Shy Bird Dog

[Click pic: Thanks jgrnly]

I am the person who tries the thing that someone else has tried and which, for them, has inevitably resulted in resounding success, but when I do it, the outcome is always at the most opposite pole to success.

To wit: in 2005, I opened myself up to online dating as I was finishing my grad program in London, Ontario. When I got two out of two no gos, I blamed the city for slim pickings, but I did not give up. I gamely tried again when I moved to Montreal, and even one more time when I moved to Toronto last year because friends, strangers and all print and online media reported inspiring stories of online matches with social-media-When-Harry-Met-Sally endings.

[Click pic: Thanks jgrnly]

Everyone admitted it was a numbers game (you have to kiss a lot of frogs, etc.), but at least the parade of potentials would provide a little diversion on the journey towards a lifetime of partnered-up bliss. I could not argue with that logic. So I played the game and went online. And it’s true, I met some lovely guys. But I also met some coo coos. And, ultimately, the online dating route did not produce a Harry equivalent, not even a facsimile of his brother.

Whereas my friend who joined the aptly-named dating site, Plenty of Fish, not only found her mate within a month (and a choice fish at that: one of the most amazing men I have met since meeting men), but she is now, a year later, pregnant and thrilled with her new burgeoning family. I was on Plenty of Fish, too, except I lasted a scant 36 hours because I was so inundated with lewd chat requests (to which I so wish I had responded, “oh yes, I’m simply dying to engage in all manner of play with the part of your body that poops just as soon as we meet, you hot stranger, you!”) that I had to shut down my profile pronto, (and mentally rename the site Plenty of Bottom Feeders so that I could place the blame on them and unsully myself).

I use this friend as an example because she is not a run-of-the-mill gal. She’s not even in the same town as a mill. She’s one of the sharpest, most creative, most kick-ass women I know. She does not brook ignorance, immaturity, cruelty or laziness of thought and action. She has so much integrity she makes integrity itself look disingenuous by comparison. And that kind of human is rare, which makes the potential for finding a match even rarer. But no. She found EXACTLY the right guy for her. And on Plenty of Bottom Feeders!!!!!

As for me, I’ve tried everything from smiling more (to suggest I’m a positive thinker) to crying more (affecting an air of mysterious Germanic melancholy); from putting myself out there more (art openings, gatherings at friends of friends, etc.), to trusting the universe more (which means staying home and watching movies, my favourite thing!); from flirting with everyone in my neighbourhood more – the video-store dudes who are twenty going on fifteen, the rep cinema ticket-booth boy, who really is fifteen, people in movie line ups, book stores, blogs and strangers on other people’s Facebook pages – to doing the opposite of flirting, like initiating conversations about hideous global child-labour practices, homelessness, poverty and violence in a world where rich countries and privileged people turn their backs on the disadvantaged and the disenfranchised, it all makes one wonder what the bloody point of anything is anyway (don’t you agree, cute boy I’m talking to?)

I realize this all makes me sound desperate, which I was a few years ago, but recently I’ve begun to wonder if my dating behaviour is now simply habit. Because something has changed. I’ve lost my joie de dating. Most times I prefer a quiet at night home nuzzling a novel, which makes me ask myself, do I really need a mate? I am not so sure I do anymore. I can cook, clean, read, go out with friends, and even self-pleasure: what is more orgasmic than a perfect bowl of popcorn popped to perfection because I know how to pop it to perfection?!

In an earlier post, I said I never thought I’d come back to Toronto, but here I am and I’m thrilled to be back. I have reconnected with nourishing, funny, bright girlfriends, some of whom are even partnered up with equally nourishing, funny, bright mates. I enjoy spending time with all of them. But then I get to go home to my Liz-perfect apartment, my absorbing new job(s), my fridge full of weird food and enjoy all my weird habits in the privacy of my own space.

And just as everyone always predicts, when you stop looking for THE ONE, that’s exactly when something unexpected happens. And that’s exactly what happened.

Sometimes when we are so focused on a particular methodology for achieving our heart’s most cherished desire, we fail to recognize that the object of desire was not exactly what we thought. Although I had stopped the online search myself, I had put someone else on the job for me. So, yes, in the same way muzak is kind-of music, I was kind of still looking for something, but in the background, on someone else’s time.

There’s no question that I have a type: intellectual, funny, soft in the belly, and funny. Did I mention funny? Well, as if getting all that were not enough, when my hired sleuth hit the jackpot on my behalf, I got so much more than I could have imagined. Like liver spots. And skin like an aging ball sack. And an Andy Warhol mop top over puppy-dog eyes, all topping a delicate, diminutive frame. OK, I didn’t get the zaftig physique I generally go for, but in exchange I got a male who is house broken!

After a week of ogling his online photo and coming to terms with the fact that he was temporarily located in the burbs (and me with no car or license), I finally bit the bullet and coerced a girlfriend to drive me out to meet him (read: chaperone me). At annother woman’s house, no less!

I'm just going to say it. It was love at first sight. Trite, yes, but oh so true. And it was love in the truest sense of the word: I loved him unconditionally. And, MIRACLE, he seemed to like me, too! In fact, he got right into my lap and went to sleep. Not even a hint of tongue first, which I find respectful, charming and appropriate on a first date.

What was even more miraculous than my new male sleeping in my lap within the first five minutes of our meeting was that I had this out-of-brain experience in which all the luggage I have been jealously guarding my whole life, feet and hands splayed over them territorially as I hawkeyed anyone who dared to even look in my direction, suddenly vanished, as if some cosmic flight attendant relieved me of all the accoutrements I have never needed, freeing me to fly unencumbered to my next vacation destination.

In plain language, what I'm saying is that in that moment of pure connection, all my old bad habits of thought and action evaporated. Poof. For instance, gone one was my desire to criticize my new male’s politics, or table manners, or the way he connects to my friends (I know they will love him and he will return their love unstintingly). Gone was my desire for him to have read all the books I’ve read, and to have all the same opinions about them that I do. Gone was my desire for him to challenge me 24/7 just in case I suddenly found myself at a dinner party with the Nobel Prize winner for Literature and Neuroscience (a category they should have). Gone was my usual checklist of things he had to perform in order to win my love. My love was already his, instantly. Even as my love left me like blood through an open wound, I was refilled immediately, the supply now endless.

Without further ado, let me introduce you to this extraordinary creature. Shy Bird Phillips. My boy.

So, when someone asks me if online dating works, I can now honestly say it does. And all those years in therapy to stop myself from trying to turn some poor guy into my saviour, or to stop my own megalomaniac belief that it’s my job to save someone else (and can), are finally bearing fruit. You see, Bird is a rescue dog, so I assumed I was the one rescuing him, but I made a category mistake: he is a rescue dog indeed, but that's because he rescues damsels in distress.