"I am drawn
I am drawn to her
Like a moth to flame
She leads me down
Unbound"
[Robbie Robertson, "Unbound"]

She's a good kisser. I like that. I like kissing. It's always a welcome thing when you meet someone whose kissing style you think can meet in a way you'll both enjoy. I was quite nervous, in spite of the fact that I know kissing is one of my better skills, simply because it's been a while and I really wanted to make a good impression. In my sexual playbook, being a good kisser has always been one of my stronger draws, to the point that I'd say I rely on it a bit when I'm trying to seduce someone. To my mind, if you can't impress a woman with your kissing, it makes it much harder later (that night or any other) to get anywhere beyond that. Perhaps...

Oh dear. I'm kissing and telling. How shameful of me. Tell you what. Let's go back to waxing philosophical a bit, and I'll get everyone caught up, and just cross my fingers and hope if she ever reads this some day she'll forgive me for yammering about it.

A couple of years ago, I debated with someone whether there was a such thing as "true love" or "soulmates" and whether good and lasting relationships were the spontaneous product of pure magical chemistry, or whether a good relationship was something that was worked towards deftly by two interested parties.

She was a believer in that magic moment, that mystical click, whereby two people's eyes met, they smiled and laughed, and suddenly something wonderful was born. She was of the belief that her final and lifelong relationship would begin in this way, and that the love she found would be simple, and true, and enduring, and easy.

I adamantly felt the opposite. I insisted that her belief was naive and fantastic. I suggested it was the cheery dream of youth, which age and experience beats out of us, and quickly enough, until we come to the realization that relationships take work, serious work, and that it wasn't so much a matter of finding that special someone as it was finding someone you could work with.

Following that discussion, I had a lot of time to give it a lot of thought. Over a course of months, I wavered back and forth between her extreme and my own. I recalled that my best relationships where ones that had that kind of spontaneous bonding, but I also remembered good relationships that didn't. I remembered people I'd met in whose presence I felt that sudden swell, but from which no mystical, magical, meant-to-be relationship ever sprung. And so eventually, I came to the conclusion that the truth is probably in moderation: a little from column A, and a little from column B.

The best relationships begin with an inexplicable spark. From there, turning that spark into a flame, and keeping that fire burning and sustainable, that's where the work comes in. Left untended, it burns out. Without a cautious approach from the beginning it can quickly flare and die, or simply fade away and go out. And even long after it's been established and burning steadily, without careful monitoring, it can dwindle and die through negligence.

The spark is the interesting and to my mind much more difficult part. It's there or it isn't. It can't be manufactured, and there's little you can do to bring it about or increase your likelihood of finding it. Rather, you can only wait and hope. And it's so few and far between, you can see how it's easy to give up hoping or even believing. But when it happens...

For reasons they can't clearly define, these two people each feel a certain draw, an attraction, above and beyond something so simple (or complex) as a sexual tension, but from a deeper, more ethereal and penetrating need to explore one another. It's like an unexplained curiousity combined with an unusual trust and comfort. Yes, it can still be accompanied by all the usual sexual tension, and all the usual jittery butterflies at being around someone you find fascinating. But somewhere, deep down, in a way you can't easily put your finger on, you feel an unmistakable tugging at your soul, pulling you in a direction.

I've had this experience before. But I'd be lying if I said I had it with all, or even most, of my girlfriends when I met them. I've seldom felt it. And the reason I argued against or in spite of having experienced it was because I'd not had it in so long, I could easily justify it to myself as the naivity of my own youth.

Last night I felt it.

