At what point is a person ready to completely let go of an old relationship, and welcome in a new one? Is it right to start a new relationship knowing that you're not completely over your ex? Or would that be cheating on... who exactly? Of course there's the the reasoning that it takes a new love to get over an old one. But then are you going into it with your eyes wide open to the fact that it's a "rebound relationship" and therefore probably going to turn into nothing more than a fling, albeit possibly a long term one?
The Girl came to pick me up at the train station regaling me with tales from mahjong (yes, mahjong) and how she told the entire room about her new relationship, even if privately she wasn't sure she was ready too. The Girl tends to like to keep things to herself initially, whether it's a new relationship, a possible new job, a possible new apartment, whatever. It might stem from her slightly modest self, her scorpion tendencies, or even, somewhere not too far in the background, her little girl self singing, "I've got a secret! I've got a secret!" Childish? Of course, but oh so satisfying!
Anyway, as they were setting up their tiles, in an attempt at small talk one of the girls asked about everyone's plans for the weekend. As it was Monday, nobody really had any yet, so she asked about the past weekend. And much to The Girl's surprise she realized she actually had had plans and had done something worth talking about that weekend. But instead of going directly into discussing the production of Moliere's Scapin at the Lantern Theater Company (which she mentioned was a must see), she found herself starting out, "I've been seeing this guy..." Of course, then everyone wanted to know who he was and how she had met him. "At the Chanukah Party," she told them. The same Chanukah party that the group sponsoring mahjong had sponsored. The girl in charge knew exactly who she was talking about when she mentioned Renaissance Guy and smiled knowingly, "he's very nice," she said. "Yes," The Girl agreed, "he is very nice."
She then went onto tell everyone about the show they had gone to see, and the moment sort of passed. But The Girl was left wondering if it would get back to Renaissance Guy that everyone knew. Would he be ok with that? Do guys even get all worked up about stuff like that like girls do? And was The Girl even ok with it being out there at all. She had only recently stopped thinking about Mr Divorced Dad every day, only thinking about him occasionally. A month ago when she had started seeing Renaissance Guy, she couldn't help but feel like she was cheating on Mr Divorced, even though that relationship hardly even counted as a relationship on account of it hardly even getting off the ground (literally and figuratively). The first night that she spent the night with Renaissance Guy, she kept comparing him with Mr Divorced (even though she kept telling herself that wasn't fair) and wondering how she could feel so awkward with him even though he was doing everything she'd been wanting for a very long time, even though he was doing everything she had wished Mr Divorced would have done but didn't. Until last weekend when she didn't even think about Mr Divorced the whole weekend, and it wasn't until Monday when she saw her email with a list of her JDate matches and thought, "oh yeah, him."
But as it still feels so new, and not being entirely sure how Renaissance feels, she doesn't want to rush anything. She doesn't want to scare him off. She's sure that she's never quite felt this way about a guy before. Well a real one anyway. (The Girl has a thing for Mr. Rochester the way most girls do about Mr Darcy. Timothy Dalton's Mr Rochester, specifically.) She knows she's got a good thing and she's pretty sure she can feel that Renaissance feels the same. She just doesn't want to jinx it. She knows that everything happens for a reason, and that if it's meant to be it will all work out in the end. But she also knows that she's not quite sure she's got the patience to keep a lid on things until Renaissance Guy's figured out exactly what he wants too. She's jsut hoping that Renaissance turns out to be her "in with the new" and that she doesn't turn into his "out with the old."
