|
Love Foolosopher (Luv' Fool'-o-so'-phur) - One who has an ideal of love and a desire to pursue it but gets stuck instead with its bastard stepchild. One who looks for love in all the wrong places and gets lost on the way back. One whose stories make you think maybe every pot shouldn't have a lid.
The nickname 'Love Foolosopher' wasn't bestowed upon me after one imbecilic act. I earned it after years of being the awkward and ill-prepared man, never quite realizing how hard I would crash while diving head-first into a relationship. After so many disasters I came to accept my relationship disabilities and I can even admit a slight fondness for the name which sums up my hard luck love life. 
A lot of men will revel in their tales of conquest over the opposite sex; Nothing less than chess masters in the game of romance. Their pick-up strategies are flawless, their technique impeccable and their very advice leads men to follow in their footsteps. They are the men you see at the club and loathe because you know they have attributes that you don't and more importantly, attributes your girlfriend wants. They are pick-up artists. They are your mentors and your enemies-- and I am not one of them. I'm the 'other guy'. The one who's not flawless, the one who's not an artist, but gets the girls just the same. The one whose stories are untold because they don't always end perfectly. At all. The guy whose car you see egged at three in the morning and you can only imagine what woman he pissed off to have that coming.
Guys like me aren't supposed to pick up the women I do. If they aren't wiping egg off their windshield, then they're giving up and trying to turn themselves gay. Yet I could never give up picking up the fairer sex, despite my foot-in-mouth tactics which have led me all the way to an ex-girlfriend strangling me after breaking into my house. I just regain consciousness, brush it off to a bad experience and go after the next pretty face with the devil behind sexy eyes. What gave me this lust to pursue, this confidence to continue and this ego so bloated that I can't help but think that the next girl I date won't dedicate her website to how much of a prick I am? Her name is Tracy.
The year I met her I was working at a campsite, their lone maintenance worker. I imagined women showing up with a stock of beer fit for Oktoberfest, partying by the lake in bikinis and calling me over to join them. I may as well have imagined Denise Richards giving me head while Jessica Alba poured beer into my mouth because once the seniors poured into the camping lots, I knew no imagination was going to fix this disaster. There was no beer and boobs-- it was Metamucil and Depends.
When I first saw Tracy, I nearly snapped my neck in order to keep my eyes on this beauty. She jogged past me in a tank top and shorts that showed off her tanned, sleek and perfectly fit body. She smiled at me and said "hi" in her best Heidi Klum impersonation. I must have looked like the kid who spent too much time eating crayons in class because I only responded with wide eyes, an open mouth and a barely audible sound. I was struck that this German bombshell even noticed me. I didn't have the confidence and break-neck attitude towards dating that I do now. When Tracy spoke to me though, she re-wired my brain and jacked up the testosterone; I didn't know what I was doing but for the first time in my life I was going after something that I wanted.
I sat indecisively for at least three minutes, as if the Love Foolosopher personality was moving in and kicking the shit out of the shy, quiet guy that I was. She was already out of sight so I jumped onto a miniature 4x4 that was owned by the campsite and turned the ignition. What could have been a dramatic sequence of the guy going after the girl didn't end up that way. In my love-life, I've come to expect set-backs. The 4x4 I took was only made to go small distances-- it's top speed was 20 miles an hour if I was lucky enough to have the wind to my back. I heard my boss cursing something at me as he came out of his cabin to see me scooting away, hunched over this pathetic excuse for a vehicle and heading onto the highway. I finally reached Tracy, her face looking completely baffled as she examined this toy vehicle pulling up next to her. Undeterred, I prepared to actually speak rather than gawk this time. Just as I opened my mouth to speak, my slight jitters got the best of me and I veered towards her, nearly knocking her down a 15 foot ditch. Her baffled face became wide-eyed and while I'm not an expert at reading expressions, I believe she now thought I was attempting the most bizarre hit and run ever. My first impression was appearing grim but I took solace in knowing that it could have been worse-- I hadn't accidentally killed her yet. I tried to defuse the situation by apologizing and introducing myself which seemed to downgrade me from 'campsite killer' to 'stupid asshole'. She continued to jog and I persistently drove beside her, attempting conversation.
It was to the point where I realized if I didn't come up with one winning line quickly, she'd be flagging down vehicles for help. I noticed her voice and took a desperate stab.
"I love your accent. Are you German?" I asked, despite having no idea what a German accent sounded like outside of bad Hollywood war movies.
She smiled. I felt like I correctly guessed a question in Trivial Pursuit, only I won a woman instead of a small triangular piece of plastic. She began talking with me rather than giving me fearful looks. We arranged to go swimming at the lake after I was done work.
I returned to the campsite, my boss still cursing and the type of grin on my face usually reserved for a vegetarian drowning in tofu.
I dated Tracy for a month before she returned to Berlin, each day gaining the confidence that a bumbling fool rarely has around women. My pick-up skills are nearly non-exist, my perception on women I find attractive is often flawed and my looks are an even par. I was not created to pick up women. Yet ever since Tracy I've known that there is a chance out there that I will find another woman who is inexplicably attracted to me. I'm the goofy guy from high school injected with every belief that he can beat out any male competition. So while I may have a list of phone numbers more than your average male, my character--which was never meant to pick up women-- makes my experiences more flavourful. They're not your perfect love stories. Guys don't race after their dream girl at 20 miles an hour in perfect love stories.
Tracy started off a life for me that I was never meant to live. I find myself having misadventures that are better suited for a comedy than a romance. My lack of insight on women leaves me drowning in drama and occasionally fearing a woman scorned.
Yet when I look at these past years I realize it's a lot more fun drowning with bikini clad women than sitting on the side waiting... Be sure to check back next week to read more dysfunctional adventures in dating with The Love Foolosopher. |
