Month Number One

Mike was the only thing I saw as I stepped into Starbucks that morning for my regular grande mint latte. It was as if some angelic aura had cast a glow around his being, making it impossible to notice anything else that may have existed within the caffeine palace.

When I faked a stumble over my imaginary shoelace -- I was wearing heels that day -- that resulted in a coffee spillage all over his cleanly-pressed Tuesday corporate America attire, he simply smiled and shot me an adorable “I don’t mind that you’re a complete klutz” look. Following a brief intermission in the bathroom to clean up the evidence, he then engaged me in a very intriguing conversation about stocks and profit-sharing (or something rather mundane), which suddenly became all the more fascinating when being uttered from his perfectly kissable lips. When he stood to say goodbye in all his 6’1” glory, I couldn’t help but notice that he simply exuded perfection. His blue linen shirt matched the azure depth of his eyes, and these weren’t just any blue eyes either. This wasn’t the murky blue of a river stream, but rather the incandescent blue of Tahitian waters. I could have taken a plunge at that very moment. He even had that sexy butt chin, and how often do you encounter a young Tom Selleck look-alike at your local Starbucks?

When he asked for my number, I literally forgot the last four digits, using a recent move as my excuse. He again cast me an “It’s so endearing that you can’t remember your own phone number” look, and instead took down my e-mail address. Thank god for e-mail!

And so it began with a cyber message sent six hours later, which read:

Samantha,

Neither you, nor the very apparent coffee stain, have escaped my thoughts since our interlude this morning. May I have the pleasure of escorting you to dinner this Friday where I promise not to let you near me with any sort of rich-hued beverage? :o)

Warm Regards,
Michael

'He’s so witty and charming, isn’t he?' So what if I had to feign klutziness in order that he might pay me attention.

From the moment of our Friday night date spent over a plate of spaghetti and the glass of Chianti I promised not to spill, I was completely sure no other man ever existed before Michael. The way in which he carefully twirled the long noodles with the aid of his spoon, and the suave sophistication in his French pronunciation of the word “formidable”, were the most charming things I’d ever seen.

In fact, everything Michael did in those first four weeks was adorable. We spent nearly every day together thanking our lucky stars for that shared caffeine addiction that led to our meeting. When I was out with girlfriends, Michael would call to tell me he was thinking about me, and on our planned nights apart, he would call to tell me that he simply had to see me.

By our one month anniversary, I’d met his entire family, helped him decorate his newly purchased condo, and heard those three little words that some girls wait months to hear from their significant other. What more could a woman possibly want?

Month Number Two

There is that stage in every relationship where the happy couple reaches their plateau; that point wherein they’ve hit the peak with nowhere left to go but downhill. In the very best of circumstances, this takes place years and years after the relationship's onset, but in the lifespan of a three-month pairing, downhill begins at the five-week mark.

The new sound of pretentiousness that spewed from his French pronunciation of the word ‘formidable’ was my first inkling that our descent had begun. It started ever so slowly with those little voices in my head that helped me to see things in a different light than I had seen them only a few weeks prior. It seems that angelic aura that surrounded Michael’s being had blinded me, and once it worn off, I was left with a person who at second glance wasn’t so cherub-like.

Could it be that we simply get so caught up in the tornado of passions that accompanies something new, that we don’t pay attention to the possibility of the torrential downpour that could come from the person sitting there across from us? Those words whispered into our ears that once sounded like sweet honey do’s, thus begin to sound like words of controlling dominance, and the looks that once offered sweet forgiveness as to feigned klutziness or momentary lapses in memory, suddenly reek of superiority.

Remember Michael’s candy-coated phone calls in the midst of my weekend outing with the girls, wherein he’d utter words expressing how missed me after only five or six hours apart? Well somewhere between weeks four and six, that sugar turned to a sour, smothering sort of feeling. In my new relationship partner's mind, there was simply no time in our schedules to spend with those people that filled our lives before we met. To Michael, it was as if everyone else had simply become a distraction or an impediment to our spending time together. Even when I did venture out for a solo noontime shopping excursion, the sound of Beethoven’s Symphony #6 in F major ringing from my purse was a constant reminder that my time was not my own. You’d think my choice of #6, Beethoven’s peaceful tribute to an exhilarating, and I’d venture to guess ‘Michael free’ excursion in nature, would at least act as a good luck charm in finding my own solace. It seems however that the bass-rumbling Allegro (or storm) between the third and fifth movements was my wireless company's cruel choice of tones to use for the ring.

Month Number Three

By week 10, Michael felt that we needed to have a serious discussion about what he perceived as my increasing distance. He told me that he felt like we were drifting, and wondered whether I might need his life preserver to aid me to shore. I, on the other hand, felt like I needed to hire a boat to make my escape to that deserted off Shore Island where I could at least run to the ladies room without having to notify the coast guard of my foray into uncharted territory.

By week 11, I began to reflect back upon the relationship as a whole and realized that Michael and I had simply lit the fuse too quickly, and in my eyes, the unrelenting maintenance of the fire, had in fact been that which sucked the life from the relationship.

Michael and I had simply overlooked the very thing that secures the staying power of a relationship. We had built this magnificent 11-story structure without a foundation to hold it firmly in place. What he deemed my newfound independent streak and ever-increasing distance in nature was simply my ever-present personality reclaiming its pre-Michael throne. Oh, and then there was Michael’s insistent spaghetti spoon twirling, the fake French accent, and the utterly dull conversation about personal gains taxes, which I surely would have noted in those first four weeks, had I not been so blinded by the pre-Raphaelite curls in his hair. It’s funny the way the passing of time offers an altogether different perspective on a person.

Henry Ward Beecher once said, “Young love is a flame; very pretty, often very hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. The love of the older and disciplined heart is as coals, deep burning, unquenchable.” So perhaps that is the test. Learning how to enjoy that initial spark and then relinquishing the still burning flame into a bed of coals where it may simmer and burn. Most importantly, extinguishing that brightly burning flame a little so that one may take note of the fact that a man who matches his shirt, to his eyes, to his car, may just have an obsessive compulsive streak burning to be unleashed on the poor innocent partner he chooses to call his own.