Real

Mr. Great is not real.

Oh, he's real in the sense that he's a guy with a lot of yucky history who likes to escape his day-to-day world with a nice girl who will indulge his plans for the very very very very short-term future ("Let's meet for dive bar drinks...in 30 minutes...at 11pm!") and ("Napa this weekend, perhaps?") only to toss out Napa for dinner in Sacramento at said girl's favorite restaurant.

But wait, that didn't happen either.

However, there still are the U2 tickets that he promised...

Yeah, right. Who am I kidding?

Bottom line is this is one guy who can't touch into reality for one single second. At least not from what I've seen. And here's how I know.

All week long, I've waited for Mr. Great to step his yogi self up to the plate and say something to the effect of, "Work's a killer. It's busy with the kids. I'm overwhelmed. I'm sorry to keep flaking on you. I'm sorry I haven't called you." Gosh, I would have even taken a measly, little, impersonal text."

Silence. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

Meanwhile, my friend who introduced us sent me a message: "How's it going with Mr. Great??" Insert smiley faces. "I haven't heard from either of you..." More smiley faces.

Back to my story.

So all week I'm waiting on Mr. Great to throw me the smallest of bones and to let me know that he's interested and a letter appears in my inbox, yesterday, from a guy that I went on a date with earlier this year. I didn't think that we had any chemistry and I let the communication lapse. He called me on that. He also told me, the in the letter, that he was "real." He used the words "secure," "old fashioned," "values," "integrity." He definitely put himself out there in a way that was very, very real and very, very admirable.

It was a long message and I won't go into the detail but what occurred to me was: I've been waiting for this from Mr. Great. Even some semblance of this. I NEED REAL.

I love a good lesson and I got one this week. Mr. Great can have all the adversity in the world and believe me, he has his share, but it doesn't make him any more real and authentic and honest and forthright than anyone else.

As for my candid date who popped off on the email yesterday, I wrote a long thank-you to him today. I apologized for being less-than-real and for participating in communication that was "less than stellar" by his account.

Interestingly, my best friend and I have almost the same heart-to-heart conversation each day; our constant mantra being "keep it real." She pulls me in when I start to veer from reality; I give her glimpses of what escaping will be like some day for her. We are a wonderful balance that way. I'm grateful for that accountability. I definitely want to be someone who is real especially when it comes to relationships and this week's events were a good reminder of being real and being, for lack of a better word, a coward.