A Liminal Life

Is it possible to fall in love with someone you haven’t met physically? It’s one of the questions on a dating site: would you say I love you to someone you haven’t met yet?

Difficult. Or is it?

Once things were decided between Ali and I – that we were separating – I hit the dating sites – hard. Some friends, a lot, said it was too soon. But I felt it wasn’t – the ‘separation’ had happened many years ago. Time is not my friend; it spins past ever faster and why wait?

As it turned out – lots of reasons!!!

Initially I am quite the success. I have nine ‘conversations’ going at one point. I have to create a spreadsheet to keep track of where I met each person – so I know where to message them on the apps. Eventually, I become very conflicted by these multiple conversations and dates. It doesn’t feel right (and still doesn’t). The nature and more importantly, the cadence of the apps however, means that you have to generate multiple conversations because you can easily be back at square one. It’s a juggle.

On one of the more ‘exclusive’ dating sites I get a message from Taysie. She likes my profile and the way I write. We start to message each other. She is gorgeous – dark eyes, long dark hair and a cute smile. She has a wicked sense of humour and makes me laugh more than any woman I’ve met. Taysie is bright and sparky. She lives over 150 miles away and while it gives her pause, I like her and just don’t care.

The initial stages of the dating dance on the apps is often tedious. Sometimes the other party wants humour or sometimes history. This can be a climbing frame you just have to get over time and time agin until you find a connecting point Looking back at the messages with Taysie, it is clear that we like each other straight away. It sparks immediately. I know, I fall in love at the sniff of a daisy and I’m not saying that I did this time, but I fell in like with her.

The First Date

We arrange a meeting. Our first date will be at a Catholic monastery not far from where she lives. The wonderful irony is not lost on me. I get the train and Taysie meets me at the station in her mud spattered 4×4. She is even more lovely in person. I bring her a present – Aesop body cream. She is very surprised and flattered. In retrospect, it was a high risk present – but I wouldn’t know that until later.

We go to the Monastery and have a very passable lunch and wander around the gardens. Taysie has brought her Jack Russell and we pretend he is her support dog as we wander around the disappointing gift shop. It is our first confederacy! We giggle.

Next stop is the coast. A walk up the coastal path and down to a shale beach. Our conversation is easy. She is relaxed and I enjoy being around a dog again. On the way back to the car park, we stop at the bottom of the path to admire the beach huts and I am teasing her. I look at her and there is a moment, an inner sigh. I like this woman – a lot.

Back at the station, we sit in her car and boldly, I ask if I can hold her hand. She says yes and I reach over and take it. She smiles. It is very innocent. Taking another woman’s hand in mine still feels shocking. All that time with Ali and now I’m holding hands with a woman I have just met. I don’t want to go

On the train back to London I am happy. My mind is full of possibilities but also the limitations of a long distance relationship.

Over the next few months, there are lots dates, weekend visits (I would stay at an AirBnB and then in the spare room) and help Taysie with her horses. I want to see her every weekend but it just isn’t feasible (the limitations).

When she comes to London, things often feel easier between us. She is quite set in her ways and I’m a big intrusion to her space (in every sense). But despite this, somehow, I can’t steer away from moments that generate distance rather than closeness. I talk to my friends about it constantly and if I’m honest, I get some bum steers. I make poor choices and do not just follow my heart.

Then there are two moments: the weekend of the Storm and New Year’s Day aka The Ding Dong), the latter a kind of Coda.

But, despite both of us agreeing that it isn’t finished between us (she frozen, stuck, me in the sargasso sea waiting for her to fill my sails) this liminal state of is killing me. I can’t move on and I need to find a means of letting go.

All my friends tell me that I am a fool – one that I am obsessed. All of this may be true. I am certainly in ‘the grip’ of her and my feelings. Is this Limerence? Maybe. I was certainly limerent for her from the start – but in the good way and it was mutual.

But also, I feel the kid in me being told who and how to love and he is kicking against it. My whole life I’ve been told I was useless, a failure and would never amount to anything. I proved them all wrong. Maybe that is not a functional way to look at all this but again, we are back to being told how and who to love.

My friends tell me that I cling to an idea of her that I have created in my head. Maybe that’s true. But I didn’t create that on my own. She is in there and I’ve seen her. I’ve held her. I’ve eaten chips in the front of her car with her on the high street of a Devon town in the dark.

