Unrequited

Falling for someone you can't have is frustrating.  But, falling for someone you're not even sure you want is even more frustrating.  Not making much sense? Let me try to explain from a woman's perspective, mine.

I'm not sure if this happens mostly to women or men, but either way, it's heart wrenching.  When I was young, sixteen years old, I thought I was in love, what did I know.  It was my first relationship, and he was almost ten years my senior. I abandoned all things "teenager" and he became my world.  12 years later we got married, life goes on, things go bad and next thing I know, I'm 45 and getting a divorce.  Twenty-eight years of my life was spent with one man, so when the time came to explore my options with other men, I was terrified. What kind of man do I want? I've never been faced with this kind of question because it was not something I thought about for twenty-eight years.

I knew that I wanted a man that would be capable of providing for his family, because unfortunately, throughout my marriage, I was the provider, predominantly.  So, when I suddenly found myself single, I realized that I did not want to be a main provider anymore.  I wanted to be taken care of for once. I'm not even talking about "sugar daddy" kind of relationship, even 50/50 would be acceptable.

So how was I going to make sure that I meet someone with the qualities I wanted?  Qualities such as: Financially stable, established economically, intellectual, college educated, respects me, has his own life outside of our relationship, not threatened by my intelligence or career status, no shorter than 5 feet 10 inches, and most important, have self esteem and a commanding presence.  As the saying goes, I've had to kiss a lot of frogs to find what I wanted. Through dating apps, I've met a handful of men that helped me narrow down two men that fit my criteria, unfortunately, I't not as easy as I thought.

Over a span of one year, I dated a handful of men, maybe ten.  Out of the ten, about four became consistent in my life, and it dwindled to just two.  I've  kept in contact with two men, who fit my criteria perfectly, but unfortunately, they're unavailable for one reason or another. I'm no longer on any dating apps because I'm really not interested in it anymore, plus it's the same men who just want to hook up. They're not interested in long term relationships.  Hooking up with random men is not my thing, so I only have these two men, that I "hook-up" with whenever I get in the mood or they do. Getting back to these two men.  One is Battalion Chief of the LAFD, very attractive criteria. I probably see "D" once every two months, he's not available for a relationship because he's been mishandled by women in the past, he says his job keeps him away from home a lot, and he's raising a teenager so basically he's married to his job.  At least that's the way I see it. He's working on retiring in a couple of years and he's all about preparing for retirement.  Am I in love with him?  It's painful, but yes. I don't see a future with him, but my feelings won't go away, and I haven't seen him in 3 months.

The other man, a former Seaman,  and now in cyber security and not quite single is another that I'm in love with but nothing is going to come out of it.  When I met him, he said he was getting a divorce, but there's been many inconsistencies with the things he tells me, and I'm not interested in knowing what is really going on, simply because I don't care.  I know that I don't want to be the reason for his marriage going sideways, even though he has already said that he's not happy in the marriage.  I make it a point not to discuss that part of his life, simply because I don't want anything from him. I can't make heads or tails about it, I just don't care.  I don't care because I have my own demons to deal with, so I don't concern myself with other people's drama.   I'm trying to not see him, but I can't.  Things are great when we get together, we do what we do and we go back to our lives, until the next time.

So at this point, I'm just in a convenient situation that perhaps benefits everyone involved, me included.