This is the way we move on....

So... TCMT and I have been spending a lot of time together, and while my wholly objective side is cautious about the wisdom of it simply from a "one frying pan into another" point of view, the rest of me can't help but acknowledge how utterly nice it is to spend time with a man who seems really to like me, appreciate me, and feel happy just to have me around. It doesn't help that he's quite attractive, either. I've been intrigued by him for months, and it's somehow appropriate to give him a chance, my own feelings a chance, and see what might evolve after all the months of circling each other as I resolved matters with the HL. If there's a problem, it's that I like a man who smells great, even mysterious and exotic... and I think he even uses unscented soap and laundry detergent! He notices when I myself smell good, so there's a commensurate card to play here... I want that same olfactory charge for ME! Maybe the men's body spray pandemic has gotten to me, and I expect every guy to smell like something other than musky skin. But I love that. I love to inhale it, I love when it lingers on my clothes... I'm a sucker for masculine fragrance. Always have been. I have to find a way to tell him that.

The HL has moved on as well and is dating another girl. While I handled the breakup with aplomb, I confess that when I learned this news, I started to cry. It means it's really over, that he really didn't want me. The fact that I didn't want him was somehow irrelevant. I wanted him to want me, to realize what a gem I am, to understand that looks fade or get boring, but someone with my loyalty, talent, and devotion is rare and precious. He thinks we can remain friends, indeed seems desperate to remain friends, but as I discussed with my aerobics friend L yesterday, the feelings can't just disappear from the equation. "But I don't want to date him anymore (this is true... I was heartsick in the weeks leading up to the breakup, and the idea of continuing what had become a farce was increasingly intolerable to me), and obviously, he doesn't want to date me, so why not?" I asked her. She just looked at me with those sardonic brown eyes and said, "That's why," she said, referring to my confession that the news of his new girl bothered me. "That doesn't go away when you stop dating, and it's always going to bother you, and there's always a question about why didn't it work or could it work someday, and it hurts, so I wouldn't do it."

She has a point.