Good call

Initial eye contact, a smile, a glance held across the room. The game begins. He seems interested.

We talk, laugh a bit, make conversation about work, school, life.

A pause as we each turn to our own friends and chat for a while.

As I turn back he walks nearer, followed by his friends. "Well, I have to go. See you at the wedding tomorrow."

He leaves as I say to my cousin, "He has a girlfriend." She replies, "How do you know?" I answer, "He wouldn't have just gotten up and left like that if he were available."

The following night I observe as he waves across the dinner hall from the head table. His girlfriend, soon to be fiancee, is eating at a distant table.

My friend comments later, "What a good call you made. Many women would have taken his abrupt departure as a signal to indicate the now-famous and potentially harmful, 'He's just not that into you.'"

Just one more reason I disdain that phrase....

For granted

Something I've probably always taken for granted is that I will have a relationship in which there is abundant communication. Ranging from conversations about the mundane to philosophical discussions that may eventually improve the state of the world, communication between my future partner and me will be lively to say the least.

But what happens when your interest flows to someone who is not so communicative? Is this a so-called "deal breaker"?

In the end I decided that it is. My imaginative life is so incredibly strong and active that if my partner does not meet me there, we will spend much of our lives unavoidably separated. For his sake and for mine... the search continues.