The Click
by Heidi Matz
IT DOESN’T HURT AS MUCH ANYMORE. And I’m going in circles to figure out who to blame. I was thirsting for romance, and we had a perfect courtship on the rocks. We’d clicked. But there are times when that click is not good enough.
I’d been alone for some months, dating seemed tiresome and full of effort. Spring melted softly into a cool summer. I was feeling totally calm, taking a life-altering approach to my existence. Then the phone rang. It was my girlfriend, J.
“What are you doing Saturday night?” she asked.
I hesitated, knowing J. went each Saturday to a meeting at a remote part of the Valley. She called it “a happening.”
“Why? Don’t tell me you want me to come with you to a meeting on a Saturday night? A woman has her pride, you know.”
“There’s a guy. He’s the babe of the meeting. He just broke up with his girlfriend. I think you should meet. Come with me.”
I know what you’re thinking. That it doesn’t sound very safe or promising, but you’re wrong. After all, he was involved in a 12-step program, didn’t drink, and wanted to work on his problems.
Just go along once, I told myself as we drove out on the 118 west. As I saw who I could only hope would be him entering the church ahead of me, I knew by his scuffed motorcycle boots and his long blonde hair that this man should be a gift from a higher source.
Yet from the first date, he was easy. He made me laugh. He had seen the movie “Platoon” twice, like me. He loved Matisse. He had a dog with my name! We talked about movies we had to see together, traveling, aspirations. He was gentle, generous, an evolved man—yet his eyes were wild. I told myself I was too bright to let myself be swept off my feet, but the ground suddenly became slippery. Of course I fell.
I was running seven miles a day. I finally lost those five lousy pounds. I even bought something sheer and black. Suddenly I was making twice as much coffee in the morning, buying real bagels, Oreos, chips—to be presented in case he was hungry.
Then, from the depths of a shadow, the fall came. He said he’d lost that feeling of intimacy with me. I said he wasn’t over his ex-girlfriend yet.
“You’re empty,” he said.
“You’re cold,” I answered, and in no time it was too late.
It didn’t matter how attracted we were, how much we laughed, because we did not have the crucial element of commitment. And before I knew it, he was out the door. ♦