Bursting the love bubble
Latest blog: 18 January 2008
'So how's your love life going?' Bill asked. We were having coffee and ice creams in the place that was now becoming 'our place' - or rather it's where we'd started meeting once a week to catch up. Bill - you'll recall - is the big handsome hunk with dark blue eyes and short grey hair that every other woman drools over, but I don't fancy. He's just great fun and super intelligent and a writer.
'Not much to report,' I said. 'Hank's away and he texted to say it could be a long while before he's back as he wants to spend some time with his kids in Europe as well. Not that we've ever got beyond a couple of dates, so it's not exactly any kind of huge big deal...'
'No-one else?' He was drinking cappuccino and had some chocolate on his top lip: I brushed it off.
'Oh I met some drunken old barrister in London for lunch, don't know why - couldn't stand it, phoned Julie on my mobile from the loo and asked her what to do to get out of it. She said to put water on my face, say I'd been sick and to go.'
'Did you?'
'Well, I was going to, but be was so concerned and sweet and I had to sit down while he ordered me some peppermint tea and once he realised I didn't fancy him we just dropped that pretence and he was really nice to talk to - so it was all quite jolly in the end. What about you?'
'No-one, no. I've just been getting on with writing. Nearly finished the first draft of my novel.'
'That's good going - mine is still a the 'head' stage, meaning vaguely floating around my head...'
I looked up to see a young couple standing in the coffee queue looking at each other adoringly while he touched her face very gently and with infinite concern and she smiled back at him with adoring trust. I remembered that feeling of being totally at one with someone, your whole life and happiness bound up in the nuances of their mood and their feelings about you. It was both exquisitely wonderful and exquisitely dangerous: real living on the edge.
'See that young couple head over heels about each other there?' I nodded at them and he turned and looked while they carried on in their love bubble, oblivious to anyone else. 'It's amazing isn't it? I don't think I've felt like that about anyone since I had the boys and kind of transferred all that real emotion to them. It's not the same sort of love of course - but it is that deep, deep love where you know your happiness is contingent on them and their well-being and regard. I've never found men anywhere near as important after I became a mother. What about you?'
'What specifically?'
'Is it the same for men and their children - do the kids take over the place where love is in the same way? For instance when was the last time you felt like those two love birds?'
'Last year before my then girlfriend told me she was pregnant with someone else's child,' he said.
'Good God! Has she had the baby? How did that happen then? Who was the father? Ooer, Bill - that's all a bit of a drama!'
'The father is her ex-boyfriend, a loser of the first order but she is nuts about him. And no, she hasn't had the baby yet - it's due next month.'
'You're still in love with her?'
'Yes - like those two...'He downed his coffee in a decisive gulp. 'For me anyway. But not for her. I've suggested to her she comes down here and we set up home and I'll look after the baby as if it were my own because he won't be around to help - but she says she doesn't love me in that way. We'll see when she's had the baby...'
'Crikey! Well it's no wonder you haven't found anyone internet dating with all that going on! Your heart can't be in it at all.'
Bill was getting more interesting by the minute.
When I checked my mobile a friend had left a message for me: 'Saw you having coffee - who was that lovely guy you were with? You make a handsome couple!'
I texted back to say it wasn't like that with us. Written by Linda Franklin More on dating Do you need a 'dating detox'?
Why you should drop the baggage on a first date Moving on to the second date
The dos and don'ts of modern dating Getting back into the dating game Date-ready: the secrets of attraction and how to make them work for you
From webdate to soulmate: one woman's story Are you ready for love? Wanted: wife What women find attractive about older men What women want Read Linda Franklin's latest article in the November edition of Saga Magazine, please click here to subscribe More blogs Balkan Castaway : find out what it's really like to live abroad with Lucy Irvine's regular dispatches from Bulgaria
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