Orgasm activism = relationship aneurysm

God, it's been ages since I've felt like sitting down and writing an entry.  The urge has re-emerged.  I've got something I need to complain about.

Well, what's been happening? I've been pretty busy servicing a quasi-relationship up until about a month ago.  I say 'quasi' because with my five children, I'm never really capable of living up to any man's expectations with regards to time and commitment.  Anyway, I did try my best.  I tried dam hard actually.  Gave this guy my entire child-free Christmas period.  I let a one month introductory yoga membership, all $149 worth, go to waste in my efforts to spend time with this guy.  All those hours I could have read books on my bed in my clean and quiet house...gave them to him as well.  Our poor dog - he suffered from neglect.  I'd walk him then leave him, walk him then feed him and leave again. He was given so many bones to occupy him in those lonely hours that his shit came out white.

So for all that I gave up to spend time with this man, I kick myself.  My free time is so precious and I gave it away to someone who ended up being a blip in my life.

So let me tell you the story.  I'll skim through the romance in an effort to get to the breakup.  That's the really interesting bit.

I met Romeo# on RSVP*.  He sent me a 'kiss'.  I later discovered he was four years older than his profile claimed.  Pretty normal behaviour and I took it in my stride.  I listen to men's excuses for lowering their ages on the dating website all the time.  It bores me.  I estimate approximately 1 in 3 men lie about their age.  Romeo's reason was that he needed to come into the search parameter for women who were searching for up to the 50 years old age bracket.  To be truthful, Romeo was one of the men I wasn't particularly interested in meeting and I hadn't taken a great deal of interest in the specifics of his profile before we met.  I think I thought he sounded ok rather than great and I'd responded with an email in order to meet him.  All I could remember when I walked into the date to meet him was that he was about my height and I didn't think he was terribly good looking.

I met Romeo at the local pub and was pleasantly surprised that he lived in the same suburb as me.  Big plus!  He seemed nice. Twice married and four months out of his second marriage and already one short relationship via RSVP under his belt (ring a ting ting).  Seemed to have a good job and was well educated. Checked out his LinkedIn profile later, as one does.  Bright enough to complete his education, but not that bright.  I discovered later that he had three spelling errors in his RSVP profile - 'sucessful', 'restuarant', 'independant'.  Now I must admit I do make spelling errors myself, but I don't think I'd headline my profile with "At work, focused, professional and sucessful."  He also mentioned in his profile that he wanted someone who kissed and hugged him a lot.  (ring a ting ting)  I normally run a mile from men who have been married before who mention kissing and hugging in their profile.

We had a nice date and we met again a week later for another.  Each date lead to another and before I knew it (4 dates in) Romeo was confessing his love for me and telling me that he's looking for a long term commitment.  (RING A TING TING)  I joked over these issues and avoided them.

Why do I ignore this stuff!?  A man who is fresh out of his second marriage, looking for a long term commitment?

I put the demise of the relationship down to the following issues.

Minor Issues
So he treated me to dinner at his house, dinner at his house, and dinner at his house.  He bought me flowers one night and another night he lit candles and showed me his photo album filled with pictures of his ex-wife (ex-wife #2 that is).  He used to play guitar (well) and sang (badly) after dinner until it was time for me to go home.  I was never sure what to do with myself during these singing sessions.  It was really too early in the relationship to read a magazine or turn on the telly and just let him go for it.  Sometimes Romeo would put on video concerts of John Mayer playing guitar and we'd drink wine and watch John pluck his guitar.  But hey, he was a nice guy.  I thought he was really nice.  I could put up with this...couldn't I?

Major Issue # 1
Time marched on and after about two months I asked him to come over for dinner and perhaps introduce him to my children.  I thought it would be nice if he could occasionally drop in for a wine at my house or come over for dinner and I'd cook for him for a change.  He declined saying that his 11 year old daughter may one day find out that he had spent time in my children's company and that would not feel right to him if he wasn't spending time with his own daughter.  Romeo's daughter lived full-time with his ex-wife about 50 km away and spent the odd weekend with him, about once a month.  Hmmm.  So meantime, I continued to leave my children at home (oldest child is 16 so not completely neglectful of me) while I went to his house to see him for an   hour here and there (RING A TING TING).

Major Issue # 2
One evening, I'd left my children at home to go to dinner at Romeo's house as per the usual drill a couple of times a week.  He'd flown back from Melbourne that day and after a quick dinner claimed to be too tired for...you know, even though it was clearly on my agenda.  I left his house within 45 minutes of arriving and spent the next few hours thinking about what had just happened, getting more jaded each hour.  I was thinking back to all of our previous...you know, and I was noting, as I note with every relationship I've ever had with any man, the inequality that exists in the number of times...you know.   Now why is that?  If the shoe was on the other foot, if we were getting off left right and centre and they were getting off half as often, we'd never hear the end of it.  It's very apparent that once he's done, then the show was over lady!  It's would-you-like-a-cup-of-tea time.  There is no "Ok, now let's get down to business."  Frankly, I was well and truly over it.

I sent him a text that I spent about 30 minutes re-wording so it wouldn't sound too harsh.  In retrospect it was 30 wasted minutes because what I was about to say was so wounding to this little dove of a man that there was no possibility he could recover from it.  I sent something along the lines of - Romeo, it doesn't always have to be you and me together or just you.  It can be just me occasionally.  Would have been good tonight.  Just thought I'd mention it.  He responded after about 5 minutes of thinking about it - Didn't realise there was a problem.

The email arrived the next day where he expressed complete dismay that I was actually counting!  He wrote that I had burst his euphoric bubble.  That until now, he had thought the relationship was a kind of utopia.  He needed time to think.  He needed time to think about who I was and if I the person he was originally led to believe I was.  He withdrew "to get his head around it" to quote him. (SIREN RING HONK SIREN)

I won't bore you with the specifics, but things degenerated from there.  I am someone who speaks my mind and I took exception to his need to withdraw.  He told me he was very busy and needed time to himself.  I told him I have children and work full-time and still manage to fit him into my schedule.  Ten emails later it was over...and four hours after that he was back on RSVP looking for another date!



# Not his real name of course
*RSVP is an internet dating website