from the others. He could spell, for one. 😉 Upon closer examination, I saw that this man and I had a couple of important things in common…among them, a love of music and a love of books.

What really grabbed my attention, though, was the mention of one of my very favorite musicians: Toronto’s Ron Hawkins, frontman for Lowest of the Low. I’m pretty sure that’s what took me from “hey, this guy looks interesting” to “hey, I’ve got to meet this guy.”

That guy, of course, was Rand. In one of our very first email exchanges, he asked me about the last concert I’d gone to. My last concert happened to be Lowest of the Low, and we began exchanging stories about seeing Ron/the Low in concert. Rand started using Ron’s lyrics as the subjects of our emails, and we’d go back and forth, searching for a lyric that seemed appropriate to the topic of our conversation. After a few dates, he sent a message with the subject “you nearly kissed me blind,” and I nearly swooned. 😉 I go back and read those early messages now and then, and they still make me smile.

When he took me out a couple of days before my birthday, he played his guitar and sang for me. Among other things, he played both Subversives and Black Monday. If there had been any doubt in my mind up to this point, it was gone. 😉

Now, I’m not saying that we wouldn’t have gotten together if it hadn’t been for Ron, but it sure didn’t hurt! Thanks, Ron!

And I’m still every bit as smitten now as I was three years ago. (look for a list of things I love about Rand, ala Debbie Ohi, in the near future!)

Beware the Ides of March

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I forgot it was the Ides of March until I heard it mentioned on NPR this morning.

I met X on the Ides of March. I should have known it would end disastrously… 😉

A whole year? Already? :)

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When the world takes you down
you can always depend on me now
and I’ll forever be around
to tell you I need you…

Something True, Einstein’s Sister

One year ago today, my life was changed forever.

Of course, I didn’t completely know that at the time. 😉 That night, meeting Rand in person for the first time for drinks and darts at Brew Pub, I couldn’t have known how I’d feel today.

I knew he was interesting, funny and smart. I knew he was someone I would want to have in my life. I knew that I wanted to see him again.

A week later, after our second date, I wrote about our meeting in my journal.

He hugged me good night, and I left smiling.

I have to agree with one of his aunts, whom I just met the other night…he gives the best hugs. Just one of the many, many things I adore about him. Here are a few more…

I love his intelligence, his humor, his wit.

I love his passion for the people and things he cares deeply about. I love listening to him “nerd out” about music, film, religion, comic books…etc…

I love his singing voice.

I love his kindness, his generosity, his open-mindedness.

I love his friends and family.

I love the way he takes care of me, without ever making me feel like I need to be “taken care of.”

I love his eyes, and the way those eyes look at me.

I love the way he “gets” me…whenever he’s recommended a book, a movie, a TV show (on DVD, of course!) to me, I’ve not once been disappointed.

I love his silly, playful side.

I love the calming effect he has on me.

I love the way he truly appreciates me.

I love all of these things, and so, so much more, and I am so thankful that he is in my life.

On love…

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Lately, I’ve been reminded of a Clint Black song that came out back in 2001 called Something That We Do. I’ve always thought it was a terribly romantic song…he wrote it for his wife, about their marriage and their relationship, and to me, it’s a perfect example of what it means to have a mature loving relationship.

We help to make each other all that we can be
Though we can find our strength and inspiration independently
The way we work together is what sets our love apart
So closely that you can’t tell where I end and where you start

I think that a lot of the time, when we think of love, we think of that thrilling rush we feel the first time. Maybe that’s why first loves are so hard to get over. We express our feelings in terms of need. We identify this person as “completing” us…which of course assumes that we were unfinished in the first place and in need of completion. Romantic, yes, but maybe not the healthiest of feelings.

I felt that way with K, and when we broke up, I was sure I would never find it again…and in a way, I was right, because it never feels quite like it did that first time. But on the other hand, what we feel that second or third time around is in some ways better. It’s about knowing you have a full and complete life on your own, but wanting someone to share it with. It’s about having a true partnership. It’s about your mutual respect and desire for the other person. And most of all, it’s realizing that love is more than an abstract emotion.

It’s a verb.

Love in my tummy

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So yes, Valentine’s Day was simply lovely…Rand and I had dinner at Rue Franklin. We started with some appetizers…mine was a tasty pasta dish with rabbit (yes, rabbit) and bacon, and about a pound of butter. He had an arugala salad and also some sea scallops (I’m almost sold on sea scallops…this is the second time I’ve tried his, and they were quite yummy…). For dinner, we both had the filet mignon, which was absolute perfection. I had a chocolate raspberry truffle tort for dessert. Mmmm…

*my apologies to my dear roommie for not sharing details, but the first time I saw her afterwards, she was half sleeping, and so I just gave her the bare-bones description!*

Our waiter was someone I actually recognized…a couple of years ago, Jen and I went to karaoke at the Tudor Lounge and spent most of the night talking to this guy. He went up and simply rocked “Rock the Casbah.”

