Being Grown-up Sucks!

I have a couple of big things going on at work today.  The event today went SO well.  And I so wanted to tell Bobby about it, because he would have understood what it meant in a way that no one else in my life really gets.  And I have to file the report he read this week, and I SO want to call him and ask his thoughts.  In part because he's smart.  And in part because, well, he's sexy and I like him.  Moth, meet flame.

I joined alt.com (as an unpaid member, and their interface sucks) and a married, 63-year-old wrote me (after I told him I wasn't interested because I want the possibility of an LTR:

Hi again, and thank you for taking the time to respond.I would only like to say one thing before flying off into the realms of darkness in cyberspace.Your profile exhibited such care and thoughtfulness and originality and depth that my hunch is that it is not going to be easy to find what you are looking for. That is not to say you won't get a huge number of responses, but I wonder how many of them will convey in their manner and form of presentation something compatible of what you are ultimately looking for--marriage.Should you ever feel stymied in that or want to take a break from that particular search and quest, I still think I offered a response that could result in something considerably more--even if I am not marriageable. I can only ask that you copy and retain outside of alt our correspondence (since you will lose it in 30 days if a standard member, and if you upgrade to gold you have four months). I will even give you my private email should you be willing to save it. It is generic-married-man at yahoo dot com.I do wish you the very best. You are worthy of the very best and I would love to be a part of that process at some point along the way, should that be possible.

(Needless to say, that isn't his real e-mail.)

And what if this generic guy is right?  What if by being unable to settle for what Bobby might have offered.  Or David.  Or several other men in the last few years, I wind up alone.

I don't even consider this guy, the way I considered the hedge-fund manager who offered me access to power to make the world better (although I think he was bluffing).  And on one level, I know I would regret being with generic-married-man because it would mean I wasn't open to possibilities.  But it makes me very sad that he might possibly be right.

I want so badly to have someone to share my life with, to give my love and submission and wisdom and playfulness, who will cherish my silliness and the areas I'm blind and love me.  For me.  But I realize it is a very real possibility that I may never find that.  Even if it's not me.

And as for Bobby, I know I have to rip the band-aid off.  And in a week or two, I'll forget him.  But in the meanwhile, it hurts.  And I believe I have to feel that pain fully to get it through my system.  Otherwise, it becomes a layer in a mask that I won't be able to let down when I meet someone else that might be a real connection.  But it is hard.  Not truly madly deeply hard (one of my favorite movies of all time).  But hard, none-the-less.

Maybe I should go get more cats.