Superman

I had a very exciting date yesterday, one of those that hasn’t happened in a while. He was American, highly inquisitive, excitable and distinctive and he wore All Star trainers...which I am partial to even though no respectable woman my age should be.
He was a ‘Gappy’ ( devoted worshiper of Gap ) and I felt no need to hide my love for Starbucks and Borders in front of him even though he was clearly left wing.
When we spoke on the phone the other day, I mentioned a cup I saw in Borders that featured Penguin of death but as the humongous queue kept moving, I had to proceed without properly giving it my full attention, and once out of the queue, there was no way going back in, which made me sad.
When we sat down and had a drink, he dug into his bag and took out Penguin of death cup and booklet. My eyes sparkled with childish glee. I rampantly dream of men that are quirky and that pay attention to detail and when he pulled that out it was as if all my jackpot numbers aligned slowly in front of me and it filled my heart with such quiet joy. We had what one would term a really long and interesting date. At times I kept staring at him and smiling like a schoolgirl and I cared little about what he was saying...I just stared at him intently and wide eyed and behind the scenes in my head, a hamster was running so fast on his wheel that sparks were flying... At the end of the evening, we got ice cream and he sang a werewolf song, the one where werewolf has some Chinese food in Soho and then we said goodbye.

On occasion I have dates like this, that make me ecstatic only to wake up the next day and, like a photographic memory alignment, I remember details that could potentially mean we are not destined to end up together...like the fact that whatever I asked him, he never once asked ‘and you’ back or other small details that impinged on my ever so colourful and elaborate fantasy.
Recent Speed dating event cemented what my friends have been telling me for years now...that I am fussy. And with the fact that they offer a free session if you didn’t tick anyone, I reckon I will bankrupt them in less than a year. Half of the men there were absolutely unacceptable in quality and the rest ticked me but never quite set my heart on fire. I often cannot offer any tangible reason for this when asked, just that I didn’t feel we fit. I ask myself what I am expecting out of this...is there music when you meet Superman or is it just as quiet as if you were meeting a mortal, do things line up straight away or is it a quiet alignment that takes time?

But equally, I saw few of my friends get used to what came into their life without being that something ultimate, someone that you would choose, given any other choice in the world, again and again, and it never makes them truly content, just occupied for a time and I fear that. I fear being occupied for any amount of time...with the wrong someone.
I fear that life is short enough as it is to forever experience periphery of something that potentially can be quite grand, quite swell and simply amazing.
But equally, I wander if my fussiness has not become coveted and elaborate defence mechanism with which I veto before they veto me, just as pitiful as accepting what you don’t truly want in order to end the search.

Maybe I find solace in searching and waking up in the morning convinced that it is better to leave it alone than for once hope this just might work out OK. Picking tiny faults, something so minute, or making people fit certain moulds that you believe should be the only norm out there in the world of people that are so different from one another that no norm is ever possible to set. And once I veto it, I am at ease, then true life can begin because it is neatly filed away...but I fear by now that by that time, many things are over in my heart. A kind of self-sabotage if you like. Not unlike the Penguin of death that kills by reciting beautiful poem...words I recite to myself often kill, in more ways than one.