I went on a date with a woman last Sunday; let’s call her F. Like me, F is a lawyer…she’s also intelligent, interesting, and attractive. The date lasted around four hours – dinner and drinks – and I had a thoroughly enjoyable time. I wasn’t besotted or anything, and we weren’t quite on the same wavelength, personality-wise, but it was definitely worthwhile and I’m going to see her again soon.
Then the next night, on Monday, I went out with my friend M (also a lawyer). This one requires a little bit of an explanation: I dated M for a couple months about a year and a half ago. It didn’t really end well; I wanted to be more serious than she did and she was going through a lot at work, so we saw each other less and less frequently until the whole thing dissipated. I thought then – and I think now – that I’ve rarely met someone with whom I’ve had more of a sense of commonality than M, and it was sad to see the relationship end. We flat out got along really well, even if the romantic side of it fizzled.
Anyway, M and I recently reconnected and have hung out a couple of times. She’s dating someone at the moment (who doesn’t exactly approve of her spending time with me), so there’s no prospect of anything rekindling. And that’s fine with me – I’ve always been someone who’s able to stay on good terms with exes, and it’s genuinely nice to have another friend who shares so many of my interests and so much of my sense of humor.
But here’s the thing. Like M (and, notably, unlike F), I’m a total law geek. I love long, complicated discussions about the state of the world from a legal perspective. I’m an academic at heart, and I sincerely believe that new legal theories can have a tremendous impact on society; what’s more, I believe that my friends and I are potentially intelligent enough to effect some real and positive change, if only we had the drive and passion to put our ideas out there into the proverbial marketplace. And when I got together with M last Monday, I was reminded just how articulate I can be. Simply put, she makes my mind hum. I think in hypertime when I’m sparring with her. Too often, arguing with someone whose intellect I respect makes it difficult for me to clearly express what I’m trying to say; I’m so conscious that they’ll exploit the weaknesses in my argument that I have trouble formulating the argument in the first place. But with M I felt damn near inspired by the give and take; the evening was absolutely amazing. And she, too, clearly loved the discussion we were having; we’ve made plans to try and write something together in the future.
(As an aside, I may have scared M away by expressing these thoughts to her via e-mail last week. I haven’t heard from her since, and I’m hoping she didn’t simply decide after all that establishing a friendship with me would, on balance, potentially disrupt her status quo and thus not be worth the trouble. The e-mail was probably needlessly sincere and might well have scared her off. I tend to be over-eager about things that’re important to me, which often backfires. Not much to be done, if true.)
Anyway. My evening with M provided a marked contrast to my date with F. Most importantly, it made me realize that my ideal mate is someone who inspires that kind of clear thought in me; it’s incredible to feel like talking with someone brings you closer to fulfilling your intellectual potential. At base, the biggest reason I’m not in a relationship at the moment is that I’m incredibly picky – the sort of woman with whom I have a mutual feeling of attraction and enjoyment and engagement is uncommon enough already. But this is something else entirely. I really dunno if I can be happy settling for someone who’s “just” interesting, intelligent, and attractive like F…not if I know that this kind of thing is out there somewhere.
Bottom line is that I wanna be with the kind of person who makes me think in hypertime, the kind of person who – along with all the other wonderful romantic things – makes me believe that I can actually change the world. And this, I guess, makes it even harder for me to find whoever it is I’d eventually like to find.
