Every once in a while I come across an online dating profile of someone I know. Recently I was “liked” by a man I have already met.
About 2 years ago I was attending a show with some friends. It was a band I have seen often so I’m familiar with the regular band members. That night there was a musician I had never seen before playing with the band. He was attractive, but this was during the time I wasn’t dating so I didn’t think anything of it. During a break he came up to me and asked if he’s my (unnamed company) delivery driver. He has a day job working for a international delivery company and plays in several bands. He thought I was a woman on his regular route, or he just said that as a way to meet me. I thought we had a brief but pleasant conversation. My friends said I was kind of bitchy. Like I said, I wasn’t dating so I didn’t think much of it. Oh Well.
Several times since then I’ve seen him playing with different bands. By now I was ready to date again, and did I mention he is very attractive? He played a show at a place I regularly go when I quickly found out he had a girlfriend. She was at the gig with what looked to be her whole family. Oh well. Again.
Fast forward to a few days ago. I got a”like” from the Musician and I “liked” him back. I was happy he got in touch because, I may not have made it clear, he’s very attractive. And ladies, musicians, am I right? We chatted a little, then exchanged phone numbers. We talked on the phone for a little while. He said he remembered meeting me 2 years ago and that I wasn’t bitchy at all. Ha! Take that friends! Although he could have just said that because he wants to date me.
He said he got divorced about a year ago. I know he and his girlfriend had been together longer than that. Ok, long separation perhaps. Sometimes people wait until they can financially handle it or delay a divorce for other reasons. Regardless, it was a concern. He said he’s been on Match about a month. I knew I had seen the Musician with his girlfriend within the last month. I was concerned. He told me they had broken up and he was ready to move on. I agreed to meet him the next evening. I figured I could get the full story then.
The more I thought about it, the more it bothered me. The next day – the day we were going to meet – I reached out to someone who knows him and his girlfriend. I wanted to know if what he was telling me was true. The friend confirmed that he was indeed divorced not too long ago, but that the marriage was over long before that. The friend also told me a few red flags to watch for. More concern. I was supposed to meet him in a few hours. What the hell was I going to do?
With only a few exceptions, I have been notoriously bad at picking men. I cannot trust my brain to tell me when someone is right or wrong. Very often my fear takes over and clouds my judgement. So I’ve been “praying” for my body to tell me when someone is right or wrong. I am not religious, but I consider myself to be spiritual. I “pray” every night to a higher power, mostly as a meditative tool. I don’t think of it as “god” in the religious sense, it is more a connection to the great circle of life. I am grateful for all the wonderful people in my life and for my many blessings. I also ask for guidance. Perhaps there really is a higher power. Perhaps there is no higher power and it’s the meditation helping me. Regardless, it’s working. My body’s responses have helped me decide whether or not to meet Keith (see the previous post “Keith”), helped me decide which of the two men I’m seeing – that I met in person – I want to focus my energy on (oh how I wish I could tell those stories; perhaps someday…), and it helped me decide whether or not to meet the Musician.
The signals my body gives me is either serious stomach upset – not the nervous excited stomach upset – or my back hurts, or both. Yes, there is a part of my back that hurts when I think about certain men, amongst other potentially stressful things. My stomach was raging upset all afternoon thinking about meeting the Musician, so I cancelled the date. I gave him some bullshit story about how I just found out a different man I’d been dating for a few months was going to be where we were meeting, and I didn’t think it would be right to meet him when the other man was there. It allowed me to still go to an event I was planning to go to for weeks and not have to see him. I should have just told him the truth, that (if for no other reason) I wasn’t interested in someone who so recently broke up with his girlfriend. But I didn’t. Not that it matters now. When I cancelled it was instant relief. I thought then I had made the right decision, but I wasn’t sure.
There is a popular downtown area of Tucson, part of which is on 4th Avenue. It’s an area with bars, restaurants, theatres (yes I use the British spelling, don’t @ me) and shops. One of the venues I go to regularly on 4th Avenue is called The Hut. The night I was supposed to meet the Musician there is a regular event called Tribal Thursday. It’s a drum circle, music, and performances of dance and poetry, but people go mostly for the drum circle. In my family, as a child we weren’t asked if we wanted to play an instrument, we were asked what instrument do you want to play. I chose flute. My twin brother (yes, I have a twin brother) picked drums. If I had it to do over again I would have picked drums. Liking the drums as I do I was really enjoying the percussion that night, but was still feeling weird about what had transpired. About an hour into the show I got a message from the person I had contacted about the Musician. They had been in touch with the girlfriend. Not surprisingly, the girlfriend thought everything was fine between them. She was out of town and although he had the time off he chose not to go with her. My gut was right. Now I know I can trust my body to tell me when something is wrong. I honestly didn’t know until just then if it would ever be possible to trust any part of me to know what is right for me. I didn’t think an asshole like that could give me a great gift, but he did.