The End of Something That Wasn't

So Claire and Max, never mind I predicted they'd be great together, aren't together. Today or ever.

There you have it: I'm no expert at calling how these things will work out and I hereby advise Claire to disregard any further predictions that I make.

The first date had been good, as I mentioned. They met for drinks, laughed a lot, and although his texts and calls were a little off-putting (they came by the dozen) Claire, being a fair-minded person, gave him another chance.

"If you feel he's moving too fast," I told her, "tell him so. If you like him. Just be honest."

So they met for drinks, and it was OK. Until he reached across the table, she said, to comment on her bracelet and somehow took hold of her wrist and then her hand in a way that was, she said, "just creepy" after a few minutes.

She retrieved her wrist and the conversation resumed and everything went well enough that she accepted his offer to see his house and meet his dog.

Being a dog-lover myself, I can see why she went.

Seemed safe enough.

Until once inside his house he was, she said, more or less immediately 'in her face' and apparently attempting to also put his face down her throat.

So she brought forth the honesty again and told him that was a little much and somehow managed to settle herself into a recliner while he brought the dog in and sat on the couch.

Which would have been OK because the dog was cute and the conversation resumed and I guess at about the time she thought the evening may be OK after all it more or less hopped the express bus to hell.

Having let him know again that she was uncomfortable moving at high speeds and having received his assurance that he understood completely and would absolutely not rush her in any way, she was disappointed when moments later he'd left the couch, settled himself on the floor next to her chair and was fondling her leg with the same dedication he'd recently shown her bracelet.

"It dawned on me," she said, "that this could end badly."

Claire is not a dumb woman and I personally applaud her next move, which was to look at her watch, appear surprised at the time it revealed and get out the door and to her car with as minimal a goodbye as possible.

Which isn't to say that Max didn't exhort her many times over to call when she got home and let him know when they could see each other again, and it isn't to say she didn't have four texts from him in the ten minutes it took her to drive home.

"Yuck," I said when the story ended. It pretty much summed it up better than any word I knew or could manufacture.

So Claire and Max are done.

I reminded her there were good men out there (unless I've managed to find the last one, that is. I hope not, for her sake).

But Claire is 'over it' as she put it and I understand that very well, having experienced the same thing myself and having decided one Friday evening to delete all emails I had from Match and hang it up for a while.

I have no idea why, that same weekend, I spent five minutes on my own search (my criteria was simple and basically translated as, 'male actually over 5'6", single, within 25 miles of my zip code') and I may never understand why the universe answered my request with someone so wonderful. Even unflappable Holly is shocked. "He's really real," she said again today, as if someone with his personality and demeanor couldn't actually exist but must be a figment of both of our imaginations.

I thought about encouraging Claire to try again but decided against it. My 'good advice' had her giving Max a second chance in the first place.

I think even I know when it's time to keep my mouth shut.

So I just reminded her we were overdue for one of our late Sunday breakfasts at the cafe and changed the subject to our upcoming Lake Powell trip and what we needed to bring.

Debating the relative merits of OFF! vs. Skin So Soft is easy.

Deciphering men and women is something completely different.