If you’re a romance junky, you develop a flair for not being discriminating. If the visual appeal draws you, you become sucked into a pheromone vacuum, sometimes never to return. Or sometimes to return as another casualty of romance.
It’s always the pheromones. Whatever they are. They are a weird and funny phenomenon; a way for scientists to quantify what we’ve been calling chemistry. What equates to – if you’re a romance junky – romance. It’s hard to describe the resulting feeling – that rush – in words let alone scientifically. But when it happens, it’s the most incredibly exhilarating feeling ever. There’s no second-guessing it. It’s either there or its not. It’s chemistry. It’s romance. And, please let it now begin.
If you’re not in a discriminating frame of mind, as one country/western singer put it, you look for love in all the wrong places and as I put it, you become victim to your hormones. After a certain age or after the achievement of a certain stage of life, one would think that one would have learned some guidelines for discrimination or have set some criteria for finding love in all the right places. However, after many wounds afflicted to the heart, after being left by several loves and after setting criteria for finding that one soul mate/life partner that would complete my life, I still fell into the indiscriminate.
Many years ago I set an avoidance criteria that included no married men, no newly separated men, no commitment-phobic men and no men with a trashy past. I excluded from the avoidance criteria men that had children and men that had already been married more than once thinking that I was being ever-so liberal. The acceptance criteria included any man who had the appropriate appeal (meaning chemistry), a good sense of humor, sensitivity to my needs, some rhythm for dancing, etc. (See the Single Woman’s Prayer)
With these seemingly workable criteria in place, I felt hopeful that I could find that life mate without self-afflicting too many more wounds. Then I fell, well maybe just barely stepped, into that forbidden territory based on a youthful crush, a fantasy that was presented and on impulse, I wanted it to be fulfilled. There he was, the object of a youthful crush, and he wasn’t even officially available. The buzzer went off in my head. He’s married. Stay away. ALERT. Stay away. A thirty-something year-old passing crush, not even a full-fledged crush had now come ’round to roost. Let the pheromones run.
It was the look. I like the look of sun-worn skin on a man. Maybe because I spent my hormonal adolescence, teen years and early twenties ogling surfers on the beach or maybe because I really always wanted to partner with a now aging surfer. And there he was right in my face.
I tried my very best to run being mindful of my earlier-set criteria and focusing fervently on my goal of finding that life mate. But he found me: he called and called and extended lunch invitations and I accepted thinking that after all these years a friendship, a nice uncomplicated, innocent friendship would evolve. Oh sure.
It was obvious after several meetings over seafood salads that the pheromones were mutually present and active. He’s attractive. He likes to dance. He has a sense of humor. We have a shared history. We have mutual friends. We have many, many things in common. We are compatible intellectually. We share the same values. BINGO. And, he is unhappily married.
We continued to have lunch dates and we became closer. A casual, friendly hug was soon accompanied by a kiss, then there were more kisses, then they became more passionate, then . . . I did, however, maintain one criteria: no sex until he was officially separated. Sixteen months later, the ALERT is still sounding in my brain. My passions have subsided for fear that the reality of a real relationship might ensue. I can already feel the bumps of his post-marriage reality. All the while he mouthed promises for the future and stood up for the responsibility. Most days.
The crush was fulfilled. The pheromonal rush percolating at high intensity had been felt. All of it was worth crossing the lines and denying criteria to make the connection. The merge and the exhilaration. I liked it. Even in the face of life’s harshest realities, if it’s there at the beginning, I want to believe that it can be maintained at some level forever. I do believe it. And, I keep the faith that I will have the great romance of my life. But, next time I will be more discriminating.