Read This if You Don’t Believe Good is Out There

You are crestfallen, quite a bit jaded and probably plenty angry.

You might even have a wall — or fourteen — built around your heart, which is feeling about the size of a pea these days.

You’re tired of crying, tired of trying, tired of lying (to yourself) and tired of dying (on the inside).

Tired of believing that man is out there. You know that man. The one they write about in novels. The one you see painted on the screen kissing Gwyneth Paltrow. The one who brings flowers, keeps his promises, doesn’t lie and really wants you. REALLY wants you. Not “I’m only pretending I think you’re a great person so I can get you in bed” kind of want you, but “I like the way you eat your oatmeal and when you hiccup after you laugh it makes me want to cradle you in my arms” want you.

He wants to support your dreams, meet your family and give you backrubs. You know, THAT man. The one you know for certain is fake. The one you don’t believe lives in any postal code outside of Narnia.

If you’re reading this far, it means you’ve been lured in by my catchy headline and don’t believe for one moment that this guy exists.

What if I told you he did?

What would you do if I promised he was real and that maybe (just maybe) one day you might find him?

I’m not willing to offer you a money-back guarantee if you don’t find him, but I’m willing to offer you a faith-back guarantee. I guarantee that the sheer act of believing will give you back all the faith that’s been trampled on, strangled out of you or completely erased from your mind. What’s the worst that could happen? You remain happy for years because you’re dreaming about something that might actually come true?

Okay, now that I’ve got you believing, you want proof that I have seen this man of which I speak. And you’d prefer that he be sitting next to me right now so that you know for sure he doesn’t leave.

I can’t do that. He’s not here. But I have seen him. I have touched him. I have loved him. I promise he exists.

He is the man who asked me eight times to marry him. The man whose heart I broke when eight times I changed the subject. He is the man who never cheated on me, cried when he realized he wasn’t “the one,” and spent countless hours holding my hand when I was sick. He loved my family. He loved my cats (even though he hates cats). He loved me. I just didn’t love him…enough.

There’s also The Electrician, who remembers every detail about my life and can repeat back every word I say to him, even when I have already forgotten. He says he cherishes my intellect and rubs my feet when I’ve come off a long shift at the pastry shop. He washes his hands a lot because he knows I’m a germ freak. And yes, he loves me in my grandpa’s baggy pj’s.

So while that guy has yet to play a starring role in any of my happy endings, he has played several supporting roles in my life, and still shows up from time to time in the form of someone like the Bike Racer, who once held me for hours when I was sad, infusing my heart with his gentle kindness, to remind me he exists. It's not like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. That guy is real.

Sometimes he will show up when you are completely unprepared, so he goes away. Other times, he will stand at your door until you let him in. Just be prepared for what lies on the other side. All you have to change is your thinking.

Finding good is one thing. Being ready for it is something else entirely.

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The Top Five Things I’m No Longer Willing to Give Up In Order to Be Happy

The Top Five Reasons Why I Shouldn’t Like The Electrician

1) He has a child (I’m not really into kids).
2) He has been divorced twice.
3) He lives in another state.
4) He has lots of emotional baggage.
5) He has dogs (I’m not really into dogs either).

The Top Ten Reasons That Overrule the Previous Five

1) He is unbelievably kind.
2) He is incredibly honest.
3) He has the biggest heart of anyone I’ve ever met.
4) He is totally devoted to me.
5) I believe everything he says.
6) He always wanted to be in my life in any way he could, even if he couldn’t date me. “I would feel cheated if I didn’t get the benefit of knowing you,” he says.
7) Before he had a kid, he was willing to do anything to make things work between us. Even with a different sort of commitment in his life, he is just as willing (as is possible, given the situation).
8) He calls me every night.
9) My family loves him and he is totally natural around them. He hangs out with them and can talk to them about anything.
10) He makes me feel special.

The Top Five list is a really big one, in my mind. Back in the old days, I was first on the list. Now he’s got someone else who is top priority. And as much as I understand that, it’s hard when you don’t want kids and someone you really like has a child. You can’t have the sort of carefree life you really want.

