The Other Radar

Have you ever had someone who just won't let go of your heart strings? He can't seem to commit or be there when you really need him, but every time he does the slightest thing - like texts out of the blue, gives you a great compliment, calls, or anything - you want to drop whatever you're doing to connect with him. Ten other men could tell me I'm beautiful, but I still want to hear it from him. My Heart String has been stringing me along for two years. He doesn't seem to know for sure if he actually wants a relationship, but then he tells me I'm the only one he's interested in romantically. I usually don't write about things I don't feel like I understand, but I don't know if I'll ever understand Heart String.

If you've read even one or two entries on this blog, then you know that I have had a lot of "good lunch stories" but not so many good dates. The last time I had a good date, the relationship ended within a few weeks when he chose to break up with me through a text message. (See "From Post-it's To Texts," May 2014) When I came home from a great date with M, Heart String must have sensed something in the atmosphere with his radar because he contacted me that night and we talked and he said he still had feelings for me. I felt like I was at the plot twist in a romantic comedy. It always happens that when you think the girl has moved on to another guy, the old flame reappears and you don't know which guy to root for!

Heart String and I started talking more and getting reacquainted. I wanted to be open with M so I told him that I was talking to both of them, and he was ok with that. Meanwhile, for some reason the stars never aligned or Heart String didn't seem to have the time for quite a while to see me. Well, things ended with M, and I still hadn't actually seen Heart String even though we were in contact several times a week. (I had a very close relationship with my iPhone at this point! Technology-only relationships may be a future topic on here.)

Every time Heart String suggested something for us to do, I somehow knew it wouldn't really happen. And guess what? It didn't.

I'd still been talking to to him, but I could almost physically feel the fact that I was on the back burner when it came to his priorities. I started talking to a new guy last week, and we actually had two pretty great dates. Well, Heart String and his magical radar must have sensed that I could be moving on! He texted during my date to see if I wanted to get together. I saw his message when I got home later, and I responded then. When he asked what I had been up to that evening, I felt conflicted. Like I was cheating or something even though the relationship I'd been in was truly only with the screen of my iPhone. I told him that I'd had feelings for him for a long time, but it was clear to me that he didn't want anything real with me. He disagreed, but not enough to fight for me. He said he could appreciate the irony of the fact that I was out with another man when he was asking to see me (finally).  

I don't have a moral of today's story. Today, I only have the hope that if my new guy (whose blog name I haven't yet decided) gets a hold of one of my heart strings, then he'll treat it nicely. I'm tired of sitting on the back burner like a pot that rarely gets stirred.

Oh, and I also have the question of Heart String's radar. How does he know when I'm on a good date? One time was a coincidence, but two times is uncanny!

Radar

We always hear a lot about women having intuition, which I can verify is true. Men, however, have their own types of intuition that I like to call radars. They have a primitive animal instinct where they act on their senses without thinking it out and talking it out like women do based on their intuition. I don't know if these things are ever discussed - perhaps at the secret man cave meetings, but I think that when the radar goes off they all just know things and assume everyone else knows, too.

I've experienced a couple types of radars, and I'll tell you about one of them today. The first is one that I heard about through urban legend/one of my besties. Similar to the saying "once you go black, you never go back," she told me that once you show interest in or go out with a black guy then all the other black guys know. I thought this was kind of silly at the time she told me. How would anyone just know instinctively who I'm dating or open to dating? I always thought people are people. I never set out to look specifically for any ethnicity. I'm just looking for attractive, kind men. But at this point now in my experience, I would have to say that some guys must have a more finely tuned radar.

The first time I ever went out with a black guy, we were still in pre-date texting the week when all the other dudes came out of the woodwork! I was at a seminar for work and the only black guy in the room started flirting with me. I went to run errands and all the black guys in the stores were hitting on me. The lone black guy at the gas station stopped to tell me that I smelled like an angel. What happened? Did I flip a magic switch?

I texted my bestie and said "all the black guys are after me!" She was not surprised because she had been in several inter-racial dating scenes. She told me that's just what happens because they all think they have a chance with me now.

I was still a little confused about this phenomenon so I asked my guy friend who happens to be black about it. He said that "Yeah, it's just something you sense. You know if a girl only dates guys of her race or not." Honestly, he seemed a little surprised that I would ask such an apparently stupid question. Clearly, he operates on finely tuned instincts that do not even need to be discussed.

Well, some of you may be wondering what happened with the guy I went out with. We went on a few dates that actually went pretty well until his wife called me and asked me why my number kept showing up on her husband's phone. So the poo hit the fan, and that was the end of that! This was the first of, unfortunately, many times that I've had to state, "I do not date married men." Not once I know that they're married anyway.

Moral Of Today's Story: Everybody has some level of intuition or radar. Learn to tune yours in to the important things. For example, I am much better at figuring out if dudes are married when they ask me out now. You can also gain a much more accurate sense of who in the room is checking you out and who is open to approaching/being approached. In the words of Dr. Spock, "Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do."