Playing with Bad Karma

I sometimes wonder how I'm going to pay for what I'm doing here, taking care of Mary and isolating myself for...how many years? I'll be homeless and jobless when she dies, although hopefully not penniless. I'll also be still single with only the few friends I could manage to hang onto by emailing (since I'm not much good at phoning). Not many friends here in L--except for family, not that they aren't friends.

As for the being single, that seems to be my fate regardless. I always joke that I have bad (sexual) karma because I was a nun in my last life. Mom says a lot of Kleins never got married, that it's in my genes, so to say.

This last guy that I went out with a few times...I'd really hoped it would mean something. He's a friend of my brothers, which sounds so safe, doesn't it? In this case it means the opposite. I should have known better--because he is a friend of my brothers. I admit, the Bohemian aspect of him (ie, an innate characteristic of my brother and his friends) was partly what attracted me. Who wants the quotidian? This guy is also good-looking, but that doesn't sway me much. I'm finding out from talking with Jo that I only find .1% of men good-looking enough to like. I mean, I can recognize handsome, but that doesn't mean I feel attracted to it. No wonder I'm still single! Mom's right--I am too picky. Anyway, this guy is handsome in a way that I find attractive, but even that wasn't enough.

It started with his smell. That's always a clincher (or declincher) for me. Then it seemed as if everything I found out about him (almost everything--I'll be honest because I did see him smoking once--and I am a self-admitted Nazi, right-wing conservative non-smoker) could have been put on a check-list for my perfect guy: good sense of humor, intelligent, artistic, into poetry, likes foreign films, into interesting music (even classical), likes food and cookbooks, enjoys gardening, likes dogs and cats (there's something about a guy who likes cats), likes plays/theater, lived abroad, speaks some French and German, not afraid to be silly, just the right height... so of course I started to fall for him. Jo has been great about staying with Mary so I could go out--and it was so nice to get out! I felt like a human being again.

I started thinking that if this guy didn't kiss me soon, I'd explode. That's where I went wrong. He didn't seem to make any moves. Jo and I decided that he must be waiting for me to make the first move so that later, if things went wrong, he could be guilt-free since he didn't technically start anything. Bonnie agreed that many men don't want to make the first move. I'd never encountered that before. In fact, I've had more experience with trying to avoid their first moves. At any rate, I did make the first move and kissed this guy--just after he'd, in very confused babble, told me that he was seeing another woman--at which, admittedly, my brain had frozen inside my head. He seemed to chide me by saying that we were out in the public too much, so I'd said good night, feeling embarrassed on two counts--kissing him after he said he wasn't free (I've had affairs with two men who weren't free and swore I wouldn't do it again) and trying to kiss him so intensely in public (I never can stop at just one kiss).

I got a very nice email the next day letting me know that he did like me, so everything was kosher, but then I talked to my brother and everything went sour. It turns out that this guy is a major player, although he doesn't seem to really know it. Why didn't my brother tell me before?! I guess he thought I'd be mad at him for interfering. I'd rather have known, so I would have taken it all with a grain of salt and not let myself get sucked in. Now instead of being left with sweet memories, I'm left with acrid ones, tainted with the knowledge that the actions were perhaps premeditated and intended for effect, not ingenuous as I'd supposed.

Jo says I shouldn't but I do feel like a fool. Perhaps this guy looked at me as an easy catch, easy prey. On some level he must have felt sorry for me--a woman who has been so long isolated that she is desperate. I almost was, that's true. Will other men look at me the same way? I've so often thought of trying to find someone to go out with, but I wasn't able to get away. Now that Jo is here, it's possible. She may stay indefinitely and that would make it even more possible, but what man would want that? What man would understand my situation? I should be an attractive catch--someone so caring and loyal. Yes, I seem to be attractive to men in their 50's who want a younger woman who can cook and take care of them. Actually, this experience could really damage my self-confidence. Put it together with the last advance made toward me and I could become a real basket case. But I refuse to do so. I'll try not to become a bitter older woman, but I will strive to be one who is strong and appreciates herself.

I told the guy I just wanted to be friends as that was all my situation afforded so I couldn't see him anymore--I wanted more than was good for me, too, because he wasn't even free. I tried to bow out gracefully. I do so hate confrontation, but perhaps I should have thrown the truth in his face. I liked him too much; that was the whole problem. I still like him because the picture I got of him doesn't coincide with the picture my brother gave to me. I want to delude myself that my brother, who has known this man for about 23 years, was wrong. Well, as my brother said, he is a really nice guy, he's just a womanizer--not a problem if you're not interested in dating him.