I love to travel. I really want someone who can hop on a plane to Rome with me in a moment’s notice or take me for a long weekend in Napa. From my experience, though, the only men who have ever had the luxury of being able to do that never wanted to do those things with me (see: Mr. Corkscrew and The Mad Scientist). But The Electrician does. It’s just that he can’t.

“I wish I could be that guy for you,” he says. “I know it’s what you need.”

For a long time, I thought it was. But now I’m beginning to wonder, are the things you thought you need, really what you need? Or do you need something you never anticipated? Like someone who respects you and can repeat back everything you say in a conversation instead of someone who can take you to the best gelato shop in Tuscany? Someone who knows every curve of your face or someone who knows how to rip off your blouse with his teeth but doesn’t know the color of your eyes? Someone whose voice on the other end of the phone makes you feel warm and safe or someone who never calls when he says he will?

I used to think I wanted the unpredictable, the passionate and the carefree. Often, you have to give up so much in order to get those things.

Kind of makes me want to craft a new list.

The Top Five Things I’m No Longer Willing to Give Up In Order to Be Happy

1) My freedom.
2) My self-esteem.
3) My body.
4) My dreams.
5) Myself.

What’s your top five?

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How Far Would You Go For Love?

With the exception of King Kong, my last three relationships (including the one I’m in now) have all been long distance.

The one with The Mad Scientist only lasted a few months, while the one with Mr. Corkscrew dragged on for six years. Still, I only saw him on three separate occasions within that time period, so it doesn’t really count as a true long distance affair.

I had no idea how difficult these sorts of relationships are. To think, I actually believed it would be relatively effortless with me 2,000 miles away from Mr. Corkscrew. “I love to travel and it would be good to rack up some frequent flyer miles,” I told him over coconut and banana pancakes one February morning. Seriously, I don’t like to travel that much.

It’s only been two months with The Electrician and already I’m racking up tons of mileage, hotel bills and, to my chagrin, speeding tickets, just going to visit him every other week. Really, your whole way of thinking has to change in order to make a long distance relationship work. At the very least, you have to work on your aversion to Cracker Barrel (it's everywhere and, sadly, one of the most appealing options off highway 70). I’m suddenly coveting reviews on hotels.com and looking forward to finding out what kind of tiny shampoo bottles await me at each stop. What have I become?

My weekends used to be about art films, farmers markets and buckwheat crepes, and now they’re about cornfields and chain restaurants.

So far, I’ve put in about 1500 miles for the prospect of love. I wonder, is that too far or not far enough?

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Inside Out

My outfit looked a little something like this: dingy grey tank top over a pair of my grandpa’s oversized blue and white checkered pajama pants. Five minutes into his visit I got hot and changed into Mickey Mouse boxer shorts and a pair of grungy white socks (my feet were cold).

My hair, which hadn’t been washed in three days, was sticking to my head, I wore no makeup and my body smelled faintly of celery. I was a walking PMS commercial — bloated, unshaven and overly self-conscious — but he was completely unfazed. His smile was as wide as the first day I’d met him six years ago, which he later told me was the moment he knew he was going to love me. I could have been wearing a little black dress and fishnets and his reaction would’ve been the same.

He wasn’t here for high fashion or good hygiene. He was here for me.

Me.

“You have always excited me,” he said, as he ran his hands down my stubbly legs. “Everyone in my life knows how I feel about you.”

I guess I did now, as I was at my least polished but in his presence managed to feel as if I was at my dazzling best.

This was foreign territory. I’d forgotten how it feels to be seen on the inside and liked for that person. No bells and whistles. No beach bronzed skin or sexy legs. No waxed body parts or coiffed hair.

Could it be that he values my sense of humor more than my ass? Are my morals more important to him than a blowjob?

Everything in me is pointing to yes. To him, who I am matters.

Me.

We are curled up, like human balls of yarn, on the couch, and I tell him I never thought we’d be sitting here, all giddy and smitten, six years after we first met (and I dumped him).

“I always hoped we would,” he smiled. “I knew you’d see things my way.”

That would be nice. His vision is much better than mine.

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Better Than Pasta

Italian butts. Enough said.

