Comparatively speaking.

I finally sent a reply to Mr. Carl’s first non check-boxy communication. Not a GREAT reply. Not a CLEVER reply, or even a particularly coherent reply? But I sent a reply. I replied.

And then? Then E-Melody asked me to basically decide if I was in love or not. Right now. No pressure or anything, but now that you’ve checked a bunch of boxes and sent chunks of info and received other info chunks and you’ve each sent one whole email we were wondering if you have picked a date, color palette, song for the first dance…?

It was just a survey, I guess, but I was kind of amazed by some of the questions. Or even by the fact that they kept, they KEPT referring to the thing just barely going on here as a relationship. “How interested would you say you are in this relationship with Mr. Carl?” “Are you satisfied with the pace of this relationship with Mr. Carl?“ AM I TOTALLY NOT IN A RELATIONSHIP YET WITH MR. CARL? DO I WISH YOU WOULD STOP USING THAT WORD WHEN REFERRING TO MY EMAIL TO MR. CARL? DO I THINK THAT YOU MIGHT REFER TO A CUP OF COFFEE AND SHARING OF A CHEESE DANISH AS “MARRIAGE”?

If the survey had included the question “what word best describes your level of investment in this “relationship” with Mr. Carl?” I would have had to check the “tepid” box. There’s nothing specifically wrong with him (as far as I know – if he has a box of human heads in his attic he hasn’t mentioned it yet. Probably prudent – don’t want to give everything away too fast. Gotta keep SOME secrets, right? What were we talking about again? Oh, right. “tepid”) but I’m really not jazzed. I realized how luke-warm I feel about it when I found myself really interested in another match.

We will call him Fernando. (and we will mysteriously swoon a little at the mention of his name. Even though I just now made it up.)

First let me say that his real name was even more fabulous. I almost put the real name here in the blog only because it’s such an iconic one! Suffice it to say his name brings visions of smooth, barrel-chested, stallions gripping lacily-boddessed wenches against the mast of a pirate ship! In all honesty I originally SCOFFED at this name. Openly scoffed. Considered rejecting the match on the name alone.

But this guy’s little bio-thingy was the first one that ever really caught my attention. And no, I really can’t tell you why – I’ve read and re-read his bio a couple of times to try to figure it out, but it’s too subtle. Except one thing: he’s one of twins, and he and his twin brother were born in Italy and then moved here and THEN orphaned and adopted and all of that really intrigued me, plus the impact this unique history had on his view of “family”. For whatever intangible reason I was, for the first time so far, actually jazzed.

Which is why I should really have KNOWN that he would close the match right away. And should even more have known that the reason he closed the match was because he’s already involved with someone else. (what, me bitter? Of course not! Grumble…)

I will keep going with Mr. Carl as long as he does. But so far he’s no Fernando.