The Rambling RedHead

A Few Good Men.. Well, One Good Man..

I recently received an email in response to one of my Bad Milk articles that said “Don’t you ever have any happy stories to tell?? Anything that ends with ‘And they lived Happily Ever After..’?? Anything that doesn’t vilify men and make them look like useless, clueless, misogynistic bastards??”.. Well, kids, if I had found Happily Ever After, I wouldn’t be here now, would I?? I’d be too busy spending my time being happy and naked.. If you enjoy my writing, as many claim to, be happy that my personal life has the toxicity of a New Jersey landfill because if I ever find “The One” I will be out of things to write about and will have to start looking for a publisher.. However, I can share a story that, while it doesn’t have a happy ending per se, does at least feature a man I cannot say anything bad about.. A rarity, I admit.. So, for those of you who have started to wonder if I have any decent dating experiences, and as a salute to Thanksgivings past, I give you:

Hulk Boy, a.k.a The One Who Got Away

2 years ago over Thanksgiving weekend, the Vixen’s were out at the pub, as we occasionally are.. As the 3 of us were sitting there having a few beers we were approached by 3 very attractive gentlemen.. OK, 3 totally hot guys, not going to sugar coat it.. Not a bad cast in the lot of them. One was from Wake Forest and the other two lived in Maryland.. As tends to happen, we all sort of coupled up in conversations and I ended up chatting extensively with this insanely good looking beef cake of a guy.. We’re talking muscles on muscles.. Abs you can grate cheese on.. And just flat out adorable to look at as well.. Being incredibly jaded, I took one look at his physique and assumed he was a bouncer, in construction, a professional body builder or some other high brawn, low brain kind of field... I called him Hulk-Boy, a nick-name derived from his Halloween costume, which consisted of torn jeans, green latex paint and not much else (I saw pictures.. Words cannot describe.. I may have drooled..) He called me Sweet Red, presumably because of my hair color and angelic temperament..

At some point our careers came up and I told him about my work in banking and risk management.. He seemed impressed and I admit I felt pretty darn good about myself.. I'm proud of what I've accomplished.. I teasingly asked him about his job as a body guard, no, make that an underwear model.. At this point he laughed, said he didn’t wear underwear (breathe, Jenn, breathe..) Actually, he said, he was a doctor.. I rolled my eyes and said “What? Amateur gynecologist??”.. He laughed and handed me his card..

For the record, I admit here and now that I’m a judgmental idiot..

He’s a freakin’ PhD.. With post doctoral work in Psychiatry and Neuorpathophysiology.. A Senior Super Research Brain Trust Dude (or something similarly important sounding) with the National Institute of Mental Health.. I stared at the card and realized I was the dumb one.. And then proved it by asking what the hell Neuorpathophysiology meant. He replied “It’s when brains go bad.. That’s how you can get in touch with me, well, until next May and then I am going to medical school to get my MD..” He proceeds to tell me about his various research projects on anti-depressants and GHB, the date-rape drug and the journals he's been published in. OK, now it’s my turn to be impressed.. Let’s see, insanely hot guy who’s clearly smarter than I am (well, brainier at least, I am pretty damn smart) with serious ambition and a string of letters after his name like an eye chart.. He also had a genuine openness to him that comes off as honest and sincere without a trace of arrogance. And he seemed to be really interested in me, but not in the usual desperate leg humping troglodyte can I please go home with you kind of way. Ka-ching.. Jackpot.. At the end of the night, we parted ways very smitten with each other, swapping emails and cell phone numbers so we could stay in touch.. Which we did over the next two months with flirty emails and the occaisional phone call..

Flash forward to January.. I head up to Virginia to spend the weekend with CoraBean and HunnyBunny to attend a huge Super Bowl bash put on by one of the radio stations in DC.. I need a date and Hulk-Boy was more than happy to oblige.. We actually first end up meeting out on Saturday at the RiRa’s in Maryland, along with Christie, my beloved Bahama Mama for a little bar hopping..