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The Best Street to Find Yourself On

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Thank You For Breaking My Heart

I don’t know how to do it. How to say it. I don’t know if I can scream it loudly enough. My lungs aren’t that strong.

But without a voice, how can you tell someone it hurts? How can you shout the pain, through your skin and your teeth and every strand of hair on your head? How do you say “ouch” in a way that means more than a paper cut or a bruise? How do you tell a man he broke your heart?

I’m not exactly sure, and I make my living from my words. I simply can’t comprehend the gravity of the human heart, least of all my own. It throbs inside me sometimes, so heavy and loud I can hear it in my earlobes. Only a few times did it strangle the voice inside my head with its tremendous pain.

Like when my boyfriend of four years called me at 2 a.m. on a Tuesday to tell me he was leaving me for a woman he met three days earlier. The chill in his voice. The deafening shrill “goodbye” makes when someone you love whispers it in your ear.

Or when Beer Man, who had me floating on a cloud made of hops and bubblegum, told me, with a quivering voice, “It wasn’t me, it was him,” and that he could only give me 50% and I deserved 100% (where do men get these crazy figures from?), the smiles that had been making my jaws ache slowly turned into a gelatinous puddle of despair.

Perhaps the worst, though, was when The Mad Scientist told me he didn’t want what I wanted. I found it all funny, considering what I wanted was relatively simple and not much trouble at all. I just wanted him to love me. I wanted him to say, “I have no clue how this is going to work. You live there and I live here and you believe in universal truths, and I spend my life trying to prove our existence on this planet with scientific data, but hey, let’s give it a go. For the first time in my logic-based life, I want to coast solely on the tail feathers of my heart.”

But he didn’t say that. Instead he said, “When I told you how busy I am, I figured you knew that meant I didn’t want anything serious.”

Mr. Corkscrew said something similar, only he admitted, point blank, it could never work. Not because of the distance, which was enormous, but because he worked 6.5 days a week and had no time for destiny. But how could I tell that to my heart when the tiniest ray of joy was beginning to tear it open? In my world, logic doesn’t play a role in love.

He never asked me if I thought it was impossible. What if I said no? What if I said I’d be willing to bungee jump off the wall of logic and plummet to the depths of possibility?

So yeah, being the owner of a heart pretty much sucks. I figure you spend a good 75 percent of your dating life cleaning up some sort of sopping mess of disappointment and devastation. And while I believe investing in a good mop is important, I also believe that investing in a resilient heart is your best bet. Despite all the cleaning up I’ve had to do, I’ve never given up on love. Not once.

Even if men have been pigs and lied to me or gawked at other women or objectified me or didn’t want me despite all my best attempts, I haven’t stopped believing men are good. My friends think me crazy. Don’t I know what’s out there?

Yes, I do.

And that’s why I persist in believing. I believe in the strength of men. I believe in their character. I believe in their kindness and their honesty. I believe in their compassion. I believe in those things because I’ve seen them, time and time again. Just when one man dashes my hopes, another one swoops in and builds me a city of hope. Just when one man makes me feel like I’m not enough, another one comes in to make me feel like I’m excessively worthy.

It’s like anything, really. People are a crapshoot. Men and women have in them the potential for so much good, but not everyone uses their potential. So sometimes you get some not-so-good examples from each gender.

Really, it all boils down to faith.

And I’ve got a surplus of it.

That’s why I decided to write about the men I know. While it‘s true that not all of them had a clean driving record, in the end they turn out to be much better than I realized. It’s like that book where you think the main character is a villain all along, but on the last page he ends up rescuing the maiden. Turns out, he was never out to get her like you thought. You were reading the book the way you expected it to be, not the way it really was.

It took me awhile, but I went back and reread all my relationships. In many cases, I even relived them. I talked to the men who had hurt or confused me, left me or used me as a sexual pawn, and I got down to business. Mostly, my question was always the same: why?

The answers I received weren’t as I expected them to be; they were honest, straightforward and, for the most part, clarifying. To think I could’ve saved myself a life’s tome of sorrow the length of War and Peace if I’d only just asked. But then, I guess that would have totally ruined the ending.

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