Not Ready, or Never Surrender

I wasn’t ready.

I didn’t matter that I was closer to 60 than 16, closer to the grave than the cradle.  That I had had lovers in the double-digits from multiple continents. That I had decades of dating and relationship experience under my belt, literally and figuratively.

I wasn’t ready.

Yes, a part of me wanted to.  It had been what seemed like ages since I felt anything below the belt for anyone. On paper he seemed like a perfect catch and a great match: Age appropriate, in his mid-50’s. Divorced 5 years.  Attorney with an on-line firm, with a flexible freelancer’s schedule like mine. Smart and interesting. Francophone and francophile.  Tall.  Not next door, but geographically accessible via public and private transportation. Yes, this felt like an auspicious coupling, full of potential.  

We had met a month prior, been on several successful dates.  It was a beautiful and balmy Indian summer night. There was wine.  We were alone and comfy cozy, ensconced in a sofa in the mid-Hudson Valley with nothing and no one to distract or disrupt us. 

Still, I wasn’t ready.

We found each other on one of those swipey smart phone apps, as one does in this modern cyber age.  They’re not just for kids and/or casual encounters anymore.  A whole crop of new platforms for more mature, serious, relationship-seeking adults had been invented for more mature, serious, relationship-seeking people like me.   Unlike those other unserious hook-up apps, Bumble and Coffee Meets Bagel supposedly cater to those of us seeking a deeper, richer, longer-lasting, meaningful connection. Or so claim their marketing departments.

                                                                                                    

Shortly after I registered for Bumble, offering up my personal information as well as access to just about all past and future phone usage information, Newl’s smiling face popped up on my phone screen one afternoon.  The app, developed by women, supposedly empowers we girl users by allowing us and only us to make the first move when a connection is established.  A connection being a swipe to the right by both parties, indicating mutual interest.  Newl had a sweet enough smile, and was blandly attractive in a Connecticut, white-bread, non-threatening way.  After a few messages via the app, we decided there was enough interest (we had both lived in France!  We both liked travel!) to exchange phone numbers and communicate via real phone texts. We soon graduated to using the phone for actual phone conversations.  I found the sound of his voice sonorous, his precise use of words rare and compelling. I wanted to hear - and see - more.

And so, one stormy August Saturday afternoon, at a Starbucks on the Upper West Side, we decided to meet in person.  We recognized each other in the crowded room immediately, relieved that we were not repulsed by the other’s physical being.  We talked easily and steadily for over an hour before I had to leave to catch a train.  He offered to drive me to Penn Station; I didn’t think twice about jumping into his car. It felt right, safe.  A solid start.

After about five weeks of talking, texting and several few easy, breezy dates in town strolling through Central Park, meeting for a lunch of crepes (that French Connection was a strong one), exploring the ancient downtown haunts of his youth and such, we kissed.  And it was good.

So the night we found ourselves all alone on the comfy cozy sofa in the mid Hudson Valley would seem like an ideal opportunity for us to make ze love.  

But it wasn’t.  As you may recall I mentioned, I wasn’t ready.

But he was.  And he was rather insistent about it.

Yes, we were cuddled up on the sofa, making out like teenagers.  Which was oh-so much fun.  A little shy, a little awkward.  Until, when he wanted to go further and I didn’t, it got a little uncomfortable.

Actually, I did want to.  Very much. Just not yet.  

Granted, perhaps the fact that we were alone on the couch drinking wine, entwined, might have given Newl the impression that I intended to invite him to bed.  However, I’m sure I made myself clear:  That yes, I liked him very much, that I was indeed enjoying him, that he could even spend the night down here on the couch if he didn’t want to drive home late.  But no, I didn’t want this perfect and delicious moment to go any further.

You see, I wanted him in every way, truly-madly-deeply, body and mind, heart and soul. Not just for one night.  I was looking for that someone at your side at weddings, graduations, funerals. I was hoping he wanted the same.  With me.

In that instant, despite decades of living and loving, I was 16 again. Should I or shouldn’t I?  Would he want to see me again if I slept with him?  Would he want to see me again if I didn’t?  I knew in my heart that I wasn’t psychologically, emotionally ready for this relationship-in-progress to take that leap. I have come to consider sex a sacred act, much greater than the sum of two bodies physically joining. And so I wanted to wait.  To see if there was any real, potentially deep, there there.  To see if this could be truly-madly-deeply, not some reasonable facsimile.  To see if he was willing to wait for me.  Until I was ready.  To see if, in this very telling moment, he would put my needs before his own. To see if he was that kind of man, to see if he would do that for me.

