Landing With Airport Guy

            I had a date with Airport Guy.  After months of going back and forth, we finally crossed paths again.  I had met him sitting in the Admirals Club in St. Louis while on a layover on my way to Atlanta.  This was nearly ten months ago.  We hit it off instantly, and have managed to stay in touch.  Not two weeks after our initial meeting, he was on a business trip to Chicago and we had arranged for our first date.

            Joint massages at his hotel spa followed by a leisurely dinner.

            “How long have you been dating?” The massage therapist grilled me with all the questions as she massaged my body.

            “About fifteen minutes,” I said.

            “Ooo, and he’s treating you to a massage? This guy is a keeper.”

            “He is.  A genuine guy, caring, compassionate, dedicated.  Loyal.”

            “So you’ve been chatting for a while?”

            “Yes.  He lives in St. Louis.”

            “And you’re from here?”

            “Yes.”

            “So if you’ve all been dating for fifteen minutes, it’s probably too soon to be talking about who is going to be moving where? Or are you just going to do the long distance thing?”

            “Well, he appears to be pretty perfect, but he has a boyfriend.”

            “Oh, I see.”  She kneaded my shoulders, working in silence for a few minutes. Her tone of voice had indicated that she was dying to know more, but didn’t want to appear too judgmental.

            “So, if you don’t mind my asking, how do you feel about him having a boyfriend?”

            “Oh, it’s fine, really.  This is all just practice until the real one comes along, sweeping me off my feet.”

            “That sounds like a pretty open-minded way to view that.”

            She moved to my feet and started started working on a knot in the center of the arch.

            “What part of the body is that connected to?”

            “Oh, it’s connected to a muscle that goes up the back of the leg to your calf.”

            “No, I mean reflexology, what is it connected to?”

            “Oh, right. It’s connected to your intestines.  The G.I. track.  Sometimes people get knots here when they have a lot of stress in their life. Particularly if you have a lot of change.  Men tend to hold that stress in their stomachs.”

            On the upside of getting a massage on a first date is that all the stress of the day, week, and quite possibly the month gets worked out.  But on the down-side, when you have the knot connected to your intestines rubbed out, it can only lead to one thing: flatulence.

            So much for making a memorable impression on a first date.

            Gassy and bloated, I sucked down water and wine to cover for my excessive trips to the restroom.

            Despite what felt like a suffocating dying baby kicking its way out of my body, we had a pleasant conversation over dinner and our time together was enjoyable.  Airport Guy approached life with an emerging sense of adventure, and I could tell he was on his way to single life, even if he didn’t know it.  Together, we might possibly be each other’s rebound.

            When I returned from the bathroom for the twentieth time in about an hour, I came back to the table to a text message from the other side of my table: “Would you like to stay with me at my hotel tonight?”

            I quickly tapped out a reply: “I thought you’d never ask; I’d love to.” 

I'm Back!

So I had no idea that I actually had a bit of a following until I went away to a conference this week, and people pointed out that I had stopped posting.  After not really being in the mood to write for almost a two solid years (when I started this, I was beginning to emerge, but then I got really busy with work) but in the past few weeks, clouds have cleared, and the creative juices are flowing again.  And along with that, the boys are coming at me faster than I can share.

So if you, dear reader(s), have the patience to read along and occasionally be confused, I'll do my best to fill in the boy backstory as I work to get caught up.

But for now, I'll just update the list.

Since the change of the seasons, there is:

• The Belly Dancer
• Bad Blind Date
• The Swimmer
• Development Guy
• The Veterinarian
• The Runner
• The Clairvoyant
• Airport Guy
• And, the Former Franciscan Monk now Sex Addiction Therapist

I'm headed to the West Coast in the morning for a long weekend, and maybe I'll get some backstory up.  So, welcome back.

Just Good Text

I found myself a little bit weepy this morning, stuck in that spot sandwiched between the past and the future, called the present.  I've been chatting with Airport Guy and The Paralegal with a pretty consistant regularity since I left town for the Holidays.  All good text.