So. I’ve written this to verbalise it and help prepare me for the future. I may share with her but right now I am too scared and attached. We still txt, talk and meet when we can but there are no more trips to the Convent, no spare room sleepovers, no hugs on the sofa. I miss her deeply.

Dear Taysie

I’ve tried to write this letter many times – mostly in my head.

When you contacted me on the dating site, I was shocked: wait, she is contacting me? I’ve re-read the messages, and we liked each other straight away. That initial dance was easy, quick and familiar.

I remember the moment I knew I REALLY liked you. We had been for a walk to the beach with the dog. As we walked back down the hill and stopped to admire the beach huts. I looked at you and something shifted inside me. I’m not saying love, but it was a recognition that this was a woman I wanted to see more of, a lot more of: smart, funny, sexy.

Sat in your car at the station, when I asked to hold your hand – an innocent gesture – but it felt Neil Armstrong-like for me. Your hand soft, warm, gentle, alien. I remember the look on your face. I was shocked when you said yes.

I REALLY didn’t want to go. I wanted to stay and talk and laugh and hold your hand – a lot more. The journey home in those purgatorial train seats made bearable thinking of you..

Not long after that, when I was rushed into hospital the first time, and you were in London, I wanted you there. A crazy idea. I hardly knew you, but I trusted you. I don’t know why, I just did. I prayed you would come and see me in the hospital. But of course you didn’t.

On our second date, I came to the Convent. You opened the doors and I’ve never had a woman look at me like that, ever. I remember the embrace, holding you for the first time. I couldn’t believe it. I thought “this is it; this is what I haven’t had in my life for so long”. That will stay with me forever.

After that, we merged quickly into each other’s lives – phone calls to and from work. Trips arranged. You were all I could think about.

Soon however, cracks began to appear. It became clear that you have scars (who doesn’t) that hinder your ability to trust. Your self-protection mode pushed me away. I didn’t want it to and foolishly, I listened to other people’s opinions and didn’t follow my heart. I made mistakes and I should have been kinder, given you more time and space. Understanding. You could have been kinder too – but I betrayed my post Ali intentions.

I think too that you were still mired in the tropes of the 35 years you spent with DF and how it had pushed you to find ways to protect yourself and allow only safe ways to find love and affection: your child, the animals.

The Ding Dong – New Year’s Day

It remains one of the strangest experiences of my life. I didn’t want to argue with you. I don’t care that we disagree on things. It’s healthy and we don’t lose anything by accepting that, but I can’t change those big things ever. No matter what I say or think about them, it won’t move the dial. What and who I care about is you and the love I know I could give you and a life that would be so different to the one that you have. I was willing to do anything to move that dial – because I felt I could.

In the car, driving you back to yours, my emotions were all over the place. I should have tried harder to get you to stay. I wish I had. But I didn’t and I also felt the need to protect myself (I was still smarting from the weekend of the storm).

Aftermath

I thought it was over. Properly. Whatever ‘it’ was. But we kept talking, txting, speaking and even seeing each other. You ration your interaction with me which hurts – a lot. And then suddenly you will ring me two nights on the run and I am elated. Hoping, maybe…

But, no matter how deeply I’ve cared, I’ve started to understand that your walls aren’t coming down. That you’ve been protecting yourself from the very closeness I long to give. And although I might see it as a gift, a place of safety, you can’t go there right now

I can’t keep waiting for a version of us that is only alive in my dreams. Real love can’t survive on memory and hope. I’ve held on through the quiet times, through your fear and your distance, through the moments when you pushed me away. And I know, you’ve told me that you are frozen, still damaged by the end of your own 35 year long relationship (that has crept up on me too – a lot lately), and that you can’t be who I need you to be.

I see what’s happening; I see you Taysie. I see the brave, wounded, beautiful woman beneath the caution and the silence, and I want to reach her. But I can’t save you (however desperately I want to). I only ever wanted to be a place of calm, care, and connection for you.

My heart is tired. Even when you’ve said you do care – and you are always there for me when things happen in my life – but you close the door so quickly. I want more than those rationed moments. I want someone who can meet me, not run from me.

I don’t want to give up on you. Holding on is hurting me more than letting go. I want to choose to free both of us from what we can’t seem to build together. But I can’t. I want to fight for it until you tell me you don’t want me. I want you to look me in the eyes and tell me.

I will always be there.

Lim