There he was in my inbox and I wasn’t quite sure what to do with him. I clicked through and was greeted with a warm and intelligent dating profile that although extremely well written, seemed to be whispering “Like me, but don’t date me”. He was focused on his art but wanted to make female friends. Hmmm… I found this quite suspicious surely as any female on a dating site would. I heard the plea, “Please don’t date me” loud and clear but instead of heeding the sound of this warning, I listened harder---I am obviously not your typical female. He was one big contradiction and I found that more interesting than half the other men that emailed me.
His email said that he had stopped by my profile a few times because he was trying to figure out who I reminded him of and on this last fateful visit he had finally figured it out. I looked like a French actress he knew of and he just wanted to tell me that (and assure me that he wasn’t some online-stalker-creep). I clicked “reply”. His profile yelled again, “Please don’t date me”. Undeterred, I begun an email to this wordsmith-artist man. I laughed to myself as I composed a message thanking him for the compliment, granting him permission to stop by my profile whenever he wished and last but not least, assuring him that I wasn’t going to try and date him. “Send”.
I sat there and shook my head as his words came to mind in some imagined male voice,” I am focused on my creative pursuits”, “I only want to make female friends. ” . I wondered why this seemingly intelligent artist man was torturing himself. Besides, couldn’t he make female friends on Facebook?
This man, who seemed to be contradicting himself--by posting his well-constructed-wall-of-fear (made solely of words) on a dating website--, lingered in my mind despite the fact that I didn’t expect a response to my reply. After all, I tied up my email into a nice little “Thank you and good luck” bow with nothing to respond to and deposited it into his inbox because I wasn’t on a dating site to meet friends (or scare this man); I was here to date and to find someone who also wanted to date. I took one last look at his profile, clicked the ‘X’ at the corner of the screen and sent him back into the black-hole of cyberspace.
And then he responded.
What?! Wait, a second, I gave him an “out” and despite the whimper of fear from his profile, he didn’t take it? Realization dawned on me – he was trying. He was fighting against the side of him that wanted protection, fighting to live life and silence the whimper forever. Part of him seemed willing to embrace the possibility of making a connection or—gasp—finding love (or perhaps just a psycho-woman) on the internet. I saw clearly the two sides fighting for control and I had an idea. What if I could be his friend? I could give him what he was asking for; a female friend.
I wasn’t scared by the train-wreck mentality that was seeping through his please-don’t-date-me dating profile. You see, I have a natural gift for sensing the emotional undercurrent of other’s struggles and where they seem to stem from. I thought, I can help him, I should help him. Yes.
This should be easy, I thought to myself. I am a pro when it comes to male and female friendship. I am that girl who is just as comfortable—if not more so—in a gaggle of guys as she is in a gaggle of (fighting, sassy and drama-filled) ladies. I thought over my list of male-friend characters and quickly found an opening for an intelligent artist wordsmith—he was in.
Of course, it occurred to me that he might not want to be “in” but he did respond to my email, he untied that bow and now there were loose ends. We quickly developed a meaningful email exchange and told each other our heartbreak stories, our fears, and our beliefs. After some intense emails, holidays and visits to other countries, we made a “non-date” date or a “druther” as he liked to call it.
I had plans to meet some friends in center city at the ice skating rink. I decided to invite him along—knowing that he would be more apt to agree since it was a group and not a one-on-one meeting. The plan was made and the “non-date” date was set.
My friends and I decided to go for a beer before heading to the ice skating rink. I wanted to find a bit more courage to face this man and demand that he allow me to be the female friend he was seeking ( it is a well known fact that guinness is good for the spirit). As I sat at the pub and stared at my beer, I realized that the probability of me busting my butt on the ice was rising with every sip. Courage be damned—I’d rather not be embarrassed so I pushed my beer aside. A little anxiety began to creep in and for a split second, I was thinking about canceling but then my phone rang. My overly curious friends looked on as I listened to the unfamiliar voice on the phone tell me that he was canceling because his friend had backed out—it was “the nasty weather”, he said. My mind quickly wondered if his friend was really the reason or if the part of him that whispered “Please don’t date me” just slammed the door on what was to be my offer of friendship.
Right as I was about to spew my disappointment/mild relief to my buddies, he called back to say that he was, in fact, coming and that his friend had changed his mind—it was back on. I looked at my friends with what was surely a puzzled expression as I hung up the phone the second time and said a quick prayer that I wouldn’t bust my ass too hard on the ice in front of a handsome stranger.
