A long time ago, I learned that it is much easier to create the thing you pine for, than to wait for it to find you. Wasn’t that a sort of eighties maxim: See what you want, then take it?
Mine’s a tad different: see what you want, then make it.
You see where this is going.
In a “Personals” add, I’m hot stuff: Fun-loving blonde with blue eyes, funny, smart, talentlessly artistic, a little zany and not looking for any sort of up-front commitment. Then the reality kicks in: the “artistic” turns out to be an all-out obsession few can tolerate and the “zany” can at times be less than fun.
Even as the kind of girl who I thought might pass for desirable on the written page, I seem to only attract ne’er-do-wells and creeps. I discovered this in my brief foray into the world of the “Personals” with my post on The Onion’s website--- not one of my better moments, I’ll admit. In fact, some would call it desperate. And by someone, I mean everyone. But it was, at its core, a dare and, in the end, general opinion ended that internet adventure. Good thing because I don’t think I was ready to be the subject of some Lifetime movie of the week. (“He seemed so great, how could I know he had a kitten fetish?”)
Growing up, I had a list of standards for The Guy—capital letters—some of the choicer tidbits were as follows (I found them in my black notebook written in silver gel pen):
--Funny, in a subtle way
--Smarter than me by a lot
--Non-smoker
--Devout in his religion of choice
--Vegetarian (who knows why)
--Stamp collector (I have no idea what this one’s about)
--Actor (yeah, no.)
--Older than me by exactly seven years (Why, exactly—because I was so mature?)
--Gifted writer
--Good singer
--Wants to have five kids (God help us)
--Likes Indian food
--Likes to try new food
--Sees a lot of movies
--Is kind
--Likes me
--Has read more books than I have (this was back when I knew how many books I had read. This was when I thought how many books I had read mattered.)
Then, I grew up. The list changed. It now stands as follows:
--Is kind.
--Likes me.
This is why in my ever-successful two-year college career I have dated no one at my school. This is why I was so happy when I met Colin. This is why I was so happy when I created Colin, if we are to be completely candid. We met at work, down in the costume shop in the Tennessee Williams Center. I was getting hours for my theatre class, he was just, well, being there. I was sewing a button back onto a vest when I felt someone’s gaze fixed upon me.
Colin stands about six feet tall. He has no head. He has no lower body to speak of (including certain integral parts of the male anatomy). He has no arms. His skin is cloth. He is mounted on rollers and very seldom wears any clothes.
Colin is a dress-form.
But he’s my dress-form.
In the romantic world, inside my head, Colin is a soccer-player who wants to be an organic farmer in Brazil or a pediatrician in Manhattan. While no longer necessarily a religious zealot by any means, in this new version of self-constructed happiness, he has a strong, albeit puzzled, sense of God.
Best of all, Colin never wanted to play with bacteria for a living, never even set foot in a lab, never spent hours hunched over a microscope, much like me and organic farming, so we have a lot to bring to each other.
We’re both homebodies, but enjoy a good time going out and about. He’s a terrible chef who loves to cook and an awful singer, but loves to sing.
Neither of us can dance.
We aren’t always together.
He puts up with my moods, and he makes me laugh. He’s so smart it’s kind of disgusting. I don’t mean, “Look at my grades—let me tell you everything about everything” smart, I mean secure in his place in the world, secure in his knowledge of how things work. What an amazing way to be all the time!
Neither of us were phone talkers before we met. I always ran out of things to say, but now I can’t go to sleep without talking to him. I think he feels the same way.
Although my friends all think he’s weird, they’re happy that I’m happy. They all agree that Colin is a good name, soft enough, but carried well by a man who is at one with his masculinity.
If he gets stinky, I just whip out the Febreeze. If anything, it smells better than some of the stuff other guys drown themselves in.
Colin understands why I think cows are so scary and why sometimes I don’t want to do anything at all, but read or just sit.
Colin knows I’m smart, but tells me I’m beautiful. For the first time in my life I believe him, and so I am.
Beautiful.
Lately, I’ve gotten a little concerned. New dress-forms have been wheeled into the costume shop: lady dress-forms. I’ve started to see the pitfalls in our passionate fictional affair.
He and I, after all, come from different worlds. Perhaps it will be best to let him go and, to quote Harold and Maude, “Love some more”.
The best kind of love is the kind that is real; there’s no argument. The kind that involves hands and arms and teeth and lips and eyes and other lovely bits, the best kind of love is never so perfect or constant or easy or attainable. The best kind of love is rare and not something you’re necessarily going to find here.
So we satisfy ourselves with other loves. We satisfy ourselves with weekends, with plays, with good coffee, relentless academics and conversation—in other words, we all get pretty good at talking the talk and walking the walk. We ooze the strength of separate people who don’t need anyone, who don’t want anyone. We satisfy ourselves with words, words, and endless words until the day comes when we are washed in peace and quiet.
Or, if you’re me, until peace and quiet, six feet tall with no arms and no legs and no head, rolls in the door.
