being frank

So I had a date this weekend. With someone I'll call Frank. (actually, I've decided to call all my dates Frank, much in the same way I call all my friends Kate. Why Frank? I don't know. Probably because I only know one Frank (and we're not dating) and because it ends in a K as opposed to starting with a K... but you know, if you're looking for logic, go read someone else's blog!)

Frank and I went out several many years ago, and, actually, of the variety of long-term relationships I've had since then, ours was really lovely. Except that Frank lived out of town. In, um, Frankville. So we had to commute back and forth between NYC and F-town all the time. We made it work, sort of, and then broke up, then tried again, then broke up again, and then hit radio silence for the intervening four and a half years.

Then, all of a sudden, he calls me out of the blue and wants to have dinner. Of course, I'm thrilled to accept, since my memories of him are so fond. We go out a couple of times (including once dragging our freezing little popsicle asses to Brighton Beach to ballroom dance with old Russian people -- it was pretty fantastic, and fantastically cold!) But I knew, right off the bat, that things were different for us.

I was faced with a choice: I could (yet again) try to force it with someone who was really close (I mean really close) to what I want, or I could let it go, and trust the universe to bring me something just that much better. I chose to let it go, but every time I meet someone terrific who doesn't have the qualities I need (especially if they have some of the qualities that I really like) it gets harder and harder to believe there's someone out there who's got it all.

It's almost as if once I narrow it down to three things I need (i.e., smart, self-aware and emotionally available), I meet someone with all that (i.e., Frank) who then seems to be missing something else essential. I have visions of Cupid, arms filled to the brim with wonderfully smart, self-aware and emotionally available boys that he then has to go put back on the shelf, and refile based on my new criteria.

Only each time this happens, Cupid's armloads get smaller and smaller.

Maybe (just maybe) this is for the best.