July 12th, 2009

I am meeting Monty, who lives about forty-five minutes away. He insists I choose a special spot. “I really want a nice environment for our first meet,” he says. After Sports Car Guy, I am less eager to meet Monty, in spite of his frequent, steady e-mails and phone attentiveness. Sports Car Guy is on my mind, although I won’t see him again for several days.

Monty says something rather peculiar in one of his early e-mailings. He apologizes for casting his net too wide. I don’t get it I tell him, so in the next e-mail he explains that he thought we had too little in common; he worries that perhaps our backgrounds are not similar enough. And he doesn’t dance, why oh why do so many women want a dancing man, he asks me. I have no answer, don’t tell him I too want a dancing man.

Plus, I’d mentioned in my profile my peculiar appreciation for the impeccable word. Yes, I’ve read The Four Agreements, so I am looking for someone who says what he means. Monty has doubts, thinks his words too peccable.

Now when I see him coming down the stairs at Sagittarius, the restaurant by the water, I change my mind. He moves gracefully in a big cat way, unhurried. Snap! That quickly my mind shifts to I’m glad we are meeting. His picture gave him sort of an old man look; he is better looking than the photo, and his body is a younger man’s body, clearly used to being used. And often. A guy in shape is like an A+ on an exam, unexpected but welcome. I picture a cowboy in another life, nothing that makes sense, but it’s some kind of cowboy confidence he’s got going. He hugs me, a cuddly hug. It’s clear we’re equally pleased.

We order wine and talk. He has a slight accent and it turns out he is from Minnesota. Minnesota Monty. ”I didn’t know anyone lives there,” I joke.

Halfway through my first glass of wine, he orders another and asks if I’d like to eat something. “What do you need?” he asks. “What can I get you?” A man aware of my needs. Keeping tabs on my needs. Indeed, I need food to avoid getting too lightheaded, carried away by compliments and the sheer appreciation of my wonderfulness. He touches my arm, wonders out loud if this is too much, too soon, the touching. “I get infatuated easily,” he says. “I don’t know why.”

He takes my hand, tells me about traveling in Asia, visiting manufacturers for quality control issues—he worked many years in the toy manufacturing business. There is a twittering voice in my head. Listen to what they tell you. Listen. Listen especially in the beginning. It’s at the start that the truth comes out; it’s when they don’t know what you want, what you crave, what turns you on that you’re less likely to be fooled. My mind is advising me, warning me, stumbling over territory I’ve thought about and discussed with my friends. When you first meet, they’re off guard. Let them blab. Listen.

Later we decide to stay for dinner and request a table by the huge fireplace. The jazz trio is setting up—in other words, the evening is slow, in perfect sync with our mutual mood of wonder and discovery. Monty looks around, comments more than once on how glad he is to meet me, that the restaurant is to his liking, that I look like my photo. We talk about twenty year-old photos, overweight dates, angry dates, women who pursue, and he tells me about his marriage, how his wife cheated on him early-on, when their daughter was less than two years old. I make notes in my head, of course. When I discover he’s been divorced for twenty-five years (twenty-five years!), a little pink flag pops up in my head. The cheating still rankles him?

The next day when we talk he tells me he wanted to kiss me there in the parking lot, regrets that he didn’t. I hang up thinking how nice and warm, how lovely to come upon a man who says what he thinks, who is emotionally open. Yeah.