Wading in the Velvet Sea

It?s never good to have an overactive imagination when you?re single. Couple that with an often crippling amount of oversensitivity and you?ve got a recipe for occasional disaster. Sometimes, though, it comes in handy. You can have an entire relationship and excise all the bad parts. Knock out the fighting. Remove the mismatched underwear. Dismiss any conflicted ideas about where you too will go for the evening. It makes things terribly easy.

Sadly, of course, unless you specialize in dementia, the bubbles always burst on such scenarios?usually right around the time your alarm goes off in the morning and, once again, 50 Cent is ?In Da Club? on KISS108. (That is so my first dance at my wedding. That or ?Back that Ass Up?. But I digress.) Some people are of the ?take it slow, don?t expect anything? ilk whenever they meet someone new. I?m not of that ilk. Well, I am, but I?m also the ?Let?s stay up all night, like, NOW? ilk as well. Tough being both a pessimist and a romantic all at once. I always explain it to people thusly: I?m the guy who will give the girl a rose and be convinced that she?ll hate it. As Billy Pilgrim said, so it goes.

Now, is endless daydreaming a bad thing? Well, probably. Daydreaming in general? Nah. Good stuff, whether you?re in or out of a relationship. Of course, in a good world you?re daydreaming about your significant other while in a relationship. In a bad world, well, you?re looking at someone in Billing and thinking about her, a bullwhip, and some Cool Whip. No, not me, that?s not my bag, I just wanted to say ?whip? twice in the same sentence. It was part of my horoscope today.

Scorpio:

Great things await you financially. Get in touch with long-lost friends. Stop marking out for Chris Jericho in public. Also, use ?whip? twice in your blog, McGee.

See? Had to be done.

So yes, back to daydreaming.

The problem, of course, comes when the daydreaming supplants the reality, or sets up reality to take a fall like Michael Keaton in the company picnic in ?Mr. Mom?. In those 18 months, the danger lay in setting myself up for abject failure each and every time. Either she ?didn?t think of me that way?, or I never actually asked her out, or she was Angelina Jolie.

Daydreams are tricky things. For one thing, they set up unrealistic expectations. Very few people fantasize about bitching about the merits of Fandango. Daydreams have sunlight kissing your darling?s face even when you two are on a moonlit walk. They don?t involve two weeks of phone tag in which you?re unsure if the person even likes you, but gives you just enough clues to let you think there is still a chance.

Here?s the difference between then and now, at least for me. (Yes, more with the ?me? crap. It?ll all be over soon, and Dan, I?ve left cookies on the window sill for you.) I used to actually blame these girls for not living up to my lofty, unrealistic expectations. As if they had led me on. Just ridiculous. I know all this now, but at the time I?d bear grudges that were as unspoken as the fantasies I had all too recently bestowed upon them.

I was the ?Mood Swing Boy in a Bubble?. I had many emotions; I just kept them within a 4 foot radius.

Will the daydreams start again? (Well, who?s to say they haven?t started already? I have to leave at least 1% of mystery to me, my intense confessional nature recently has stripped most of that away.) Most likely, sure, but hopefully with a new perspective. Balancing the dream and the reality---that?s the trick. I think I can do that a little better than before.

I?m all for the fantasy world, in moderation. It?s like Bacardi, that way.