Changing people

It’s always hard when you meet someone new, to tell the difference between what he really wants, what he says he wants because he knows you want it, and what he never knew he wanted. I would think the most flattering and terrifying thing would be to be told, “You’re everything I never knew I always wanted.”

And when you tell him, “This is what I want. This is what I’ve always wanted. I want it as surely as I want to wake up tomorrow, as surely as I want to breathe. There is nothing else that I want as much, not even you. You’re a part of it, but it’s so much more than that,” and he doesn’t answer, just smiles and holds you closer, is it because he’s thinking, “Me too. I want the same thing, but I can’t say it because I’ve never said it and I love you but I can’t join you wanting that one thing just yet because it would mean changing who I’ve always been for everyone else and I don’t want them to think I’m so weak as to have changed so quickly”?

Or, does it mean that he doesn’t want it? That he thinks over time, you’ll change, you’ll move away from it and towards what he wants and so he says nothing because it’s not worth fighting over and he doesn’t want to upset you over something that will never happen anyway?

And if you see what he says, and you hear it and know it and watch him be that way for the whole world, are you playing the fool by thinking you’re different and you know better? Does the fact that you want him and you want this other, incompatible thing make you pretend that they can exist somehow separately from each other and yet co-exist peacefully as equally important parts of your life?

Do you change what he thinks of himself? Is it that he’s never felt this way, never known this, never thought it would be like this, always envisioned something else? Or is that vanity and naivete and a surefire way to wind up with a broken heart or a damaged relationship or a smouldering, subterranean resentment that rears its head as arguments about the color of the sofa and the portion of the rug that wasn’t vacuumed properly and snide remarks about friends and NASCAR drivers and insecurity and hairstyles?

How long do you tell yourself, “He’ll grow into it. It won’t happen tomorrow. Even I’m not ready for it to happen now,” before you’re just making things up to tell your girlfriends so they don’t worry about you behind your back?

How long do you chalk it up to the newness of everything, to the brevity of it all? How long do you push aside the passion as intensity and the emotion as lust and the certainty of what will happen — what has to happen — as wishful thinking? When can you begin to make certain, lasting declarations that carry weight and meaning and that change the course of your relationship?

And at what point do you say, “Enough. If you don’t want this, then I don’t want you”? When does that become an option?

Ten points if you know what I’m talking about. Twenty-five if you have an answer.

I love ducks

So, on Wednesday night last, Someone New and yours truly visited our favorite new bar and restaurant. It is a lovely little French place and the bartender, Sarah, makes the most truly DIVINE martini ever in the history of the world. Ever. Really.

Well, Miss Sarah wasn’t there when I first arrived, and so I was forced to start with a glass of red wine. Tragedy of tragedies, indeed. She showed up shortly thereafter, though I’m not sure why, seeing as she had just WON THE LOTTERY.

Really and truly, I was being served drinks by a bonafide lottery winner. It makes the gin taste better, I’m telling you. Who says money can’t buy love? Love=Happiness and Gin=Happiness, therefore Love=Gin and Gin from a Lottery Winner=Excellence, therefore Excellence=Money and … I’m not really sure where I’m going with that, but I can tell you that there is very little in this world that makes me happier than a Bombay Sapphire Martini, Dirty, Up. Especially sitting next to Someone New, who refers to said delicious, life-affirming cocktail as, “Mommy’s Vitamins.” Clearly, this is the man I am meant to spend the better part of my life with. (Well, maybe not “better” part, since that may be after he’s gone and I have all that lovely pension money and can go get drunk with Gladys at 11:30 am and talk about my parakeet and the “nice young man” down at the grocery store who always carries my bags for me and doesn’t mind that I tell him he looks like a young Luke Wilson, even though by this time Luke Wilson has become disgusting and bloated and has been through rehab four or five times and has had a terrible, awful marriage-breakup-marriage cycle with an On-My-Fourth-Farewell-Tour J.Lo.)

Anyway, in the course of about two hours, give or take 45 minutes of lost time, I drank two glasses of wine and three martinis. I took two walks, before climbing into the front seat of my truck and passing out. Someone New and our Hip-Married-Couple friends finished the four appetizers I had ordered in my lushy excitement over eating while I waited out my drunken stupor in the truck. I assume that Hip-Married-Couple departed at this point, because the next thing I remember, Someone New and I were arguing about whether or not I should get out of the truck. He thought it was a good idea, I did not. And clearly, I was right, which I proved by throwing up all over my new shoes and his not-so-new shoes as soon as he removed me (forcibly, I might add, as I was COMFORTABLE) from the truck. Nothing in the hair, folks … he held it back for me. Can I pick ‘em, or what?

Someone New insisted on driving me home, despite my protests that I just need to sleep it off for a few hours in the warm bosom of the F-150. I am told we pulled over more than a few times, but I didn’t throw up on the way home. Oh, no.

As soon as we pulled up outside of my apartment, before Someone New could even stop the car, I opened the door and made my way down the hill to the duck pond (Someone New describes this as “toddling,” and even says I was grabbing tree branches, but as I remember none of that, I will relate it as a graceful walk down a sloping path to a pool glistening in the moonlight and filled with slowly-swimming ducks and swans and other lovely creatures who may or may not enjoy ballet). I got down on all fours and proceeded to share my martinis with the ducks in much the same manner as a mother bird would give sustenance to her babies. Let it never be said that I am not a lover of animals.

The rest is a bit of a blur. I made it to my apartment and woke up roughly three hours later, alone, naked and with the impression that maybe escargot had been a bad choice. Someone New was passed out on the couch and didn’t put up much of a fight after being told to come to bed. He left early, I slept for another few hours and woke up feeling better rested than I have in recent memory.

I went to work, had a great day, and met my friend Misty for dinner at the Quarterdeck, a great crab restaurant in Arlington. We had beers and crabs and the ice cream. It was one of the best days of my life and I mean that totally sincerely.

Clearly, the duck pond outside my condo complex is a source of some strange, anti-hangover power. As soon as I figure out how, I am going to bottle and market this wonder-drug to the masses, make bazillions of dollars, and make my life’s work drinking martinis and harassing bag boys at the grocery store. I have found my calling.

I love ducks.