Interview with a seductee (part 2)

(cont.)

We hung out at the ballet a few weeks later. We went to that restaurant that looked like it came out of a kitsch catalogue and then we went to the show and you were going to go to a bbq with family and/or get ice cream and I set off for home, but it was otherwise a good conversational day compared to the one before. You noted that I seemed calmer with you, but also noted my incredible inability to understand you. I kept saying, that's your type of thing, and you would say, no no no, you don't get me at all, but much calmer and easy going this time around without that added pressure of being at my house.

And then I didn't talk to you. And then I was sitting in an airport in Miami months later with my current fling leaning against my arm in our layover to San Pedro Belize, I opened up my email (thanks to you getting the office interns to show me how), and happened upon a very interesting read from you. The word that stuck out the most from that particular email was the four letter word love and its frequent use. The heartfelt passion with which that email was written seemed to be from a different human. It invoked thoughts for me of an infatuation of an ex lover, not someone who had been a short term co-worker who had come over to dinner once and awkwardly discussed my personality disorders for me and my inability to communicate. So reading through it, there was some shock to be had. Honestly I read it as being very truthful, as being... the picture behind the font of the email in my mind was this delicate soul that had hidden behind everything, a facade of intelligence and background and family and had realized that this was what true love was and had to express it and let it shine through. Not only was this interpretation gratifying as a major ego boost, but it was also shocking from my prior experiences with this person, it was alarming to my current paramour who is leaning on my shoulder catching glimpses of the word love, tidbits of affection and nuances of the email with a sideways glance. I think I briefly typed out a response without responding later. In Belize, a day later, we had our first fight in four months of dating because my companion had silently, passively aggressively brewed for 24 hours, insulted that I hadn't discussed already how it was that i was going to extinguish the small flame you had for me by saying I was already taken. Because I had been asked, "what are you going to do with this" and I had replied honestly and confusedly "I don't know," we had to discuss in detail why i didn't know what I was going to do. Thus began the portrayal of you as someone who was oddly infatuated with me, but my interest in you was an intellectual pursuit and search for a dialogue that was otherwise missing in my current relationship. I still don't really understand fully -- why you wrote what you did, but it was effective at getting my attention because it certainly was shocking and surprising and exciting to read because ... I don't think for me there are many times in my lifetime that i will open up an email and read some of the things that you wrote in it. Whether they were just meant to pull me back into an odd conversation about my personal defects and how you could fix them, it was still a successful endeavor because it worked, I still came running back ready to hear about what was wrong with me.