METAPHYSICAL PHIL

      Even though I know that most men don’t respond if I made the first overture on an online dating site, sometimes someone's profile stands out so boldly that I am intrigued and must make the first move. Such was the case with the man I will call Phil. His profile said the following:

 

Realistic, Spiritual, Kind, well credentialed, just a nice guy
I am a Writer
I am a Dancer
I am Intuitive
I am Pandora
I am a Communicator
I am a Meditator
I am a Listener
I am a Memory
I am Practical
I am a Teacher to others
Honest, faithful, caring, bright, have a rare commodity called common sense, emotionally healthy—not a drama king, enjoy affection, good communicator, positive, fun, sense of adventure and more.

 

The only thing I questioned was that he considered himself Pandora. According to Greek mythology, Pandora was the first woman on earth and the giver of all, but she also was the one who, out of curiosity, opened the jar that released the world's misfortunes and sorrows. Oh, what the heck? He sounded good enough to pursue.

His profile also said he was bald and black, and I chuckled at the thought that he might be similar to my prior boyfriend, but an improved version. He also was a teacher and a vegetarian, like my prior boyfriend, who, I admit, still owned a piece of my heart. Despite the fact that Phil's profile had no photograph, which always makes me wonder, I sent a brief note asking why he was not taken already. He wrote back with only his first name and phone number.

I waited a few hours before calling. Instead of the usual voice mail message everyone uses, his somber missive, spoken in the type of deep radio voice I've always found alluring, went something like this: "We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. All interactions are either love or a call for love. The universe provides all that you need. Abundance begins in the heart." Beep!

I left a message giving my name and number. He called me back within an hour or so, around nine o'clock. Although I don't recall anything we said, we laughed and joked all the way through the conversation, and I felt hopeful and delighted. Maybe he was even better than my prior boyfriend, who was a little bit too serious at times. The similarities of the two men continued. Not only were both black, bald, special-education teachers, vegetarians, spiritual but not religious, and age appropriate, but also Phil invited me to dinner at Sweet Tomatoes, the same salad bar where my prior boyfriend had taken me. Yes, perhaps I had found the 2.0 version of my prior boyfriend, except that Phil ate only raw food.

When Phil invited me to dinner, he said, "I'll leave the day and time up to you. It's all about you, baby."

Before I could offer a day and time, though, he broke in and said, "I really like to dance. Maybe we can go dancing sometime."

I said I hadn't danced in years and would love to do it again sometime.

It's odd that I barely recall anything else we said in that first conversation, and although I did feel that he cut me off before I could set a date and time for dining together, I still hung up the phone feeling elated and hopeful, because we had laughed genuinely together over many little things. I felt so expectant that I sent e-mail notes to two friends saying that I looked forward to meeting this new person.

Cheerful and optimistic, I was preparing for bed around 11:00, when Phil sent a text message. "You up?"

"Yes, I am," I wrote back.

Another text message arrived. "I live you. Meaningful. You are alive. Your eyes."

I tried to untangle the message. The phone rang. Oh, maybe he would explain. I answered joyfully, eager to continue our earlier laugher-filled conversation. Instead his voice was solemn, and he mumbled. He said a full poem that, despite his incoherency, I was mostly able to decipher, and I also found it later on his LinkedIn profile. It went like this: “I have only just a minute / Only sixty seconds in it, / Forced upon me; can’t refuse it, / Didn’t seek it; didn’t choose it, / I must suffer if I lose it, / Give account if I abuse it, / Just a tiny little minute, but all eternity is in it.”

I shrugged and said, "That's nice." I later looked it up. Benjamin Mays wrote the poem.

Phil continued, "Our ears are shaped like question marks for a reason, so we can question everything we hear and make our own decisions."

"Oh."

"You have beautiful eyes. I really want to slow dance with you."

"Thank you," I said. "I look forward to it." Trying to get the conversation onto some tangible subject, I asked, "Have you ever been married?"

"Yes," he responded. "For nine years. How long has it been since your last relationship?"

I couldn't get angry at him for asking; I had opened the door by asking about his marriage. I admitted, "I was in a brief relationship until Christmas Day."

I feared he might scoff, since less than a month had passed, but he simply asked, "Who ended it?"

"He did. Said he was too busy to be a good boyfriend to anyone. It was sad."

"I can't believe anyone would say that. People make time for things that are important to them."

"Exactly. I had become unimportant to him."

