Before starting the Peace Corps, I heard a
lot of stories about people who met their husbands or wives during their
service. I came into it with a sense of
optimism and even packed a few pairs of nice underwear. Maybe I wouldn’t meet my future spouse, but
there were bound to lots of bearded, service-minded men to get to know.
Was I ever wrong. It hasn’t been just a dry spell. I’m that lost legionnaire you see at the
beginning of the movie, crawling through the desert, hallucinating oases. First, the Peace Corps is female dominated,
which is great for girl-power, but not so much for finding someone nice to make
out with. Second, I live in an isolated
region and don’t get to mix with other volunteers. Third, most of my daily male interactions
make me want to either hide in my room or kick the guy in the face (which would
be easy, because there’s a significant height differential).
I gave up, at least for the short term. The reasonable thing seemed to be to batten
down the hatches on that part of my heart and ride it out. I turned my sights on my return to Montana,
planning to beguile and prey on first year grad students until I met someone I
liked.
Then, a volunteer friend showed me her
OkCupid profile. There, beautiful men in
San Francisco paraded before my eyes.
Men who could cook and had favorite books. It was like this website was telling me that
unicorns are real, and they’re just out there waiting to be oogled by me. It was incredible. Naturally, I couldn’t say no to this kind of
high level entertainment, so I made my own profile for Missoula, writing the
normal things like my favorite movies and foods and admitting my handicap of
temporary residence 5,000 miles away. My
main goal was to check out hot guys from the comfort of my crappy internet café
while Peruvian children play World of Warcraft around me. If you’re not in the Peace Corps, that will
seem really creepy and sad. If you are,
you will be on board with this excellent activity.
Unfortunately, it quickly lost its
luster. Online dating involved a whole
new set of social rules and expectations that I was unprepared for. I didn’t actually want to chat up the 40 year
old who has a moustache like my dad and spends his weekends on his 4x4, but
what was I to do? Ignore him? That seems mean. Just say I’m not interested? A little heartless. I’d get messages asking if I wanted to share
a bottle of vodka that Saturday night or if I was into polyamory. That’s how these dudes would lead off. It started to seem like many of the men
trying to date online were there for obvious reasons, so I quit.
The thing is, during that brief window, I
met someone. I didn’t expect to find
anyone I really liked, but he snuck up on me.
It was innocuous enough at first. He was handsome, thoughtful, and able
to carry on a conversation without immediately offending me. And it just kept going. I started to look forward to his emails. We’ve discussed thoughts on God and death,
Relativity and reality, Ninja turtles and the best breakfast foods (runny egg
yolk), and being continually outsmarted by our poorly behaved mutts. I’ve
found myself becoming prone to long fits of daydreaming with a stupid smile on
my face and listening to a lot of Rufus Wainwright and Coldplay. You know you’re not fully in control of your
faculties if you’re drawn to Coldplay.
Before I knew it, I was being inexorably sucked
into the black hole of emotional vulnerability.
I really liked the man. I had
never tried to have a remote relationship, and had no idea how I’d keep
interest going until January when I could actually meet him. But, I’ve never been one to let good judgment
get in the way of romance, so after the briefest periods of doubt, I said the
hell with it and am giving it a real shot.
The comforting thing is that he’s just as
in it as I am. We both smile like idiots
when we Skype, greatly look forward to every communication, and have been
reciprocally creeped on by each other’s families online. It’s a little daunting to think of starting a
relationship the moment I get back to America, but the reality is that it’s
already begun and I rarely meet someone I really like. I’m optimistic. Instead of saying, “if we…then we could…”,
we’re saying, “when we…”, which is a remarkable thing. I feel really lucky to have this strange
relationship with this wonderful man be a part of the end of my Peace Corps
experience.
Everyone loves a good romance story, so
I’ll keep you posted.
*Disclaimer: Though it’s entertaining to complain, I
actually met a few awesome fellows online that I’ve formed pen-pal
relationships with. They’ve become
supportive and interesting friends and have even gone so far to mail me things
way down here. They’re great, and they
read this (hey guys!), and I didn’t want them to get left out or lumped in with
all the wackadoos out there.
No comments:
Post a Comment