In fact, to be even more honest, it was actually last week but I didn't want to tell anyone about it. I didn't want to make something out of it if it wasn't there. I didn't want to be later embarassed if nothing came of it. I'm even hesitant about it writing about it now, because a week from now, if nothing grows from it, I'll feel foolish for having had such child-like optimism. And if she ever reads this, I'll either feel like a blushing schoolboy if she finds it "cute", or a complete moron if she finds it frightening. So I didn't tell anyone, and I'm not going to discuss it much any time soon (except perhaps with Geoff or Tracey, who share with me a unique understanding of these things), but in truth she'd been on my mind all week since we bumped into each other. I didn't even really expect her to be on my mind all week, but she simply was. I didn't even mention her to friends until yesterday, when I explained to a couple of them that I was meeting her for coffee, and that I'd take it easy and see what came of it. When I bumped into her last week, for perhaps the first time in over a decade, the encounter itself didn't seem that impactful until well after, when I was home, and lay awake wondering. In hindsight, I expect that's also largely because of the locale. I bumped into her in the mall, in the tunnel outside the theatres.

Something I may never have mentioned in my journals (or may have, I simply can't remember) is that I find crowded places, particularly bright flashy ones, make me anxious and sometimes even mildly disoriented. Mall food courts are probably the worst, because of the combination of white-noise chatter, so many people moving about, the different menus and signs, and undoubtedly a decore style that involves a lot of reflective surfaces. The only thing worse, really, is to be in a swimming pool without my glasses on, where the combination of poor-vision and echoing sound is simply mind-boggling. I wouldn't class this as a phobia. It doesn't prevent me from going to the mall or even the food court. (I do prefer to see movies on nights when there's not a crowd, but so do most people, so no one thinks it odd.) It doesn't have any kind of lasting or traumatic effect on me. It's simply something that's distracting, uneasy. That's all. I don't like crowds. Big whoop.

So when I bumped into her in the hall outside the theatres, there amongst the throngs of people on a busy Friday night, what I felt and what I remembered of her was limited, confined by the distraction of everything around me. And when I got home and relaxed, I found my thoughts drifting to her. I could remember so little, and what I could remember wasn't sights or sounds, but only that vague, ethereal, "how I felt around her" kind of memory. It was plenty I couldn't put my finger on, and little of anything else.

And so, as I waited for her to arrive last night for our coffee-rendezvous, I found myself wondering the oddest things. I strongly suspected I'd like her, because I could remember that I already had. And I seemed to recall I'd found her sexually-appealing to me in the past as well, though I couldn't place if it was a physical thing, a mental thing, or the far-better combination of both. I was trying to approach it all with an open mind, taking it as it comes, but I still couldn't help but wonder if I'd find her attractive, or if we'd click, or, for that matter, whether our encounter was a "date" in her mind or not, or simply two old acquaintances getting together for a coffee to conjure up memories of old times and form a possible friendship.

Then she arrived, and smiled, and took off her coat. In that one instant, most all my questions except one were answered. Yes, I most definitely found her attractive (and pretty and sexy and cute, in case anyone keeps track of my 4-word system). Yes, we were "clicking", though I couldn't explain why (but you never can). Yes, I was interested in pursuing this. Yes, I was still going to quite sensibly take it cautiously, enjoying the moment but also not trying to force it into anything it wasn't already. The only question that remained then, was how she felt about it.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not suddenly infatuated. I'm not obsessing. I'm not building a little shrine or writing down lists of baby names. But rather...

We click. I think so. She seems to think so. And that goodnight kiss and her call today is definite indication that she wants to pursue this and see where it goes just as I do. We'll be seeing each other Thursday, provided I haven't died from anticipation before then. Yes, there's still the shyness, the tension, on both our parts. (Yes, yes, go ahead and laugh, I spent all night wanting to initiate physical contact but being far too shy to.) But it also feels right, and good, and... hopeful. There are many things about the situation (hers and mine both) that might normally give me pause, and yet, I feel eager, not at all hesitant.

It feels bright and full of possibility.

And I guess that's my point. That I think we each felt that certain click, and that optimistic but cautious, each of us wants to find out if that spark can be fanned into a flame, quite possibly even a bright and lasting one.

Plus she's a good kisser.