"It's hard to believe, baby. I mean your eyes are so beautiful, and you're smart and sweet, and I get the feeling that you're very nurturing. I like nurturers."

"I am a nurturer at heart."

"I knew it. I am intuitive. I pick up on such things, but really it'll be all about you. Whatever you want, whenever you want it."

I squirmed a little. What exactly did he mean?

He went on, mumbling and quoting other sources. Although I might not have all the right quotes right, I've located a few that give the gist of the things he said, such as "The truth is not found in a different set of circumstances. The truth is always and only found in the circumstances you’ve got."

As the conversation bore on, with bore being the operative word, I yawned, but he ignored my subtle message and continued. "Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today."

I saw an opening and said, "That's true, but even today is gone. It's bedtime now."

His voice dropped like that of a little boy who had been told he couldn't have a lollipop. I could almost see his pout when he said, "You want to hang up then?"

"Yes. I was getting ready for bed when you called, and we've been talking for a long time."

"Okay, if that's what you really want to do, hang up on me."

"I'm not hanging up on you. I'm saying it's time to say good-bye and go to sleep."

"We were just getting to know each other."

"We were, and we did, and I look forward to talking to you again, after I've gotten my sleep. I have things to do tomorrow."

"If that's what you want."

"I do. Good night."

"Good night."

With a sigh of relief, I hung up the phone. I wondered why he would say it was all about me, but when I said I was tired and needed to hang up, he tried to whine his way into talking more. Well, I didn't have time to think about it. I needed sleep, and I had a busy day coming up and a friend coming into town for a couple of days.

 

The next day, I sent Phil a text thanking him for the phone calls and saying we would talk more in a couple of days.

The following afternoon I received a text from him. "Hey."

I had company, so I ignored it.

Later that evening, almost ten o'clock, he wrote, "Hi."

I wrote, "Hi back."

Phil wrote, “I did not know you had a high back.”

“I like your silliness,” I responded. I hoped to return to the mood of our first, happy conversation.

Phil answered with a happy face emoticon.

Still texting, I wrote, “When do we go to Sweet Tomatoes?”

“Do you like Indian food?”

“Sure do,” I wrote. “I prefer it mild, but I love it.”

Phil then sent me a link to a website. “Look up the group Celebrate Atlanta and see if you are interested.”

I never like it when someone gives me homework instead of simply telling me something, so I resisted. After a few minutes I looked up the information. It was a family-style Indian dinner with a singles group. It gave the menu, which included several spicy dishes.

I formulated my answer. “Although it sounds like fun, I'm concerned that it's family style. I don't know how spicy the choices will be. I have to have mild. Is there a reason why you would rather meet in a group than one-on-one?”

“That was pre-scheduled. It's okay. Maybe another time.”

I tried to hint. “It's funny, because I'm meeting a girlfriend for lunch Saturday at Taj Mahal Indian restaurant, only a mile from Sweet Tomatoes.”

His only response: “Enjoy.”

I sensed his pout, even through a text message, but I shrugged it off and went about my life. Two days later, Phil sent another text. “Hi.”

“Hello! Did you have fun at the dinner?” I asked.

“Did not go.”

Hm. What that another pout?

 

On Friday I decided to take matters into my own hands and sent him a text. “I would still like to meet you. Are you available tonight?”

“There is a dance tonight and one Saturday.”

I assumed he meant he is going out dancing and was not available.

Around 4:00 he called on his way home from doing volunteer work and sent me back to the same website where he'd sent me earlier, to read about the dances and decide which one was nearest to me. Again he was giving me homework, and again the event involved the singles group. I reluctantly logged back on and looked at the two events. I still did not want to meet him at a singles event. It would seem odd and awkward to me, so told him, "I'd love to go dancing with you sometime, and I mean it, but first I want to meet you, just the two of us."

"Okay, do you want to come to my house, or shall I come to yours?"

"Neither. I want to meet you in a public place first."

"Why?"

"Because that's how it's done."

"That's so traditional. We have but one life to live; we can live it freely and enjoy it or live in fear and trepidation."

"It's not trepidation and fear; it's simply the way things are done."

"Well, I'm not a traditional person, and I'm surprised to hear that you are."

"There's nothing wrong with tradition; it's kept women safe for years." I heard crunching. No doubt he was chomping on some raw vegetable.

"Are you afraid of me?" (Crunch, crunch)

"If I were, I wouldn't meet you at all. I'm simply being safe, and this is how things are done. People first meet in a public place for tea or coffee."

