Never let the facts ruin the legend of Mr Perfect …

I think I may be in need of a relationship holiday. 

You know that feeling when you’re in a job that you hate? You started off loving it, and then something turned,  and it just got worse and worse. Then you plan a holiday and you cross the days off your calendar, willing the clock to tick that bit quicker so that you can get out of this miserable situation for a break in the sunshine.

That’s exactly how I feel about relationships right now. I start one off, it looks promising, I think “hey, this might be the one” and then …. nothing. He wasn’t the one and I’m hurled right back to the starting line. I sit back on the starting line awhile, lacking the energy to run another race I’m seemingly ill-prepared for, thinking “maybe he was the one and I didn’t give him chance”. But it always turns out that he wasn’t the one and that I gave him more than ample chance.

I’m back on the starting line again right now, but this time I think I may need to bow out of a few races. The mere fact that I’m likening relationships to running races tells me something has to give here …

I could make a start on my book, the one where I disclose the details of every man I’ve been involved with. The book that will finally give me closure on each sorry episode as I laugh like a drain setting it all to print. The book that will describe how I got to be in my forty-sixth year, single and yet still sure deep down that I will one day meet “The One”.  The book that will become a little repetitive in telling of how each relationship showed new and vital signs that this time he really could be “The One”.

Another good reason for taking a break is the number of books, teleseminars and courses that are surrounding me, each one  pointing out that I must in some way be giving off the wrong vibration to be attracting such inappropriate men. Apparently, until I feel I deserve a good relationship, I won’t get one. I could buy into that theory, but usually it’s delivered by someone with a voice so condescending that it makes me just want to carry on being single to spite her (sorry, but it usually is a ‘she’)

The last podcast I listened to on the subject talked of how a woman “opened up her heart”, logged onto her computer one day and then, bingo, her true love was staring back at her onscreen (I missed the name of the site … you can see how my stinking attitude is not helping here, can’t you?) They immediately called each other, broke down into tears and are continuing to live happily ever after. Apparently that is a true story, so almost certainly I should examine my need to scoff at it, given my lack of happy counter story.

My little tale to lean upon when the nights get cold, the wind is a-whistling and I’m beating myself up for not being wrapped up in the lurve blanket is ….  Mr Perfect.

I met Mr Perfect back in 2006; my marriage was going very horribly wrong and I was at that point of having a list of our incompatibilities that was so long it would have made War and Peace look like a light read before bedtime.

I had elected to have some surgery and duly went off to meet my surgeon for a discussion. As I sat in his consulting room in a state of anticipation tinged with excited expectation, any concerns I had fell away as my idea of the perfect man walked in and shook my hand. Handsome, suave, intelligent, charming … this much I gleaned within the first five seconds.

As the appointment progressed I sensed he had that touch of arrogance that is a surgeon’s birthright, and yet there was a definite overlay of someone perhaps slightly unsure of himself in a personal arena. Quite an addictive cocktail.

Needless to say I had the surgery, he earned himself the title Mr Perfect in every which way and I disappeared home to imagine us living a life infused with passionate love-making and wonderment at his brilliant career. I forgot of course that there was a huge mountainous obstacle to our enduring happiness called the “ethical code”.

Let me tell you, I went to some pretty lengthy extremes to get Mr Perfect into my immediate space, and each time he performed a backwards manoeuvre that was never a direct “no thanks”. What kept me going back to try again the next time was the glint in his eye that I am sure was there …

Defeat was declared some months later, and I vowed that it would all make great material for a novel based around love that is unconsummated because of some ridiculous professional ruling. In the end of course, there would have been some fairly graphic passages that detailed what happened when the couple eventually did get it together (which obviously would have been requisite).

Why, I hear you ask, am I recounting a non-affair with a man that was clearly out of my reach? Because he was and still is Mr Perfect.

Since that day when any relationship has failed for whatever reason, I’ve always comforted myself with the knowledge that he would never have done that to me because he was Perfect. That’s the great thing about never having explored a relationship with someone you’ve admired from afar; you can inflate their attributes and there are no known flaws to counteract them. 

I’m sure we would in practice have had our challenges, but the passionate and consuming love we had for one another would have endured any storm we found ourselves caught up in. He was Perfect, after all.

It’ll all be in my book one day, unless he decides to come and claim me, begging me to put down my quill in the process. One can but live in hope.