Fuck, I don't know what to call it. Looking at all the symptoms one might say I'm "in love". The butterflies, the racing heart, the catching myself thinking of her when my guard is down, it's almost like I'm afflicted with some terrible disease. But being a guy that has "fallen in love" before, often for the worst reasons and often to disastrous or at the very least, painfully misguided results, I simply know better. I can properly categorize my disease-like affliction as me being "in lust" more than anything else. Somewhere in the deepness of my mind I hold the hope that each time I survive and recover from being stricken with this painful affliction, that I somehow grow stronger, evolve and become more immune to this disease. The disease itself however, has also been evolving and mutating, even with my guard up I find myself blindsided, like a bolt of lightning from the clear blue sky.

I don't know, after a whole bunch of serious missteps in regards to females, over time I think I've slowly developed the art of just playing it cool. If you are beautiful, it doesn't matter, if you have a nice smile, it doesn't matter, if you have some degree of intelligence and wit it doesn't really matter, if you have a sense of humor and we get along really well, it just doesn't matter. I'm the fucking iceman, you can't break my cool. There was this girl last quarter that I had a thing for, got her number and we talked. So she was cute, with some degree of intelligence (she was in the same grad class as me) we had a few things in common such as her being recently divorced, we both like sushi and I thought we had nice chemistry. Her being outspoken and me being the silent type seemed to be a nice contrast. I even kept my cool and held out until the end of the quarter before asking her out. But in the end we played a little phone tag, I hinted towards wanting to hang out, but she kind of gave me the runaround of "being busy". She ultimately didn't wind up returning my last call and to me I considered it her just flaking out on me. Maybe it was me who dropped the ball or made a misstep, or maybe it just wasn't meant to be. Whatever, I didn't beat myself up over it too much and chalked it up to experience. You know, the shit that didn't kill me, which made me stronger kind of thing and I just simply moved on.

This latest affliction is just a little different in that it wasn't really expected (when is it expeted, really). Well OK, before I get into all of that, let me tell you a weird thing that's been happening to be in general. I seem to be grabbing a bit of attention for females. It's not your average single females or serial dating type females though. They still treat me like I'm the invisible guy. I'm talking about the ones who are married, or are in steady relationships. Of course I'm not one to cross the line of existing relationships. It's one of those golden rule/karma/integrity type things for me. I don't go around messing with people's relationships because I wouldn't want anyone messing with my relationship bliss, hypothetically speaking of course because I'm just your average single guy.

Still, I used to kind of frown on that kind of behavior, the married or otherwise committed person cheating on a significant other and the single person that allows this to occur and getting swept up in the moment. But now I see things a little differently, that married person who supposedly has everything one could hope for, a loving spouse, 2-1/2 kids, a house with a white picket fence and a "soccer mom edition" hybrid SUV in the garage doesn't hold the same pretenses as your average single person does. Her attraction extends beyond my ability to provide, because she is already being provided for. She has a wisdom that single females may not possess because she has already taken the path that most single females are still striving for and is supposedly living "the dream".

They are still picky but in a different way, they pay attention to the loner, the one that flies under the radar. Suddenly I'm no longer invisible. It's weird, it's a little different but at least I know I'm no longer invisible. It's almost too bad I don't cross that line. Isn't having a clandestine affair a sort of initiation into the tumultuous world of adulthood? Shouldn't I shed the last bit of purity I have left and finally be free? Perhaps, someday, but not just yet for there is another dilemma I must contend with.

To be honest, until recently, I never really gave single mothers much thought, other than they may be way out of my league because they have traveled into territories I can barely imagine. Either that or they are in a state of vulnerability and I'd be "shoplifting the pootie" as Cuba Gooding Jr.'s character so eloquently put it in the movie "Jerry Maguire". I couldn't even begin to know what it is like to be a mother, let alone a parent. I hate to admit this, but knowing a woman could possess such a significant degree of wisdom over me just intimidates me. The fact that a potential relationship with a single mom could turn me into a potential father-figure scares the hell out of me even more. I'm worried enough about whether or not I'm ever going to have children of my own, let along me being an actual father and a good one at that, to any child or children I may have in some supposed future should some miracle of fluke in nature occur. Being a potential father-figure to someone else's children is just that much more intimidating.

Then again, maybe she isn't interested in me being anyone's "daddy" but her own. I don't know. All I know for sure is that she is a single mom, recently divorced with 3 children. She has absolutely no desire to go back to her ex-husband. Her financial needs are obviously being taken cared of because she's a stay-at-home mom and presumably has alimony and child-support. I know that if she wanted to, she can pretty much attract any guy she wanted provided they weren't hung up on her being a single mom or if she didn't disclose that info to him. I know that when she touches me I want her to touch me more and when I touch her I want to touch her that much more. I know that we would probably have already been all over each other if I didn't hold back so much. What I can really tell you with absolute certainty is that smile of hers is just melts away at whatever cool I have left. I know that if I lose my cool I would have lost the one thing I truly have left, which is myself. Part of me doesn't want to lose myself ever again but there's part of me that just want to get lost, to give into the moment and just forget everything even if it's to my own downfall.

Of course this is the point where I can rely on my own ineptness and inadequacy when it comes to females. If I just continue being myself, whether I disclose my feelings and prematurely scare her off or if I just continue playing it cool and simply hold back until her aparent interest in my wanes, it's ultimately in my nature to fuck up with women and maybe I'd fuck up the potential for this relationship like I have countless of times before me, simply by being true to my own nature. Then I can dodge the responsibility that comes with romancing a woman of this magnitude. If only her smile didn't fuck me up so much, I think I'd be OK with this. Just like with everything else, I suppose time will tell...