Present tense

She met him online. Not through social media but on one of those dating websites. She had her profile listed on several sites before, but they were all a bust. She had no idea that the world was overrun by shallow people. The site she met him on was a sort of last ditch effort for her. She met guys in real life all the time but the odds were that they were taken already. At least the ones who held her interest. The single ones came with an unbearable amount of baggage. It wasn't that she wasn't open to a guy's personal history. But that was the key word. History. Guys with baggage didn't just have history. They were still schlepping all this crap around with them. It almost saddened her to know that there was such a large amount of people who seemed to be stuck in past events. Allowing themselves to be defined by something that no longer existed. And by their sheer identification of who they believed themselves to be, continued to re-experience that what they wanted to avoid most. Such irony. When the simplest of all things would be to unidentify oneself with how others chose to act. But of course that was a moot point. People rather preferred to act out those roles they chose to take on. But this guy was different. The mutual physical attraction was undeniable from the beginning. That was not what captivated her though. He wasn't a clean slate either. He had more history than most other guys she knew. Ex-wives and kids. Grown ones and little ones. Family and friends that made their demands on him. A lifelong hobby he would never give up. He was knee deep involved with his life. No living in the past, no being hung up on how things should have went. He was on amicable terms with people from past relationships. In a "we had this time together, we did these things together" sort of way. It was shockingly refreshing to meet a guy who could leave the events of what happened in a relationship behind him and yet relate to that person in the renewed way it takes to stay connected humanly. She knew no matter how things would turn out with this guy, it would be worth every breathing moment to have him be a part of her life. ~•~•~•~•~•~• a beautiful milieu Art Nhienan aka soju sor