we shared an uncanny connection

2. What are you afraid you might be judged for? 

    "afraid" is the wrong word to use; I'm not afraid of these judgments, so much as sensitive to and annoyed by them. 

    • migraines (by nature "all in my head")

    • my job (almost impossible to adequately explain, and seems way more casual, low-stress and unimportant than it can be)

    • natural fingernails (guys are surprisingly quick to criticize something they've never tried to understand)

    • my love for all things solitary 

    • not losing weight/getting more fit/giving a crap about wearing makeup or dressing up

    • my taste in movies, which has shifted so far away from even trying popular Hollywood fare 

 

8. Tell about a moment when you felt intensely attracted to someone, without telling who it was.

    I liked him pretty well already, so this wasn't out of the blue. We met up after work to go for a drive, just wandering around, sharing memories and impressions of stuff we saw, telling stories, getting to know each other in a different way. We were at a stop sign (he was driving). He reached over and tapped my hand, resting on my leg, and said quietly, "I'm glad we're doing this. I really like who you are now." He wasn't pitching it for a reaction, attempting to exchange it for goods or services, or faking. He was telling a truth.

    A man who can do that, who thinks to do it and actually does it, has something inside of him that most people will never get close to. 

 

11. What’s one thing you wish you could tell your younger self about love and relationships? 

    people lie. Sometimes even people you like, or who love you, or with whom you have ferocious chemistry, will lie. That's a fact of life, not a flaw in you, but being a sucker is a weakness when you're not even basically careful.

16. If you were a fictional love story character, who would you be and why? 

    Marianne Dashwood. She's a romantic idealist, in love with feelings, and easily hurt. Her emotions are not just on her sleeve—they are wrapped around her like a blanket. 

     This isn't who I am now, but it's certainly who I've been in the past, and the most love-story-appropriate version of me.

 

2. Can love bloom on the battlefield? 

    of course, it can. Look at Moonlighting (1985-1989). Look at Hemingway, much of whose work (and whose life) involved that sort of scenario. Doctor Zhivago. From Here to Eternity. Cold Mountain. Gone with the Wind.... Maybe it's not the ideal location for a love story, but it sure does happen. Has happened, anyway.

 

21. What are your non-negotiables in a partnership for the long run? 

    I'm allowing myself a maximum of three. A partner for me must be:

        • infected by curiosity

        • inherently kind

        • absent any legal, social, or implied romantic relationship with another person

 

17. If you could create a sensory experience that perfectly encapsulates your feelings for someone you've loved, what would it look, sound, smell, taste, and feel like? 

    when I was newly single, I was involved with a guy who lived on the left coast. That experience looked like something represented in the photo directly above. It tasted like raspberry truffles from Chukar Cherries, still my favorite candy. It sounded like Colin Hay's "I Just Don't Think I'll Ever Get Over You." It smelled like a cologne whose name I no longer recall, but whose scent would bring me back to that time in a heartbeat. (Trust me, it's happened.) And it felt like a mix of gradual friendship and fear and lust and mistrust and affinity and even more gradual, grudging, fearful, tentative love.

 

 [from here and adapted; the title quotation is from a blog post called "Patterns", tied in with #17, above]