Always There

It's another Thursday morning and my mind is reeling with thoughts of women. This is no shock to anyone who knows me. I'm constantly thinking about women. I love women. You might say that, much like a grammar school boy, I'm girl crazy. I think they're neat.

I've always been this way. I had a cute little girlfriend in kindergarten. (We met later in life, things didn't go so well). But I've always been crazy about girls. I'm mad for their softness, toughness and everything in between. So you can imagine my constant torment when I'm surrounded by them, all chatting and drinking and smiling and flirting. It's my hell.

I am enamored by the way they smell, the watery quality their eyes have, the way their skin is somehow always so soft. I'm amazed by their leaps in reasoning and logic and I'm always impressed by their accomplishments. I'm sort of an old soul when it comes to women. I'm generation Mark One from women's liberation so I can still say that I'm impressed with them. It makes me hot.

I can't tell you how often I fall in love. It probably happens at least once every fifteen minutes. On the train, on the bus, on the sidewalk, at the bar, online, looking out the window, I'm always imagining myself in the their presence. I can see myself there, sitting at a table, patiently smiling as they describe to me how their day was.  I offer some comfort, maybe a joke, maybe we get into an argument, but I still imagine myself as a part of their world. It's something I want.

These days though, I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. It's probably because I reek of desperation and loneliness. I'm not the cool guy. The motorcycle type. I don't sky dive or zip line or surf. I don't like boats. I don't like traveling too much. I don't care for close guy friends. I'm jealous. I'm envious. I'm critical. I'm judgmental. I'm often oblivious to the feelings of others. I mean, what kind of woman would pass all that up?

There's no reason to believe that I'm perfect. I'm just as flawed as the next guy. But what I can't seem to figure out is how that fat, bald, annoying laugh guy is with the woman of my dreams and she seems to really love him. Did she help him through some terrible addiction? Did she comfort him as his father passed away? Did he make her a dinner once and she thinks it was the nicest thing any man has ever done for her because she had such a crap lousy father of her own?

I'm picky too. If she doesn't have the right shaped face, body type, sense of humor, voice, eyes, hair, brains, and an ability to look good in sweat pants, I'm just not interested. I'm quite particular about the women I want. Which makes it all the more baffling to me since I shouldn't be so choosy. I just don't want to settle. It's not that I have a "dream girl" and I'm holding out for her. I do seem to have a "dream type" though. But that's not unrealistic is it?

Everybody is attracted to certain character traits, things that make the heart and head swoon with delight. Each woman I fall in love with on the train, bus, on the sidewalk, online, etc., has the right look about her, but I can't seem to get their attention. I'm not buff (Do people still say that?), or wealthy. I do my laundry at a laundromat. I have a four year old car. The hairstyle I have now is the hairstyle I'll have in my coffin. I just don't know what these obviously bright, attractive women are looking for. And don't say confidence and someone who makes them laugh. I make every girl I know laugh and I project a great deal of confidence, so that old hat is a total fabrication.

This loneliness is vicious. It's a predator that slowly consumes you. It doesn't chomp down and swallow you whole. It takes little nips at you with each rejection or emotional snub. Until you wake up in a cocoon of silk made from your own disappointments.

I may sound a bit morbid. I'm not though. I am not a hopeless romantic. I am the consummate hopeful romantic. There is always hope that even a complete fuck up like me will be found by the right girl. She'll hose me off, shine up the parts she likes most and everything will be good as gold. In the mean time, if you catch me staring at you briefly on the bus, don't freak out, I'm just thinking about our kids.