Thank You
I am leaving online dating at the end of the year. I want thank the women who viewed and responded to my profile. Thank you for not succumbing to the on-line tendency to flirt emptily, lie, and, when unable to hustle cash out of a man, wander off. Personally, I am going to spend more time doing the things I like to do, and seeing what connections I find there.
I will always be reachable as
i m a g i n e b l u e e y e s
... at "g" -- you know, where everyone hosts their mail.
Here is a piece I wrote some time back to express how I feel about how men and women -- girls and boys? -- should behave. Best of luck to all of you.
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My Last Summer as a Boy
Each summer my family would drive all day to reach my grandparents' farm in a place that even locals acknowledged as "The Lost Coast". It rained hard all winter, but by mid-summer, the place awakened as a green wilderness with rivers, trees, and quiet, endless, rolling hills. There were more animals than people. It was an amazing place for a kid to visit, but after a week, I did not toss a fit as we packed the car to leave.
One year, as I wandered along a cracked, shaded lane, I encountered a young girl with strawberry-blonde hair and faint freckles. She was a bit shy, as I was, but did not hesitate to say "hi". I had never met her before. She lived down the lane in a huge white house that had always seemed empty. We strolled together, glancing now and then at each other, and chatting idly. I had met young girls before, but in school, they were always kept separate from the boys. So it was oddly refreshing to encounter such a friendly female and to feel no trepidation about spending time with her. Each day after that, we met and ventured through the Eucalyptus groves, laughing in the cool, crisp air, hearing the crunch of dried nuts on the ground, and slipping as we tried to avoid the sheep dung. There was never any topic of conversation, and at times we just stopped and sat on a fallen log, quietly reviewing each other. She always packed a lunch, which she presented proudly. The week slipped away in a series of moments.
On the last Sunday of my family's stay, instead of going for a walk, she invited me into her house. No one was there. The bath water was running upstairs. She guided me up the long staircase. We pulled our clothes off and climbed in. I had never seen a young girl naked before. She pretended that she had never seen a young boy. We were mostly the same, really, and the differences seemed irrelevant. We washed each other and then just sat in the steaming four-pawed white tub, gazing upon each other. The quiet descended upon us and swallowed us whole, and from that moment on, we said almost nothing. She put on a white dress and walked me down the lane towards my family's house. Suddenly it seemed that every person living in the region stepped out to watch us, point, smile, and shed a tear. We walked as slowly as we could, then said good-bye. She disappeared in the dusty back window of my dad's Chevy.
Years later I returned there and ran down the street to see if she might still be there. But the house had burned down. All that remained was a white picket fence.
Now and then I close my eyes and go to that yard where the great house had been, and watch over the boy's shoulder as he stares into it, refusing to leave.