After a freezing cold four block walk in the misty rain, we arrived to a packed skating rink. I quickly glanced around but wasn’t able to locate the artist man in a crowd of overly bundled-up strangers whirling round and round in circles on the tiny rink. He is going to have to find me, I thought to myself as I laced up my too-big skates. I stood up and faced the rink, wishing that I had the rest of that guinness because my courage was waning. My friends stood ahead looking back at me with a mixture of annoyance and amusement. I stumbled a bit as I entered the rink and was met with a giggle from the tall red-head in my group. I shot her a warning look and pointed out that she was the one wearing a monkey as a hat. She closed her mouth and skated away, leaving me vulnerable and open for anybody—namely the artist guy—to find me. I turned to my left and found myself looking right into his eyes.
He smiled shyly as the rest of my friends high-tailed it out of sight. As we skated alone around the rink (our friends kept a safe distance), we made somewhat shy conversation and tried our best to embrace our awkward situation. It was freezing cold, drizzling, and both of us were trying our best not to fall down. As we skated, I wondered how we were the same two people that had spilled our very-personal guts to each other over email. This “stranger” standing in front of me knows more about me than some of my friends that I had had for years—yet he was a stranger.
I was impressed with his efforts towards me, after all, this was the same man who said that he had never really had female friends but to my surprise, he didn’t seem awkward around me--a female. We made quick work of the meeting since he was recently back from an international trip and was jet lagged and the weather was also deteriorating quickly. It was obvious that there didn’t seem to be much chemistry on the friendship front (or any other front for that matter) so we said a quiet and quick goodbye and I thought to myself that I would probably never see him again.
I was wrong.
He called to tell me how tired he was that night and that his legs were really bothering him. He joked about how the fear of falling on the ice kept us both more concentrated on our feet than on each other. We continued our email exchanges with some phone calls sprinkled in. To my surprise, we went right back to communicating just like the meeting hadn’t happened. I had gained a friend.
With both of us being fairly good in the kitchen, it wasn’t to be long before he ended up coming over for dinner. I hopped about the kitchen holding a glass of red wine while stirring pasta and listened as the artist man told me zany stories of his character-like friends. I noticed a theme early on—the artist man was always the one in the background, following the braver, manlier, tough guys around. He wasn’t the one that got the girl—ever. My heart constricted a little for this gentle artist man who is more at home with a paint brush or a pen than with hanging with the guys or playing football.
I was beginning to like this man even more.
And apparently, he liked me too and this became evident when he surprised me by asking so honestly and kindly for a kiss—from me. He had just finished telling me of a missed opportunity with a seductress that he was too nice to oblige. I thought over all the things that he had told me and there wasn’t any way in hell that I was going to tell him “No”. I smiled kindly and said “You can kiss me” and he did.
There were no major fireworks and the world didn’t stop spinning—it was a kiss, that’s all. We were both honest with each other. He didn’t know how he felt about me and I had guessed early on that he wasn’t over the breaking apart of his marriage but even so I never wavered from my purpose or promise to be this man’s friend. I wasn’t trying to get him to love me or rush him into being ready for romance. I realized that he was testing his wings, trying to get one foot out of the past and see what was out there for him and there I was, offering to help him--nothing more, nothing less.
We planned a hiking trip to a nearby mountain. We felt easy with each other and enjoyed lounging on the bank of a bubbling creek talking and feeling the moment. The atmosphere around us seemed to light up with chemistry and a change could be felt by us both. He stood and gently helped me to my feet. We embraced for a few minutes, enjoying a rare warm and sunny February day. He told me that when he was ready for her that he hoped that she was a lot like me and I called out after him that I felt the same way about him. We stared at each other for a moment but didn’t speak.
And that’s when things got complicated.
I came to the realization that this had now become some weird mix of friendship intertwined with sudden bolts of chemistry and I was becoming confused. I was his friend, I reminded myself. I felt like I was no longer helping him, all I was managing to do was confuse myself. This was not going as I had planned.
I thought that by making the promise to be his friend that I understood exactly what that meant. I was going to show him how easy it was to be a part of a male/female friendship but it was him who showed me that relationships are unique to the participants. Relationships flow and you mess everything up when you try to direct them.
After arriving home from the somewhat magical day on the mountain, we both acknowledged our confusion about what our interaction had become and saw only one way out--we decided to say “Goodbye”.
I cried when he walked out the door. I cried because there was a part of me that wanted to seek out more of those tender not-just-friends moments. I cried because I remembered what it was like for someone to care for me the way a man was supposed to care for a woman –with the gentleness that this artist man had shown me. I cried for him because I knew well the long road to healing and forgiveness that he was walking because I was there not too long ago myself. And finally, I cried because I had actually failed in becoming his friend.
And, although his dating profile had long since been forgotten, I swear I could hear the tiny sigh of relief from his “Please don’t date me” profile.
-Gigi Ochs
