Waiting

Standing there she waits. She’s been waiting only for fifteen minutes but that’s already a lot for her. She’s the kind of person who is usually so punctual that she doesn’t mind waiting for someone for over an hour if she’s early, but can’t bare to wait a single minute when someone’s late. And there she was, waiting. She was waiting for a friend, an old boyfriend, an old love, someone she would only see once a year now that they were living far apart. And she waited. While standing there, a million thoughts popped up in her mind. He had stood her up before, why wouldn’t he do so now? She started feeling the sadness she once -- or twice, or even more -- had felt when she loved him. She started to wonder if she still loved him, and she wasn’t sure. She knew he wasn’t the right person for her to spend the rest of her life with, but she couldn’t help feeling that he was the one, even though he didn’t feel the same. Sadness started to spread all over her. She felt used, ugly, worthless, when she suddenly realized that he wasn’t worth all this trouble. She had already been through so much that she didn’t deserve to feel like that, to wait like that. Alone. Lonely. But they were still friends!!! Were they? Can lovers ever be real friends? She started to question all she thought she knew about life. But what could she possibly know? She was only 22. Then a new feeling took over, the feeling that she had wasted four precious years of her life worrying and caring about him. He was a jerk! He was half an hour late, like he had done before. He wasn’t coming any more, she knew it, just like he hadn't before. However, she still had some hope inside her. At this moment, she felt like going away. Just as the characters of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, she said to herself "I’m going away", but there she stood and there she still waits.

The story as to why I couldn’t have a romance with a man twice my age.

Being in my early twenties, I’m much closer and connected to my adolescence and my girly teen naïve fantasies that a man who’s in his early forties and most likely going through a midlife crisis. Ok, so we meet, he’s totally cute, and charming, and attractive, and interesting, and… different. Way different from any boys I had ever dated in my entire life. See the crisis here? I had only had boys, not men. Alright, my entire life isn’t too much, so there’s still a lot of novelty coming my way, or so I hope. That was one of these novelties I was looking for, a man twice my age.

So we flirted for a while, we talked about feelings, and love, and lust, and sex, and stuff, but nothing actually happened. The thing is that months after the last time we’ve seen each other, I can’t help but still think about him from time to time. Let’s analyze both sides of the situation then, shall we?

Let’s see his side first: he could have had a 20-year-old woman, but that was not new to him: neither as a man, nor as a 40-year-old. There was no sense of novelty whatsoever to him. Therefore, there wouldn’t be much imaginative work before anything actually happened. Imagination is the only thing that could have increased any kind of attraction he might have felt for me.

I, on the other hand, was desperately looking for something new, and that was it! There he was! All my mind could do was imagine a thousand different things of what it would be like to be with a guy like that. My girly imagination was most probably better than reality would ever be, so why on earth would I want the reality? Well, how else would I know?

I still don’t. This experience’s still lacking. I just hope next time I don’t let my imagination lead me so far apart, because in any attempt or desire to have any kind of physical contact with someone of the opposite sex, it’s always required to have one, or rather both feet on the ground. Just don’t let your feet grow roots, because after a while it is acceptable to take off.