To say that my relationship with Thomas was like a fairy tale couldn't be more true.
From the moment we laid eyes on each other it was as if we just knew that we had been put there—in that place at that exact moment—for each other, so that we could lock gazes, hearts palpitating, cartoon bubble hearts popping over our heads. It's true what they say: When you know, you just know.
He said that as soon as he saw me smile, I lit up his whole world, and in his heart, he knew that I was going to change his life. He flew to Vegas from San Francisco just days after we met and swept me off my feet. As we talked, and laughed and shared, I knew, too. When he came back the following weekend and went to dinner with me and my best friends, they said that they knew. My Prince Charming. Just like a fairy tale.
It wasn't until I flew back to the City by the Bay that it became painfully clear that I didn't know a damn thing.
Isn't it funny, not in a ha-ha kind of way, but in an ironic-not-really-so-funny-at-all kind of way, that we only see what we want to see? Even when there are signs all around us, red flags radiating white-hot heat, we still have a hard time differentiating between that which is real and that which we want to be real.
For instance: Why didn't I find it the least bit curious that Thomas had more fashion sense than any male model in existence? Or that he could out-shop me on my best day? Or that his shoe collection put mine to shame?
Why didn't I find it a bit odd that his apartment was decorated to the hilt and that he had at least 47 decorator pillows always perfectly placed, covering the imported, hand-stitched, satin duvet on his king-sized canopy bed? Because, I reasoned, he must have hired an interior decorator. And judging from the gigantic, disturbingly bright-neon, hand painted portrait of Liza Minnelli that hung over his fireplace, the one that perfectly matched the Liz Taylor over his bed, his decorator might have been a bit light in the loafers—if you will.
Did his lack of body hair bother me? Not in the least. Even though I do find a certain amount of it to be sexy, manly, that which separates the sexes. I didn't really mind that he was better groomed than I. Hardly noticed that not only did he wax his chest, his arms and his legs, but that his eyebrows were better arched than mine.
OK, so I was a bit put off when I asked him if we could find a neighborhood sports bar, knock back a couple of cold ones and take in some NCAA games (I mean it is March Madness, for hell's sake). To which he replied, "Oh, baby, I hate basketball. Besides, we have manicure and pedicure appointments this afternoon."
Lots of men get manicures and pedicures. OK, not all of them pick clear coat polish with a pink hue. "Something happy and springy that no one but me will see when I take off my shoes," he said. It didn't matter to me. He is smart, classy, sexy and funny. I was lucky—lucky I tell you—to have found him. And did I mention his sensitivity? Most women would kill to find a man who isn't afraid to cry. At least that's what we all say. To tell you the truth, it kind of freaked me out. But maybe it was just because we were at the gym. On the scale.
But no. None of those things which now, in retrospect, could possibly be viewed as less-than-machismo behavior, not one of those things made me take a step back and ask, "Hmmm ... Is my new boyfriend, the man who has touched my heart, put a smile on my lips, a new diamond heart pendant around my neck and picked out the cutest Betsy Johnson sling-backs I've ever seen, could he be ... is it possible that he ..."
"Thomas," I said.
"Yes?" He answered as he looked up from his Danielle Steele novel.
"Why haven't we had sex?" I mean, I knew why I hadn't, but he'd never even tried. Ever.
"What?" He looked confused.
Just then, his phone rang. He moved to go answer it. "Please," I said, "let the machine get it."
He just sat there, looking like a deer in the headlights, foot tapping nervously when suddenly his apartment was filled with his own voice, "Hi, you've reached Thomas and Cooper, say hello, Cooper... Meeeoow ... Leave a message at the beep, thanks!"
How gay is that?
"T ... it's Faldo ..." not Faldo, but Fallllldough with a thick, sexy accent that I didn't recognize.
Thomas was on his feet in an instant. The whole scene probably only took 20 seconds, but it unfolded in slow motion with Faldo's voice in the background. As Thomas dove to knock the answering machine off of the kitchen counter, I heard Faldo, pleading with him to consider "dumping de bitch and coming to Greece ... Ease no de zame without you, babe ..."
A light came on in my head.