As an interesting aside, there is a running joke that I am guaranteed to know someone working behind the bar at any Irish pub on the planet.. My trip to Romania proved this not to be true, at least not on a planetary scale.. That night, however, did prove I might know someone in every pub on the East Coast.. One of the old bartenders from Raleigh had transferred up to MD and was there.. It’s kind of embarrassing to be greeted by name in a bar that you swear you’ve never been to before..

But I digress..

Anyhow, we had a wonderful night hanging out and he got along famously with The Gang, which is always a litmus test for me.. Love me, love my friends.. It was an exact repeat the next night for the Super Bowl party.. In all my years of dating, I can honestly say it was the best date(s) I ever had.. No, really.. Ever.. He was polite, chivalrous, attentive, funny, affectionate, sweet and there was major sparkage, to boot.. What hooked me were the little things like his hand on the small of my back as we walked through the crowds, brushing hair out of my eyes when we were talking, opening my car door when I got in and out, telling me I was georgous.. Funny how seldom I see that kind of attentiveness in men and yet, when it happens, it says so much about their character.. Every time I date someone with even the slightest leanings towards chivalry, I can’t help but think that I want my boys to behave like that when they grow up.. That one day I want some woman to look at one of my boys and think “His mama raised him right..”.. So after spending 2 of the best date nights of my life in a row, I began to get suspicious.. There had to be a flaw, nothing and no one could be this good and still single..

And there it was..

Well, technically not a flaw, but a major roadblock.. The medical school he was attending was in the Caribbean. *sigh* It figures. I finally meet a guy I could fall face down for and he’s leaving the country for 2-3 years.. I shrugged it off for the weekend, enjoyed the time we had and went home figuring we would probably see each other whenever we could until he left the country. This turned out to be never.. Between my work, the kids and his research, we both stayed too busy to see each other for another month or so.. And then I met The Mad Scotsman.. We had been dating for about a month when Hulk-Boy called to say he was heading down to the islands early and would be passing through Raleigh on his way in the next week and could we spend a long weekend together? That he really wanted to spend time with me before he left.. After much gut-wrenching thought, I had to decline.. I knew deep down I liked Hulk-Boy more than The Mad Scotsman at that point, but there didn’t appear to be any kind of possible future, what with him leaving the country.. I also would have had to have told The Mad Scotsman if I was seeing him as we had definitely crossed over the monogamy threshold.. There was no gray area at that point.. The choice was painful and practical.. We parted friends and stayed in contact for several more months after he disappeared into tropical paradise..

One day, after a communication blackout of about a month, I received an email from him asking to be removed from The List.. That he had recently started dating someone and she wasn’t comfortable with him being in contact with people he had been involved with previously.. On one hand, I was thinking “Babe, you’re dating a chick that tells you not to be in contact with someone you never even slept with, who is not even in the same country as you are because you had a good time together one weekend?? Run away!! Run away!.”.. On the other hand, I was once again struck by what a catch this guy was.. He was that willing to make major compromises in his relationships to make them work.. By the time I received that email, I already knew The Mad Scotsman and I were never going to be a Happily Ever After, hell, we’d broken up twice already, so it was quite bittersweet.. I wrote back to say I respected his wishes and I hoped they would be very happy together..

Every time I come across the pictures from our one fantastic weekend together, I can’t help but wonder if Hulk Boy and I could have been something amazing under different circumstances, if the timing had been with us instead of against us.. He was truly my great “what might’ve been”.. He’s the reason I hold on to hope that “those guys” are actually out there.. People like him and my Beloved Suspects are the reason I am even willing to go on first dates any more.. He's also the reason I still say there are those rare instances where you can actually meet someone special at a bar..

So you see, Gang, I have had at least one dating experience that, while not big with the happy ending, left me with no bad memories and if anything decreased my bitterness towards the male of the species in general.. So raise your glasses, kids, to Hulk Boy, The One That Got Away.. He was a one in a million.. but lets all pray I don't have to date 999,999 other guys before I find another one like him..

posted by Monet @ 7:59 AM