Pit Stop

I came up with a theory a number of years ago. 

It can happen that after bad date followed by horrendous date topped with EPIC FAIL date that a lovely date comes along, complete with the precious yet oft elusive sense of comfort. Starry of eye and bouncy of foot, I prance into the doorway, optimistically waving goodbye over my shoulder as he pulls out of the driveway. 

But the next morning calls the time of death: An awkward phone call, e-mail, or text from a nervous shadchan reporting his avowed dislike of you. Apparently, that sensation of comfort went only one way. 

In my youth, I came to a swift decision: The purpose of this meeting was not about the failure, but about the hope. Fear not, child, sayeth the Almighty Matchmaker. There is someone for you, but the time is not quite yet. But I don't want you falling into despair, thinking your ideal man is a figment of your imagination. So I shall grant you Exhibit A, proof that types like the ideal Han do exist.

That glimmer of a optimism (not a sensation I usually indulge in) is sufficient to maintain a reasonable faith in mankind as I endure another round of catastrophic introductions. 

Apparently, yet again, nothing new under the sun. 

In "On the Road to 'The One,' Sometimes a Rest Stop," Amy Butcher describes her wondering if the sweet but unfocused Sam is her "bashert":

. . . When I flew to Alaska to resume the life I had planned, I felt surprisingly devastated, and I feared the life I had always wanted now seemed to be in direct conflict with what seemed most right. What if my life was best spent in Iowa? What if I was meant to marry the man who lived in a tent?

It was my friend who suggested it was all a matter of perspective, who suggested that Sam, while perhaps not my ultimate destination, was the romantic layover I had spent years badly needing.

“Isn’t it possible,” she asked, “that the role he played in your life was to remind you how love is good?”

Instead of trying to squeeze something more from my experience with Sam, she said I should try to accept the relationship for what it was: a valuable encounter that didn’t make Sam any less important to me, just not more important than he had really been.

Back home, Butcher met "the One," a mate who is certainly more ideal than Sam was.  

Finally, finally, I have a good date. See, I'm not commitment-phobic! Except then he is. Ergo, he was merely Exhibit D. Not one to idle over, merely one to refuel one's expectation tanks. 

Check out the romantic tale of when Kelly met Andrew, complete with invocations of "bashert."