Surprises, Compromises and Asking for the Pitch

I got an email last night from an old friend who read my blog entry about looking for a goddess. She said I was lacking a willingness to "compromise"...

Interesting point, but I must disagree. All I've stated is what I'm looking for. Ask anyone walking into a strange restaurant what they're hungry for and I'll pretty much guarantee that they will NOT find exactly that on the menu. What we want is what we want, what we get is always some form of compromise, but also often a transcendent, or at least pleasant, surprise.

Heck, even in a familiar restaurant one probably would wish they did things a little differently (I'd like the chicken liver omelette with whole wheat toast, they never seem to have whole wheat toast...but their omelettes are still so good, I'll live with the biscuits).

I never said it was all about me. I was asking myself the question of what I was looking for. If we are truly honest, we know what we'd like to find at the end of the rainbow. The fact that what we find is sometimes surprising to us in some form or another (the "unexpected quarter") is one of the things that makes life exciting!

Last time around, I didn't order a blonde crossover lesbian eighteen years my junior, trust me. Indeed, it took a a certain amount of convincing on her part that this wasn't an episode of "Candd Camera" before I let her in as anything other than an eccentric friend (I've got witnesses on this, my entire conduct on the Southern Poets Tour was one of total befuddlement in regards to the lady in question). But we were together for several years, and had I made some better decisions regarding living arrangements, we might still be together (who ever knows for sure when speaking of speculative situations? I might be dead! She might be dead! I might be living in a commune in Antelope, Oregon, under the name of "Dashiki Mike"!)

So no, don't read my expression of preferences as ultimatum to the universe. Compromise is an essential part of it, but at the same time I would NEVER tell a lover that she was "a compromise". A surprise, yes. A compromise sounds like taking less than what was desired or needed, and I'm not about that. I've done that before out of a sense that I was helping the other person and I was somehow performing penance for past errors in my life (my Mom did a great job of giving me a relf-perpetuating guilt engine, thank you very much).

It wil be interesting to see what feedback I get from ex lovers (and prospective lovers) as they read the past few days on this and see where my head is. My expressions of desire to have a worthy partner is not something I am ashamed of, or would retract, I think we all need to have an open mind and heart, but also some standards. That I want a peer, who is honest and intelligent and passionate, I do not see as a personal failing.

Maybe I'm wrong, but if I'm going to build my life around a woman, shower her with all that I can summon, and make of her the greatest muse in my pantheon, I think I'm right to ask the fates for someone who is willing to work for and live up to an essence that we all expect from those we let so close to our souls. I've got two strikes against me (and a great many foul-balls) I am just asking the universe for one clean fastball, over the plate. I've got a desire to hit the ball that would make Roy Hobbs grin.