On Knowing He's Not the One

I know he's not the one for me.

If I'm honest with myself, I've known for a while.

He's cute. Very cute. Chocolate And tall and broad. Charismatic and witty with a smile that could light up a whole room and a booming voice that I'm sure, at some point, incited some butterflies in me. I can understand why women like him.

But to me, he's cute, like most guys from Brooklyn. His height, once perfect, is average. His brown skin more chocolate with almonds and his voice the same timbre as a piano that plays a perpetually flat A sharp.  His smile more of a sneer, as if he has a mean joke waiting to explode from his lips. Those butterflies, a distant memory that may have just been a side effect of the acquisition of something new, like the feeling of getting a new pair of shoes in the mail.

But he's there, sometimes.

I think, often, that I'm selling myself, and he, short by remaining. But he doesn't demand much of me. And I don't really have much to offer so I suppose it works.


But, a lot of the time, when I'm with him, I can't help but miss the men that gave me butterflies. You know, the ones whose "check up" text messages make you feel like you're living a very dangerous life because, well, another man--one from your past at that-- shouldn't (still) make you feel that way...

And begs the question...why doesn't the one who is here make you feel that way...

I'm aware that most would say that I romanticize the love experience. I have a penitent for Disney Princesses and knights in shining armor. The moment where Belle looks into the eyes of the former Beast and recognizes his soul as hers. The moment where the vial around Ursula's neck is broken and Prince Eric realizes that it was Ariel he was searching for all along. The moment when Aladdin's shoulder/apple trick on a magic carpet ride clues Princess Jasmine into the fact that this man and her love are one in the same.

Because hearts always know when someone is the one. Even if they are only supposed to be the one for a little while.

I know that love is perpetual work. But, those moments of living in the love bubble are so precious. And, having had the pleasure of being in love twice, I know that it's possible. I know there is a love that is so real and amazing that you'll search your whole life to feel that way again... I get goosebumps as I write about it. It's that delicious.

It's the nature of a writer to watch things. To observe, internalize and analyze.

I watch him, to his chagrin, rather intently. How his chest rises when he sighs, how he flexes his hands in and out when I frustrate him with my silence, how the corners of his mouth turn down a bit when he searches my eyes for a glimpse of something and finds the blankness of my nothing.

And then I notice what's not there. How I don't mind when he doesn't kiss me. How, when he does kiss me, I maintain knowledge of exactly where I am, exactly what time it is, and that my breathing doesn't quicken. How I don't reach for his hand instinctively. How I still look both ways when we cross the street together.

I hope it's not him.

To think that it might be him would be to admit defeat. It would be to prove all my friends who have told me to "settle"--I hate that word-- with someone stable who can provide for me, correct. To bow to the notion that passionate, all consuming love in reserved for college co-eds and Nicolas Sparks novels.

Please, don't be him.

And for those of you asking how I could be so bold to post this, rest assured that he'll never read it...

....because he is not the one...