…and that’s the key.
I’m happy with the “ones” that I have too. (And they are happy with me) 
The Love Doctor Speaks:
Omni, I see you in a whole new light after your ‘cry from the heart’ earlier. I have it on good authority that even Blueface666 shed a tear or two as he read it. I know I was a blubbering fool by the time I reached the end.
Anyway . . .
Don’t do it, man! Don’t marry that woman you’re poised to marry if you don’t really love her. If she ever finds out that you think she’s just second-best in your life, your life will be a living hell. Remember, hell hath no fury like a woman who thinks she’s your default choice – and don’t think you can hide it from her. Eventually she’ll figure it out like everything else about you you think you can keep hidden from her.
Am I right here, ladies?
Secondly, don’t be a wus. If you love April get on a plane and go to London and find her and tell her. I know, she may already be married (or worse) but even at that the worst that can happen is you’ll get a little closure in your life which I think you owe to yourself and the people around you.
The other possibility is that things that were meant to be just went sour because you didn’t have enough faith and love at the right time to overcome the ‘Wolf Reinhold’ effect. (Nothing personal, Wolf. By the WRE I simply mean always playing the odds in life rather than occasionally making a leap of faith now and then just to see what happens.) Nothing is automatic about finding happiness. There may be connections that you were meant to make and missions you were meant to carry out but they won’t happen automatically. You have to meet a certain minimum performance requirements.
I think where you screwed up with April is that at some point she began to lose faith that you really loved her and she lost her way. That poison pen letter you sent her sealed her suspicions that you never really loved her.
Am I right here, ladies?
Oh my God!
Now I have an effect named after me!
The poison pen letter should have put her on a British Asian Airways airplane straight away.
Mr. He,
We’re talking about women here. Remember, they’re different from us. I figured out a couple of years ago the key to understanding what a woman thinks and wants is to figure out what a guy would think or do in the same situation and then reversing it 180
Yeah, I would take the poison pen letter as a sign of (spurned) love and turned up at her dorstep with a dozen red roses and a box of chocolates as soon as I could. My wife on the other hand? (Not that something like the Omni tragedy happened, thank God for that) She would misread the signal, cry a fair bit, and then go on with her life.
No! God, no.
Actually, I was talking to V last night about this thread and about what I had written, and about some of the other responses. I asked her what she thought about the whole thing. She said that she had been very suspicious about the whole institution of marriage, and was basically hoping to put it off for as long as possible - maybe forever. She saw it as a submission of her self and her personality. She had an interesting career, no shortage of male suitors, and lots of friends. She was not looking for “The One”, namely because she didn’t feel that there was such a thing. I did, though and made my intentions known pretty early on. V felt that her basic personality had been set for quite a while - she’s been hardcore independent, very feminist in her thinking and a rebel against a lot of Taiwanese society’s constraints. She was always being told by her own family that she would never get married, because she was too stubborn/independent/uncontrollable. This suited her just fine. We went to Canada, I introduced her to my folks and some of my family friends and she saw an alternative to marriage as she knew it in Taiwan. In my folks, she saw people who were willing to grow together, to work towards the same goals, to share new experiences, and to suffer disappointments together.
V said before she met me her life experiences were fairly limited. She had already been interested in going to concerts and learning languages but was afraid that her family would accuse her of “putting on airs” or something. Things are different for her younger brother, but her options were more limited. Right now her sister is going through a family struggle. Her sister wants to continue her schooling, her folks think it’s a waste of time, and she should just focus on work and getting a good husband. (Her family is a pretty traditional Taiwanese family.) And when I say traditional I mean small-minded. In the best possible way of course.
In the beginning the only food that I made that V liked was my tuna melt sandwiches. She disliked almost all foreign foods. But the more she got exposed to the wide varieties of food I ate, the more she liked. Now, we eat Chinese, Greek, Italian, Thai, Japanese, Indian, western, Mexican, German, and Taiwanese cuisine all the time. If we could only eat one type of cuisine all the time, we would be unhappy. Her attitude about travel changed after taking trips with me also. She found out that you don’t have to be on a tour to travel, and in fact, if you really want to get something out of the experience, you shouldn’t be on a tour at all.
In all these areas and many more, I did not change her, or even provide “guidance” for change as much as provide the catalyst for change. I was the excuse/reason to change. Her new experiences, of which I was a major part, stimulated a longing for change that had started within her long ago. I do take credit, however, for recognizing her basic nature and knowing what kind of person she aspired to be, and recognizing that I too aspired to be the same kind of person. My hope is that we grow old and interesting together.
As for how she changed me - well, that’s a little less obvious. I grew up in a very international setting, and I have the benefit of an additional 10 years of life experience. Still, I have grown because of my relationship with her. She says that I am more compassionate now than I used to be, and that I’ve mellowed. Whereas before I understood why things are the way they are here, now I can accept those same things with a little more serenity. She also says that I’ve become a better cook, which is definitely true. When I cook for myself, I’m happy with fried eggs on toast. When I cook for others, I try to do a little better than that. And since I am the designated chef (and dishwasher :? ) in the house, I’m getting lots of practice.
Long post, but I wanted to make things a little more clear. I didn’t want anyone under the illusion that I’ve found myself with one of them nice subservient submissive o-ree-yen-tal girls who agrees with everything I say. 
Perish the thought!
Why is V not posting herself? No Internet access in prison?
She has posted here before but she finds it’s too much work to type in English. I’m letting her out of the pit that she calls home to come to the Forumosa Happy Hour tonight, so you can interrogate her in person then. 
Free V! Free V!
- with purchase of eight or more other capital letters.