In thinking about the texts, how they make me feel, and the I've come to realize that the ongoing conversation with each boy has come to represent the ongoing conversation the voices in my head are having with myself.

The Paralegal, with his texts of adoration, and genuine concern and well-wishes as the day goes on, eventually revealing that his heart skips a beat when he hears from me -- he is the future me: carefree, in the moment, light, able to go with the flow.  It's hard not to receive these texts and say to myself that if he really does have an interest in me, then he would find a way for us to cross paths.  That he would receive my offers of dates.  But he hasn't, so therefore he must not really, truly care about me.  But he does say his heart skips a beat, and mine does to.  So why is it so hard to just be present in the moment, to experience how that feels when my cell phone chimes and it's him wishing me "the sweetest of sweetest dreams, my handsome and adorable man"?

I'm working to breathe through these moments.  To fill my heart and lungs with this warm energy that surrounds me.  To live it fully, without writing the conclusion, or falling for what so far is just an idea. To trust that if this is meant to be, it will unfold at its own pace in its own way, and to not make it more than what it really is: just good text.

On the other side is my ongoing conversation with Airport Guy.  I met him in the Admiral's Club Lounge while changing flights at Lambert-St. Louis's Airport on my way to Atlanta for Thanksgiving.  Very soon after, we were particpating in some good text, and quickly, he met all the Boy Requirements of the Moment: must adore me, incredibly hot, and has a career track.  And one additional Boy Requirement that I need to add to the list now: must pursue me.

So shortly after Thanksgiving, Airport Guy sent me a message saying he was traveling to Chicago for a business trip, and he hoped I would be available to cross paths for dinner.  I told him I had a naked yoga class, but I might skip that night if he had some compelling suggestion.  Dinner was his treat, he offered, hoping that could compete with naked yoga.

It did, and I had a date.  A real date.

As the evening approached, Airport Guy informed me he would be done with business as early as two that afternoon, and if I could get away, he'd love for me to join him at Bliss, the spa at the W hotel -- for a treatment.

I met him at the lobby bar at the W, and we grabbed a quick glass of Big Fire Pinot Noir before heading to the spa.  He is handsome, tall, with a terrifically engaging smile, and a casual laugh.  His attentive eyes suck you in.  In moments, he wisked me away to the spa for a massage.

"What's the occassion?" my massuse asked.

"We're on a date."

"Oh, wow.  How long have you been dating?"

"Fifteen minutes."

"Oh, I"m in love with him already!  He's a keeper!"

Following the massage, we headed to Wine Bar for another glass of wine before heading to HB Home Bistro for dinner.  Dinner was romantic, and his knees brushed mine under the table.  In the middle of dinner, Airport Guy sent me a text: "Will you come back to my hotel with me?"

Without hesitation, I sent a message back: "I don't know; what's the thread count?"

The hitch with Airport Guy: he's got a boyfriend.

A boyfriend of ten years.

But I know what that's like. To be trapped in a spot that is making you so unhappy, afraid that the devil you know is better than the devil that you don't know.  Waiting for a sign, or a message, or another man to come along and signal that change is less scary than being stuck.

We had a perfectly lovely time, and Airport Guy is sweet, and endearing. He's quick to pick up on all my best qualities and recognize them.  All that, combined with him being trapped has made him a bit rusty at dating.  Quick to say he misses me; quick to say I'm worth the extravegance of a massage and dinner on the down.  He'll figure out soon, I hope, that first dates do not need tobe $400 evenings.  I would have enjoyed him just as much had it been $50.

And so, here I am today, texting both The Paralegal and Airport Guy with spontaneous regularity.  The Paralegal making my heart skip -- with a forming idea of who he is, and what we are or can be.  And Airport Guy, showering me with adoring attention, but stuck in his life, and feeling misserable about it.  Too afraid of change to embrace the change that will actually lead him toward happiness.

"I could see myself loving you," Airport Guy says.

Yes, but not when he's stuck in his past.

Until then, it's just good text.