The pout voice started again. "I don't understand. I wouldn't feel unsafe if I came to your house; I don't know why you'd feel unsafe to come to mine."

"You're not a woman; that's why."

"Well, baby, it's whatever you want. Where do you want to meet?"

"A restaurant would be good," I said.

"Well, I'm eating dinner now, so it doesn't have to be a restaurant."

"But a restaurant would give us a public place where we could sit and talk."

"Okay, baby, just name the place."

I mentioned a couple places near me. To each one he said, "I'm not sure where that is," until he suggested, "Peachtree Diner is close to me. Do you know where it is?"

"Yes. I think it's about thirty-five minutes from me."

"Well, baby, if you insist on being traditional, we could meet there tonight, but I've already eaten dinner."

"Okay, but we could have tea or something."

"Yeah, I like their soup. What time suits you best, baby?"

I looked at the clock and did some mental figuring. I wanted to avoid the horrendous afternoon traffic around Atlanta, so I said, "Seven-thirty would be good for me."

"Seven-thirty? It's quarter after four now. What'll you be doing until then?"

"I'll feed the dog, walk the dog, do a little work, eat dinner, change clothes, and then drive there."

"I thought you work for yourself. Can't you work some other time?"

"I could, but you said to pick a time, so I picked seven-thirty."

"Why so late, though, baby?"

"You want to meet earlier? I shook my head and reluctantly asked, "How about six-thirty?"

"Six-thirty? Don't you live just a half hour away?"

"Yes, but I have other things I have to do, and it's raining and the traffic could be bad this time of day. It could take longer to get there. Doesn't six-thirty work for you?"

"Well, I really want to see you."

I shook my head in wonder. "Okay, five-thirty, then, but that's the first possible time I can make it."

"Okay, if you insist," he said.

Insist? He had used the word twice, as if I were trying to force him into something, but didn’t he ask me what I wanted? We hung up and I pondered our verbal exchange. While saying he was fine with whatever I wanted, he had maneuvered and manipulated me to his chosen location and his chosen time. As a result I'd have to skip dinner to meet his schedule.

Traffic was even worse than I had imagined, possibly because of a light drizzle of rain. I was running a little late, but he called and said he had hit heavy traffic too and was running fifteen minutes late. I relaxed and eventually pulled into the parking lot. As soon as I did, Phil called again. "I'm stuck in some bad traffic," he said. "It'll be another fifteen minutes, at least."

"Okay, I'll just go inside and wait for you." I felt confused. He said he lived close to the diner, yet he was going to be at least thirty minutes late? I suspected that he had not left his house when he called the first time to say he was running late. A sense of distrust grew larger inside me.

He instructed me, "Okay, go inside and tell them to give you a booth near the front window."

"Okay." Hm. He had just told me where to sit, too.

 

Once settled in a booth, I asked for a glass of water with lemon while I waited for Phil. A server came by and put a platter of food and a huge loaf of bread on my table. I grabbed him and said, "I didn’t order this."

"It's complimentary," he explained.

I had to wait and I had not eaten any dinner, so with great interest I eyed the complimentary spinach pies. What the heck? Phil wouldn't eat them for several reasons. They had cheese in them and they were cooked. They are best when hot, I reasoned. My stomach growling and my mouth watering, I bit into one. Delicious. I took another bite. M-m-m-m. On my third nibble, I felt spinach stick in my teeth and realized my error.

I grabbed a napkin and dabbed at my teeth. Large green stains spread across the paper. I wiped again and achieved almost as much green the second time. I took another taste. Yum. I drank some water and swished it in my mouth, swallowed, and took another mouthful of spinach pie.

My phone rang. I looked up and a black man stood in the doorway with his phone to his ear. He was only one table away from me. Oh, no! I grabbed my napkin and rubbed furiously. Green, green, green! I gave my choppers one more swipe, answered the phone, and waved.

Phil looked down for a second on his way over, and I patted my teeth another time before I looked up and smiled. Oh, God, please don't let me have any spinach in my teeth.

Phil sat, and we stared at each other. He had complimented me on my eyes, so I made sure to look into his and try to make my eyes sparkle and shine. He looked much like the picture that appeared on the website he'd told me about, the one that listed him as a chairman or director or leader of some volunteer organization. He looked his age, sixty-seven, with sad puffy eyes, but he wasn't ugly by any means. He did not remove the hat that covered his bald head. In the silence I remembered that when I was young, a gentleman always removed his hat indoors. Not anymore. We stared at each other for a few awkward moments.