“I think I know our waiter,” I told Rand.

Before we left, I stopped him and asked if he’d ever done karaoke at the Tudor Lounge. He got a sheepish grin on his face and said “Yeah.”

“Okay, that’s how I know you,” I said. Hee!

After we’d ordered our meal, Rand asked me if I noticed how the wait staff is trained to stroke the man’s ego…I hadn’t. “When you ordered,” he told me, “he just kind of nodded and said okay. But when I ordered, it was ‘Oh, yes, excellent choice sir.”

I did notice this when we ordered our dessert. Rand ordered fruit sorbet, followed up by “Yes, a perfect way to finish off.” Heh. Interesting things that I don’t notice…probably because I don’t do much fine dining. 😉

I also received a beautiful bouquet of roses.

I gave Rand this adorable little book:

And ordered a DVD that I knew he wanted. Unfortunately, the DVD hasn’t come in yet, so he got an IOU.

I also got him the “Romance” edition of magnetic poetry. To make it a little extra-special, I bought a magnetic dry erase board and wrote a little poem for him. It was a big hit. (Maybe I can get him to take a photo of it for me?) 🙂

(aside…how cool is magnetic poetry? and this? I didn’t even know there was such a thing!)

I hope everyone had a pleasant day!

More on my adventures in substitute teaching later…

More than just holding hands

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What’s it like
when all your dreams come true?
When your life
is given something new
and you begin to live the way you’ve always wanted to?

That, for me, is you.

Happy Valentine’s Day, baby! 😉

Let me count the ways

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The other day, Rand and I were talking about Valentine’s Day, and I asked what he wanted to do…

“I made a reservation for six,” he said. “Does that work for you?”

Does it work?

I was shocked, in the most pleasant of ways.

You see, the entire time I was with X, he never planned anything. Not once. Not one Valentine’s Day, not one anniversary. I had to plan everything. And it’s not as if I have outrageous expectations…sometimes, a girl just wants to feel valued. Cherished. Important.

And I do. I really, really do. 😉

Semantics

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Per some conversations I’ve been having recently, I’m wondering…how do those of you out in blogworld refer to the person with whom you’re in a mutually exclusive relationship?

Once you get past a certain age, the terms “boyfriend” and “girlfriend” seem almost silly. On the other hand, though, there doesn’t seem to be a viable alternative.

Significant Other
Okay, but almost overly PC. Also nearly always refers to a spouse.

Partner
This one carries with it a certain connotation…for example, if I referred to my “partner,” I suspect that people might get the idea that Jen is more than just my roommate.

“Friend”
For one, it smacks of those distasteful Molson ads. And for another, one might look silly making those quote marks in the air all the time. Think Say Anything.

Lover
Really, can anyone say this without thinking of Will Ferrell on SNL and giggling? “My lov-ah.”
*snicker*

(okay, reading those two in succession makes me want to break into song. “And I’ll be your friend…and I’ll be your luuuuuuuuhvah.” Ah, Gloria Loring and Carl Anderson. Ahem.)

And, as R’s friend Debbie pointed out:

My Main Squeeze
“is more appropriate to a favourite accordion than a loved one.”

Hee. 😉

After seeing Best in Show (yep, I’ve finally seen it…*loved* it. I don’t know if I’m willing to pick a favorite, though.) I rather enjoyed the idea of using “euphemism.”

Internet dating, Part II

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Today is exactly two months since R and I met. Exciting, ain’t it?

A little bit of background…in what was a bit of a twist of events for me, I contacted him on said Internet dating site. Since I didn’t actually have an account, I did one of those little free wink/icebreaker thingies. He responded with an email telling me that it was interesting that I had contacted him, since he’d had my profile saved.

I sent him an email this morning pointing out the date, and he replied with the original email he’d sent me. He also pointed out that we went from initial email to meeting in three days.

Pretty cool, indeed… 😉

Er, anyway. There’s something resembling a point coming here, I promise. 😉

So we were talking this afternoon about the fact that it was unusual for me to have been the “pursuer.” My approach to online dating had pretty much been “post profile and see who responds.” Every now and then I would contact someone, usually either getting no response or exchanging a few emails and fizzling out. There was one other guy I contacted (er…because my mom found him and thought he was cute…) and actually met, but clearly that didn’t work out either.

Stick with me. Getting there.

So anyway, R told me that he has spoken to women friends who have had much more success with Internet dating when they have been the ones doing the initial contacting. He suspects that it’s because there’s an element of the woman being less worried about the man being a psycho/rapist/murderer/freak/weirdo when she’s the one who contacted him.

I don’t think I’ve ever thought of it quite like that, but it certainly seems to have worked out better for me this way! What do you think, dear readers?