My Personal Theory on Interesting Men

Here it is. Get ready. You'll want to write this down. All set? Pencils poised?

All men who I find interesting will be one of two things: about to move far, far away or totally fictional.

Proof One: Right after I moved home, friends of mine introduced me to a very handsome, intelligent, wonderful guy from Cuba. We clicked, gently flirted (which almost never happens to me), and hung out with our group of mutual friends. He was the first guy I'd been interested in since Proof Five below, and I was determined not to move too fast like I did with P5. Suddenly, he had to move to take a job near some of his family in Florida. I will never forget the night he told me that. I was torn between crying and jumping up and down like a two-year old at the cruelty of fate.

Proof Two: Last summer, I met an interesting guy whilst I was schlepping twenty teenagers around the U.K. and Ireland. He was cute, sweet, very smart, and a lot of fun to talk to. Needless to say, the trip ended, and that was that. He's in grad school somewhere in New York. Sigh.

Proof Three: While I was in Japan, I went on a trip to Thailand to work with Thai English teachers in rural areas. On that trip, I met a great guy from Ireland. Unfortunately, he was headed back to Tokyo and then back to Ireland. Crap.

Proof Four: The only interesting guy I've even seen in the last twelve months is fictional. If you've read any of my previous postings, then you know I'm smitten with Det. Goren on Law and Order: CI. I know people like him don't exist outside of screen plays, but...sigh...he's just so darn cute and scruffy and tall and smart....

Proof Five: The odd combination of moving and fiction....I met a guy at IU right before I left there and fell HARD for him. We started going out and things were intense. Then, of course, I moved away to Podunk and later to Japan. This is a variation on the theme. The fictional part comes in quite some time later when I found out what a grade-A jackass he was. Things between us ended. (This, ladies and gentlemen, is known as litotes, the gentle art of understatement.) I don't know if he's alive or dead, but can very proudly say that I'm no longer actively rooting for the latter possibility.

I've got to wonder at the psychology of this. Am I only attracted to people who I know there's no chance of my having permanently? I don't really think that's true, especially since I didn't know Proof One was moving when we met. I can see that Proof Two might have been a conscious thing, but I really tried hard not to pursue that interest since I knew it was a three-week thing after which I'd probably never see the guy again.

As for Proof Four, I suppose one can say that's the level to which I have sunk: the fictional. None of the men I know right now interest me at all. I find them all weak, childish, wallowing and reveling in their own ignorance, rednecky, slightly creepy, or some combination of these qualities. Mostly, I just want to run away from them, or barring a valid means of escape, smack them upside the head.

Who knows? Maybe our school will have hired a smart, interesting math teacher or something. Maybe the handsome gentleman from Cuba will come back to visit, or more delightfully, to stay. Maybe the planets will all align and I'll meet somebody from the same weird world in which I dwell. It would be nice to prove this theory wrong for a change.