A server asked for our orders. I ordered herbal tea. Phil said he didn’t want anything. The server left.

When Phil did not begin the conversation or ask me any questions, I asked him how he came to live in Atlanta, because he had been born and raised in New York.

He launched into his history, but he kept his elbows on the table and his hands clasped in front of his mouth. I don’t have the best hearing, and the restaurant was noisy. I wasn't able to see or read his lips, and his voice was coming from behind his hand, so I could barely understand him. What I could comprehend, though, was that he interspersed his talk with many of the sayings he had already used in our phone conversations. “I have only just a minute, only sixty seconds in it, forced upon me...” He finished the poem in its entirety before he asked, “Do you know why our ears are shaped like question marks?”

I listened as he repeated himself with another saying attributable to someone else. Somewhere in his dissertation he added, “Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today.”

In an attempt to stop him from muttering behind his fingers, I asked to hold his hands. He was metaphysical, so he understood when I said I read hands. I’m not a palm reader. I don’t read the lines in someone’s hands, but the feelings and messages I get empathically through their hands.

He smiled at the chance to hold hands, one of his first smiles, and I accomplished two goals. He could no longer speak behind his hands, and through his touch I sensed a kind person but one with many hesitations and conflicts, a person who did not easily give of himself.

I released one of his hands and held onto the other. He probably thought I was being romantic; I was being practical. I could understand him better when he did not cover his mouth.

He uttered, “I sense that you’re a nurturer.”

“Yes, we talked about that.”

He leaned closer. I smelled raw onions on his breath.

“I want to go dancing with you,” he muttered.

“I’d like that. Maybe next time.”

“No, now. Let’s go to my place.”

“No, I won’t go to your place. I just met you.”

“Would you rather we go to your place?”

“Maybe you don’t understand my intent. I’m looking for a relationship, one that lasts a long time.”

“Sure, baby; it’s all about whatever you want.”

“Well, I don’t know you well enough to invite you over to my place or to go to yours.”

A little pout formed, so I added, “It’s time for me to go now.”

“I’ll walk you to your car,” he offered. When we stepped outside, a light rain was still falling. He put his arm around me and we ran together to my car. When I unlocked the door, he asked if we could talk a little more. I agreed, and he ran around and leaped into the passenger seat.

Inside the car, I could smell his raw onion breath. I hate raw onion.

We talked a little more, and he kissed me lightly. The only thing worse than raw onion breath is raw onion taste.

As for the kiss, I felt absolutely nothing. To double check my first reaction, I leaned over and pecked him on the lips again. Yup. I was right. Nothing. Not a speck of chemistry.

I could not get out of the parking lot fast enough, but first I had to get him out of my car. Doing so took a little encouragement on my part and pouting on his part, but finally he stepped out.

I drove home mulling over our encounter. The man had said everything was about me, but he had done everything in his power to manipulate me into fulfilling his wishes, not mine. He showed no concern for my needs at all. He did not seem to have an original thought, other than getting me to his place, and women know what a man means when he says “Come to my place.” We’re not dumb, especially when we’ve been single for decades and are in our late sixties.  

Later I sent him a text thanking him for meeting me but saying that I did not feel a spark between us, but I wished him well. I heard nothing back and felt relieved.

 

Fast forward about six months. I was falling asleep around 11:00 when I got a text from him saying “Hi.”

I felt a little creeped out, so I ignored it.

Fast forward again, this time about two months, and again around 11:00 at night I got a text from him saying “Hi.”

Again I did not respond, but wrote again, “It’s me,” and gave his name.

He was not going to stop contacting me, so I wrote back that I was in a wonderful relationship and I hoped he had found the same. Why hurt him with the truth?

I haven’t heard from him again. I hope he met a nurturer who loves raw onions and manipulative men.

For more stories about my many encounters with the opposite sex, subscribe to this blog by clicking on the Follow button next to my photo. Watch for the book Neurotica: One Woman's Lifetime of Lust, Love, and Letting Go. Most of the stories in the book will not appear in this blog and vice versa. Disclaimer: Many names have been changed to protect people’s privacy. While these stories are true, I have resurrected dialogue as best as I can recall it. If you like to write, you love my book on creative writing, Write In Style: How to Use Your Computer to Improve Your Writing. It's available through Amazon and other outlets as a paperback or an e-book.