(I may have written this story a few years ago…but it continues to ring true, dear readers!)

After being involved in a variety of dating situations with a variety of men…and after experiencing a variety of levels of frustration…I eventually realized something that was rather disturbing.  And very, very sad.  Many men have been married…many men have ended up divorced…yet, many of these men have never really been in love. They got married, but they weren’t head-over-heels, madly and passionately in love.  Never.  Not even on their wedding day.  This was shocking to me.  Truly.  I suppose I just always imagined that all people felt the way that Drew and I felt about one another when we tied the proverbial knot.

I found out the hard way that, apparently, not all that many people experienced what I did.  The first time I realized this was when I had a man dating me, telling me he loved me …and yet, he still thought it was okay to date other women.  He honestly loved me…and he honestly believed that it was possible to love different people, for different reasons.  He believed that we were all too possessive in our culture. That you could sleep with one person and profess your love on a Tuesday evening…and then sleep with an entirely different person and profess your love on a Friday evening.  Without it diminishing your love for the Tuesday person.

Now…my theory was a bit different.  First of all, I told him that perhaps he needed to move elsewhere…to a culture where this concept was more widely accepted and prevalent.  Like the Middle East…or Salt Lake City, Utah.  Secondly…I believed that if you really loved the Tuesday person…you wouldn’t want to sleep with the Friday person.

More importantly, I believed that, if you truly loved the Tuesday person, you wouldn’t want to imagine him or her making love with their very own Friday person.  A bit of jealousy is not a bad thing.  If someone is professing their love for me…I expect them to be a bit distressed at the thought of my having sex with another man.  That is normal…that makes you feel, well, wanted…and loved.

I think that it’s great…and very healthy…to date a few people at once and to take your time deciding which one you are most compatible with and most attracted to.  But I also think it’s normal that, once it’s clear that you like the Tuesday person…you won’t want to be with the Friday, Saturday or Sunday people.

There were certain men who made me begin to doubt myself. Men who made me wonder whether maybe I was the one who was behind the times…out of the loop…a veritable dating “white elephant.”  Out of the singles world for such a lengthy period of time that I was still hanging on to antiquated ideas and impossibly high expectations. I mean, was it wrong and ridiculous to expect a man who professed to like me very much, or adore me… or even love me…. to want ONLY me?  Was “hooking up” the name of the dating game now…with no true love ever being found?  Didn’t men and women still hold hands and stare into one another’s eyes across a dinner table…and melt when they kissed goodnight?   Didn’t anyone just want to be with one person?  For as long as it lasted…whether it turned out to be one week, one month, one year…or one lifetime?  Had the word “smitten” been erased from the dictionary?  I truly began to wonder whether I was expecting the impossible.

But no…I am not expecting the impossible.  Because I have been in love.  I know what that feels like. You want one person…and the rest fall by the wayside.  You want to kiss that person…and make love with that person…and snuggle with that person…and do silly, everyday little things with that person…and talk on the phone with that person late at night ….so that their voice is the last thing you hear before you drift off to sleep.  You don’t want sex with someone else…because you are in love.  And you are floating on a cloud.  And you could not care less about the cute guy from Friday night…because all you can dream about is the guy from Tuesday…the one who makes your heart skip a beat…the one who takes your breath away.  The one who makes you wish you didn’t even have to go to sleep…because your waking moments are better than anything you could ever dream.

True love is a wonderful thing.  It’s rare and elusive and you cannot go out searching for it and expect to find it.  It finds you.  Usually, when you least expect it…and when it is most inconvenient.   And when it does…you don’t care that it’s bad timing or that you live two hundred miles apart…you don’t want it to end…and you will move heaven and earth to make it work.  And you certainly don’t want to kiss anyone else.

I was in love. But a lot of men I’ve dated haven’t been.  And that makes me sad for them…but very happy for me.  I had the real deal.  And I married him.  And if I never find that again in my lifetime, I will be happy knowing that I had that once…and that I am one of the very fortunate few.  Once is better than never.

© 2007 Sandi Amorello/Silver Crayon Studios, Inc.  All rights reserved.

The Irreverent Widow, Silver Crayon Studios and the SC Studios mark are all trademarks of Silver Crayon Studios, Inc.