JUST A HIPPIE GYPSY

MUST I ALWAYS BE ALONE
Addicted to Love (part XIX)

I attended my 20th High School reunion during the summer months. I discovered one amazing thing. All the women looked great, better, young still and I recognized every one. But the guys! Holy mackerel! Guess that is one of natures little jokes on us. The women age at a slower pace. This could be our excessive use of anti aging products. It seems the guys just don't care. But as we near our golden years, the guys look better. (Shelley Winters....Sean Connery....?)

I knew C.K. during those four years of hell known as high school. He was definitely one of the cool kid crowd. To be a gold member of that group, you came from Christ the King Grammar School. And he did. He was a college professor in a state far, far away. Taught economics of all things! He was recovering from a break up of a long term relationship and very vulnerable. It was not that I felt sorry for him, it was that I was so lonely! He is a terrific guy, funny, smart, stable, attentive and best of all his family owned a flower business in Lexington. I was awash in roses and beautiful exotic flowers for months.

All my platonic relationships come to the same conclusion. Give it up, or bust up. The good thing about most my romances of this sort, is that the guy usually is married within six months! C.K. found a stunningly beautiful woman from Brazil teaching Spanish at the college! I went to the wedding!

Loneliness is an subtle destroyer. It creeps up on you slowly and with little warning you are yearning for something that seems so unattainable. I went to the movies with Bridget, and a couple with two children were sitting several rows ahead of us. They settled down in their seats and he causally put his arm around her seat.

My heart was in my throat and I was fighting back the tears. Will I ever be touched by someone I love ever again? How long must I wait for a kiss that blows my mind. Will I ever have someone throw their arm around me and touch their head to mine? Is it my fate to never have passion in my life...to share my life?

I remember seeing a commercial on tv about a business called Match Makers. I made an appointment and signed up! She was so enthused to have me as a client! "They will eat you alive!" she told me.

This is how it went. Every month you were sent in the mail approximately 10 "matches" which included their name and address. That was it! No rhyme or reason to it. I think she just tossed the names up in the air and when ever they fell that was it...you were matched up.

I was contacted by a guy named Butch. I met him at a restaurant in Lexington. "Meet for lunch" she had advised me, "That way it is less awkward to get away."

So, how do you do it. I always told them I had short hair and I would wear a flower of some sort.....

Butch...what can I say about my first experience! He was drop dead gorgeous. I was thinking he was worth every penny of the exorbitant amount that car salesmen turned Match Maker coerced out of me.

He was fresh off a break up, on the rebound and very distracted. There was to be no second date. At least I got a nice lunch out of the deal. The only thing we had in common was that we both picked off the red onion rings from our salads and placed them on the side of the plate.

It was a good and bad start. I told myself to stop being so superficial and shallow. He was a jerk. Albeit a handsome jerk, but a jerk all the same. A drop dead gorgeous jerk, but a jerk.

I'd wait for the next batch of mail.