Lucky

I suppose that this is my case of confirmation bias, but the universe seems to bend over backward to bring me what I want... at least initially. I found myself seated next to my cousin's friend. Yes, the same young lovely whose smiling disposition I could not easily shake off. Were I still a praying man, I would have attributed all sorts of motives to the insensate concatenation of fortuitous events that led to our sharing a meal. But, again, these turns of events are best taken at face value, and this occasion was a damn wake.

What have I learned?

Again, that whoever wrote Tina Turner's 1984 material was right.

I recognize how slaved I am to the classes and sub-classes of women who populate my head. I have a "type" --several, in fact-- and woe betide you if you fall under any of them.

This isn't to say that I can't develop any kind of affection, trust and devotion for you, but what I'm caring about at this stage isn't you. Just the bits of you that my subconscious fits with great facility into its many shoe-box ideas of the women I should care for. I will be sometimes fatally blind to all those other bits of you, in the same way you're currently blind to all the other bits of me that you simply can't live with. The nearness --the newness-- of you is a delightful diversion from the sameness of my life.

Still, I'm thankful for it. That I know that nothing will come out of it is no barrier to appreciating the gift when it arrives.