fake boobs and cold feet

In the summer of '03, I started exchanging e-mails with this girl I met thru an online dating service. I was wary at first, since she initiated contact without a picture on her profile; always a bad sign. Sensing my trepidation she e-mailed me some photos and my apprehension immediately disappeared: Lina was smart, funny, witty; half-Colombian/half-Sicilian; a music and film geek; and gorgeous, to boot. After our first date we became inseparable. I would visit her and be there for 8-9 hours at a time. Phone calls routinely broke the 5-6 hour mark. I'd discovered the sweet, affectionate, sexy, side of her and was so hooked. Still, I was a bit cautious; but it felt really good to be with her. We had an intense level of honesty going: everything from family, past romantic experiences to money and sexual preferences, was covered in an extensive and frank manner. (Except for one thing: I subsequently discovered she had fake boobs, which she never really came clean about. A bummer, but hey, nobody's perfect. Although her chest was. Heh, heh.)

I never pressured her for anything and we only became physical when I felt she was comfortable. So, aside from getting to know each other better, the one thing stopping us from jumping into a relationship was our respective skepticism: Lina was tired of men not being there for her emotionally—which I like to think is the opposite of yours truly—and I was not looking forward to another dysfunctional, clueless woman with money issues. And when we discussed these things, our responses to each other were invariably, "Who are these people you involve yourself with?!"

It was very, very promising. But still...

Guess what? Lina got cold feet.

One night Lina shows up at my place and from the outset I can tell something is wrong. I just knew it. Sure enough: in a nutshell, I got the "I can't get involved right now, let's be friends" speech. I was literally at a loss for words. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, I recovered my linguistic capabilities.

"How can you go from fantasizing about me to wanting a platonic relationship in less than 24 hours?"

She said something about thinking things through, deciding she wasn't ready and not wanting to be selfish by asking me to wait, blah, blah, blah. I told her I thought it was selfish of her to expect to get those things that she wanted from me without having to deal with the heavy stuff. She cried, asked me to be in her life, to be there for her as a friend. I said I didn't think that was possible.

But what really led to her change of heart was something that had gone down a few days prior.

Lina’s ex-husband was in town for a wedding and she met up with him for brunch. From our conversations I was able to deduce his reappearance—and what it represented—was at the heart of what freaked her out. Here she is feeling so strongly, albeit with some trepidation, about someone new and right in front of her is the last man she felt that way about. With all the unresolved issues that come with it. So she freaked and bailed on me. ‘Twas that simple.

Back at my place, we eventually mellowed a bit, had the bottle of wine she brought over, listened to some tunes, danced to some Juan Luis Guerra and around 1 am I called her a cab. After I walked Lina downstairs I came back up, got dressed and went to one of my local watering holes. Behind the bar, on a very slow night, Stephanie—who had in fact met Lina on our first date—gave me her shoulder while I got drunk. I got home, fell asleep on the couch and awoke with enough time to shower, get dressed and get to work on time.

While the previous night had left me sad, disappointed and hurt, I woke up the next morning pissed. It was as if I'd gotten a surge of ire instead of a hangover. I was really upset. All I could think of was, I'm too old for this. I'm really tired of mustering up the hope and courage that goes into involving yourself in a serious relationship. Fuck.

I bumped into Lina at an Apple store about a year later and we both purposely ignored each other. I never saw her again.

I sure miss those boobs, though.