He wasn’t, and he wouldn’t.  Newl, he was ready.  And he pressed the issue.  He persisted. Even after expressing in no uncertain terms my interest, my ardor that just needed more time to take root - I wasn't ready - he did not surrender.  I did.  

Eventually, he prevailed.  I’m not certain why - rather than simply refusing, sending him packing into the night - I relented. Perhaps because it was just easier to give in, have it done with, than to suffer an uncomfortable scene while alone with this tall man I really didn’t know all that well?  Perhaps because I wanted to believe, like my 16-year-old self, that he wanted me because he cared about me, all of me, and this overwhelming desire was just an expression of that? 

Hah.  An Aziz Ansari-esque #MeToo moment can happen at any stage of life. We gals can remain delusional to the end.

Granted, like most late Baby Boomer males, Newl was raised in a Mad Men Man’s World by a traditional 1950/60’s stay at home mother and housewife. (To further the cliché, his serially-unfaithful father left his family for his French secretary, abandoning Newl, his three older brothers and mom while they were living in Paris.)  He came of age during the sexual revolution, when everyone was starting to fuck anyone and everyone with abandon.  For him and men of his time, when it came to girls a “no” was just a “yes” waiting to happen if you just held your ground.  Decades later, the more things change ...

After, I got past my initial disappointment in myself and in him, and continued to see Newl.  We took long drives together on the weekends. I stayed at his home, spending time with one or all of his four children.  We shared holidays.  We introduced each other to friends, family, work associates.  We became “we”.  And for over two years, middle-aged me had a new “boyfriend”.  It seemed sweet, but ultimately, like our first night together, it was false and hollow.  One sided.

Early on, the problems in the relationship were fairly easy to gloss over as we adjusted to each other and worked on fitting into each other’s life.  He came with many caveats (which I won't list here for decorum's sake), which I nobly accepted in order to “make it work”.  For all or part of the week, I essentially morphed from an independent Manhattan woman into a suburban hausfrau.  I helped prepare dinner, baked birthday cakes, shopped for school clothes, cleaned out closets, shoveled snow from the driveway, went camping (just shoot me) on family vacations.  I literally and figuratively rode shotgun for two and a half years.  

But as the excitement, optimism, dopamine and adrenaline rush of newness, hormones and sex began to dissipate, it became unmistakably clear that like that first night on the sofa, Newl was all-in only when we followed his playbook, when we catered to his needs, when I graciously shadowed his lead. An unmistakable product of his generation and his upbringing.  I could count on my 50+ year old boyfriend for easy things - having green tea in his house, picking me up at the MetroNorth station.  But when, due to myriad life-and-death, multi-million dollar personal and professional matters - tedious, unpleasant, messy and fraught - I needed the focus to shift from he and his to me and mine for several months, he began to withdraw.  For the first time in two years, I needed support, attention, kindness, and patience, and my distress annoyed him.  He retreated little by little, then all at once.  Until he left me, in tears in Paris in the Gare de Montparnasse, crying on the quai of the TGV.

                                                                                                                     

Newl showed his true colors – who he was, what he wanted – early on, that late summer night when I resisted and he insisted.  (Cue to crank up Gaga’s “Perfect Illusion”.)  This is not the man who would be at my side at weddings, graduations, funerals.  In fact during our two and a half years together, he declined showing up as my “plus one” on at least three occasions.  Why did I cave when it was obvious even in that first moment that he couldn’t or wouldn’t be able to offer the kind of connection I had been holding out for?  Why did I want, hope and expect him to become something other than who and what he showed himself to be?  Even at this advanced stage, after so many years of life, of experience, of relationships, of ever-growing awareness of self and others, how could I make such a rookie mistake? 

After much musing, I began to see that Newl, he liked me, but wouldn't love me; that I wanted to love him, but didn't really like him.  And this was evident that first night, canoodling on the couch.  Why didn't I just own that earlier on?  A question for the ages, for women of any age.  

We’ve come a long way, baby – but ladies, we still have a long way to go.  As do they.

                                                                                                                                   

© 2019 Tess Quadrozzi