Dearest Rachel –
It wasn’t what I expected to be doing of a Tuesday evening, but as dates go, I suppose it could have been worse. At least it was a pleasant discussion, and neither of us had much time to develop a case of nerves beforehand.
You can probably guess even just by that skeletal description that I’m back on the dating websites again; I’ve been getting too many email notices from these places – and resubscribing is a trifling expense, relatively speaking – for my curiosity not to be piqued. So I signed up with one of the ones I’d been a part of previously, at some point between Christmas and New Year’s, just to see what was going on. It’s not as if any progress is being made in our own backyard; if I’m to find ‘Megumi,’ it looks as if I have to go further afield than our home church (more on that in a moment). However, doing so has more than its share of pitfalls, and even those connections that could be considered “successful” by certain metrics prove to be hardly worth pursuing.
Last evening proved to be a case in point, although I had my suspicions earlier on, even as we began to chat.
Now, I’ve mentioned to you that, while I would hope that ‘Megumi’ (as always, assuming she exists) and I would have a lot in common – interests in anime and other pop-culture ephemera; a snarky, slightly off-color sense of humor; that sort of thing – if this is to be a rest-of-our-lives relationship, we would first and foremost need to share a strong, common faith. It’s why I dropped these dating sites for a while and tried to focus on the community I was already a part of (and, even closer to home, took a flyer on pursuing a member of the friend group you’d bequeathed me with); such a requirement would be built-in at church, with only the more peripheral interests to ascertain or cultivate (and adapt to; obviously, this needs to be a two-way street).
Thus far, however, that hasn’t panned out too well. Do you recall the line – I think the show Sex and the City literally made it one of its underlying premises – about how young single women back in the day would bemoan the fact that “all the good men are either married or gay”? Well, it’s very much like that complaint, just the spear counterpart. Although, while the single women my age I’ve encountered aren’t gay – especially not within a church environment – they also have no interest in having a man in their life, having done just fine without one up until now. It’s understandable – after a certain amount of time, you get used to what you have or don’t have, and can’t imagine life any other way – but, to a single man, it’s a difference without a distinction from that old complaint. The result is the same; she’s just not interested in you, brah, but hey, at least it’s nothing personal. So yeah, that’s the home front for you.
Meanwhile, the dating websites do include a section for listing one’s spiritual position, not unlike one’s educational background, family situation or political positions. These can be important when looking into finding a mate, understandably. But it’s weird when a dating profile includes a description like “spiritual, but not religious.” That reads like the altar designated for “the unknown god” Paul encountered in Athens. To be “spiritual, but not religious” strikes me as being akin to “expecting, but not pregnant”; it’s a contradiction in terms. Yes, I know that our connection to God is mean to be “a relationship, not a religion,” but in order to develop that relationship, one must cultivate and maintain certain habits to keep in communication with Him; habits that literally need to be kept to, in a word, ‘religiously.’
And I’ll say this, Toni hews to her own brand of faith more ‘religiously’ than I do. While we both agree that belief in Jesus as Messiah and Savior are foundational, she has been brought up in a tradition that incorporates more ritual than I’m accustomed to. She even suggested that I try to repeat certain prayer formulae, as a form of meditation – apparently, she had gotten into yoga about a decade ago, when her marriage was starting to dissolve. She’d gotten adept at it to the point of leading classes at the very fitness center I now attend, only to stop at her priest’s advice that the Hindu elements of the exercise might interfere with her spiritual walk. However, she continues exercising, substituting prayers for mantras.
Considering that her faith (borne out of generations before her) had to survive in the days of Nicolae Ceaușescu, I’m in no position to gainsay its validity. It has been tested far beyond what I’ve ever had to deal with in a country such as ours. However, there is clearly a lot of daylight between the two of us, in terms of the specifics of what we believe. Even if it wasn’t so much a matter of disagreement on various, there would always be the matter of which church to attend, and with both of us well set in our own traditions, there would be no persuading the other to join us in our own – not unlike trying to convince a woman who’d gone forty to fifty years without a man that she might benefit from having one.
This was all fairly clear even in our online chats; so when Toni suddenly suggested that she was free after work last night, and would I be available to meet up with her, I felt like I didn’t have anything to lose. There was no need to walk on eggshells, since this wasn’t ultimately going to pan out to more than this one-time meeting. She’s a nice enough person, and very intelligent, but even before we met, it was clear it wouldn’t go any farther than this. Ironically, this made the whole episode that much more liberating; we could talk freely, and not worry that what we said might jeopardize a relationship that wasn’t going to develop in the first place. We even exchanged phone numbers, to keep in touch as friends. But that was as far as it would, or ever could, get between us.
So it goes, I suppose.
Anyway, it was an unusual evening, and worth letting you know about, even if it was to no result. There was more to it than most evenings, in any event. For now, though, I’ve got to get on with my usual day. Keep an eye on me, honey, and wish me luck; I’m going to need it.
Letters to Rachel 