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By Martha Wright
A friend invited me to join her for a drink in an obscure bar in
a part of town I didn't know. "I want you to meet my friend David,"
she said "He's single and available." Not only was she challenging
my ability to navigate the city but also she was aggressively setting
me up. There was something about the way she said, "he's available,"
that made me want to decline. But, since this was her first matchmaking
attempt, I was curious. The bar was dark and smoky. I spotted my
girlfriend right away. "David is getting us beer." We settled into
a corner of the bar. When he appeared with three glasses of dark
beer, I knew that I'd like him. There was something sweet and familiar
about him. He was soft spoken and he had great taste in beer. During
the conversation, he mentioned that the apartment next to his was
available. I had mentioned that I wanted to move. "It's the mirror
image of mine," he said. "Would you like to see?"
The three of us walked back to his apartment and during the grand
tour, I absent-mindedly took a brochure from the top of his dresser
and didn't realize it until I'd gotten on the bus to go home. So,
not only did I have to call him to follow up about the apartment
that I probably wouldn't take, but I also had to admit my theft.
Thus began our relationship.
It started slowly at first with long phone calls and then a couple
of dinner-and-movie dates. I liked what I was learning about David.
He was a doctor and a musician, and he loved the same music that
I did. In college, he'd been a beekeeper--now that was interesting!
David seemed to like what he was learning about me, too. Although
we were opposites in many ways, we were drawn to each other. This
was all happening a couple of weeks before Christmas, so there were
more than the usual number of parties to attend and more sparkle
to the city. Then, of course, there was the whole gift exchange
issue--David gave me earrings and I gave him a CD. By New Year's
Eve, we were so caught up in the spirit of the season and with each
other that we just celebrated all night. Fine. We were inseparable
for several months to follow. During that time we spent many nights
together, but our bliss was slowly invaded by the demands of day-to-day
life. The charms of our opposite attributes began to fade. Then
it fizzled.
There were so many things about each other that we hadn't discovered
before we had sex. I discovered that David was not planning on giving
up smoking in the near future, that he was not a "cab kisser," that
he hated surprises, that he enjoyed a rigid routine, and that he
preferred talking to his therapist three times a week rather than
me. David found out that I was never on time, that I was a "cab
kisser," that smoking in bed really bothered me, and that I sometimes
flirted with waiters. The only way we knew how to bridge these chasms
was to have sex. It became the filler for that void between us until
it finally opened up and swallowed our relationship. We didn't have
that much in common. We found it out too late.
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What do you
do when you're past the "key exchanging" phase of dating
and you come home one day to find the following missing
from your house: car, credit cards, checkbook,
and your dog? 
Yikes.
How awful. Your dog, too? 