“Am I right ladies?” (first one)
How will the new girl in Omni’s life react if she finds out about ‘the one?’ Depends on the girl, how secure she is, or how secure she believes her relationship with him is. The best way for her to discover this ghost of lost love, is from him. He absolutely, positively should not even consider marrying her until this story of past heartache has been revealed, and then discussed between them. Not doing this would be a huge mistake, for both of them.
“Am I right ladies?” (second one)
Yes. If I, or any other woman I know, received a scathing attack from a man I’d just begged to forgive me for my unspeakable betrayal, the last thing I’d do is go in search of him. I’d nurse my broken heart (and ego) back to health, and that’d be it. However, if he hopped on a plane and showed up on my doorstep…whole different ballgame there.
Wolf, I’m glad you brought up the monogamy issue. This is something my ‘the one’ and I have discussed at length. We agree that humans were not built with internal monogamous instincts. Romance, hormones, curiosity, a nice ass, a handsome face, a fascinating conversation…so many things stand in the way of staying true to a life partner, even if he/she is the one. We’re exploring ways of dealing with these instances in our relationship, and the best one we’ve come up with so far is dead honesty. I think trust is the most constant need in any 'forever, ‘til death do us part’ pact, and trust is bred from honesty. The more open two people can be with each other over ‘that cute girl who smiles at me at the 711’ or ‘that hot guy that chats me up at every opportunity’, or even 'that person that you can’t stop thinking about ‘cause all you want to do is see what they look like without their clothes on or wonder how they’ll make you feel when they kiss your neck’, the more harmless they become to your ultimate, secure and forever partnership.
Such is love,
Zen
Maoman:
[quote]
Long post, but I wanted to make things a little more clear. I didn’t want anyone under the illusion that I’ve found myself with one of them nice subservient submissive o-ree-yen-tal girls who agrees with everything I say. Perish the thought![/quote]
Sorry dude, didn’t want to suggest that was the case. I’ve done similar to what you describe, and it’s a pretty damn fine second best. But it’s still a second best.
The one would be someone who has arrived independently at a point in her life where who she is complements who I am. Whether we are 17yr olds joined at the hip, or ageing expats with a wealth (surfeit) of experiences. The one is someone that I will grow with from that point onwards.
Leading, guiding, helping, encouraging, shaping, contributing to the delinquency of, however you describe it you are not in a partnership of equals. I’m not talking about love, respect, affection. I’m talking about a balance of some sort - struggling to find the right words here. Anybody get what I mean?
The point of my original post was that the older you get, and the more you do, the harder it gets to find someone who can give you that balance. Maybe I just have the sort of personality that needs … a foil, er, a counter. The dark is defined by the light, and vice versa, etc.
It doesn’t matter how beautiful or good in bed your other is, sooner or later you have to talk to them. I don’t want to only talk about our shared experiences, or mine. I want to learn from, and be stimulated by, her experiences before binding our lives together.
No matter what the potential of the young lady in question, if you’re ten years and a wealth of experience ahead of her she becomes a reflection (shadow) of you rather than the complement to you.
This thread is certainly serving to revive questions I’d given up thinking about. Topic of the week award due here.
[quote]No matter what the potential of the young lady in question, if you’re ten years and a wealth of experience ahead of her she becomes a reflection (shadow) of you rather than the complement to you.
[/quote]
Sounds like you’ve had some bad luck with women (or have made some bad choices) – there’s no way anyone would describe me and my old lady like that.
A woman I was once getting pretty serious about learned (from me) about a certain girl who still gives me the occasional pang 12yrs on.
She too felt that I needed closure on the affair, so she rummaged in my personal papers one day until she found a number and called her up to get her opinion.
She did it with the intention of dealing with something that was potentially in between us - absolutely no malice intended, I’m sure - and I got the necessary closure. But it also brought skeletons out of her own closet and made her seek closure to one of her previous adventures by going back to him.
I would ask what is most important. Dealing with something that is dead and gone, resurrecting all that pain, destabilising the new lives that both of you have built? How about making the most of what you have and if you have enough to believe you can make a go of it then just getting on with making a go of it?
Bury the dead. Get on with your life.
Humans don’t physically have to be monogamous (unlike, say, bees or spiders or praying mantises), but that doesn’t mean they can’t be monogamous.
There’s a difference between having the hots for someone else and acting upon those feelings. (To paraphrase and borrow from Twain, like the difference between seeing a lightning bug and being struck by lightning.) I’d never require my “one” to never ever even think about another guy – that would be ludicrous, just as I’d never be able to live with someone who swatted me every time I ogled a passing beauty’s boobs – but actually doing anything physical is a no-no.
You never quite said what the two of you decided what your limits are; it’s up to the two of you, of course, but I can’t see how a good relationship could be otherwise. Especially in this age of AIDS, herpes, and other permanent problems. I may be a gambler, but I don’t like playing Russian roulette.
“Bury the dead. Get on with your life.”
After reading Omni’s post, April seems far from dead. Surely not burried.
IMO, ‘making the most of what you have’ involves being honest about what you’ve had.
Nope, great experiences. But there was something missing, and eventually I had to evict her from my apartment because the alternative was to settle down with her for ever.
Your experience may be different, and good on yer if so, so maybe it’s just my demands that are excessive. It’s back to the idea that
And no, I’m not a heartless bastard who uses young girls and then discards them. We’re still the best of friends and we email regularly. The difference is that now she’s in Japan and having experiences that are uniquely hers. She’s growing her way instead of mine, and knows that it’s better for her - even though she admits that I’m still her weak spot.
I’m (was) her one but she wasn’t mine, that’s “all”.
Omni, I read your story at lunch and had I not been at work I too would have shed a tear or two. I
Awwwwwww … sniffle … this is better than Ann Landers. I just called my old woman to tell her I love her – and to make sure she’s ironed my good trousers for tomorrow.