Your Wind Song Stays on My Mind...

Remember this cheesy commercial from 1977 about a perfume called Wind Song? Some ads just linger in my mind like a favorite fragrance, I guess, while others slip out of my memory as soon as they slide off the screen. This ad seemed so unbearably romantic to me when I was a teenager. It was a brief glimpse of a story, but what was the story? A man and a woman return from a lovely picnic, and as he drives her home, she puts on perfume. She gets out at a nice house, they kiss, and she leaves her scarf. While he continues driving alone into the night, her perfume lingers on the scarf she left, and he smiles at his memories of her. I tend to believe that one or both of them were married, else why did they have to end the date before night fell? The longing for what you can't have is always more intense than the desire for something easily available, or so I have found anyway.

Last December, a Michael I had dated a few times over eight years ago (at that time; now it's closer to nine years) emailed me to demand an explanation about the disappearance of my old blog. I told him I got bored with it, and he said he had read every word, which was undoubtedly a lie (the blog had been gone for months), but I know he did check in from time to time. He asked if I had another blog, and I said yes, but I didn't give him the address to this one. He didn't follow up on that ~ instead, he asked an even stranger question: why did I reply to his initial email? I think he must have wanted me to blubber that I'd been pining away for him all those years, but I hadn't been, so I told him the truth: I always answer sincere questions about my writing. Then I asked him if his initial question had been sincere, and he said yes. That was the end of the conversation.

Today, another Michael emailed me to apologize for something he had apparently said on our dinner date two and a half years ago. All this time, he had assumed he had upset me, but the truth is... I have no memory whatsoever of his comment. He also said I had called him the next day to tell him we had no future, but I don't think so. It doesn't sound like something I would do or say ~ I think he must be mixing up our conversations with another date. What I remember is that I had a nice time at the dinner, but he didn't text me for weeks, and by the time he did, I had lost interest in him. Our initial conversation/ dinner occurred only because he had texted me out of the blue after years had passed since our previous interaction. 

I don't understand these Michaels. But it doesn't matter because I am not the same person as I was eight years ago or even two years ago. When I met M1 in 2016, I wanted to find a relationship. I had taken a break from dating and was now totally into the idea of starting fresh. I felt I was in a good place for this to happen, but (as some of you may recall) M1 treated me like crap, apologized, got a second chance, and then behaved even worse. He ghosted me on Thanksgiving! A few months later, he began texting me, blaming me for everything because (1) I was older than him, and (2) I had never baked cookies for him. I ended up in a depression that lasted over a year, and when I emerged I was different. Not "different" as in an angry/ sad romcom heroine waiting for the right man to break through her barriers, but different as in I realized that my life was really good, not despite lacking a romantic relationship, but because I didn't have one.

When I had dinner with M2 in 2023, I thought I was reconnecting with a fellow writer, but it turns out that M2 no longer writes anything. OK. We still had a good conversation. But just because an evening turns out nicely doesn't mean that it has to go anywhere. Why can't something be one and done? It seemed to me at the time that he wasn't super interested either because he didn't communicate for weeks, but now he's saying he's been thinking of me all this time blah blah. He even mentioned the turmeric from the before times (pre-covid). Years ago, I had posted on my old blog that I'd bought a vat of turmeric for health purposes, but I couldn't use it because it made me nauseated. He volunteered to come take it off my hands; one night he stopped by and picked it up. That's it. But now he says he only did that to see me, and he's only used one spoonful of the turmeric. Welp, that's probably because turmeric is disgusting. I don't see what it has to do with his feelings toward me. In any case, I have no desire to see him again, not that he asked, but his email reads as an invitation to follow up, especially because he even remembers our first-first date in 2012. We met again at a poetry workshop in 2017 and hung out a couple times. Then there was nothing until his text in 2023 and our dinner.

There's a third Michael, whom I actually dated for six months. He used to email me a "happy birthday" note every year, but he stopped. I don't think he's dead, so maybe he's met someone else and has decided it's inappropriate to continue wishing me a HB. I can understand that. Sometimes he visited my old WP blog, so it's possible he thinks I'm dead now that the blog's gone. Whatever. I will always remember that he took me to a zoo on our second date because he listened to me and considered my preferences. That quality was very rare in the men I met. Ultimately though, M3 was kind of nuts, which is also a thing I am attracted to, but maybe more so when I was a lot younger. Insanity has lost its luster for me, alas.

There are even more Michaels clustered about in the dusty archives of my mind, but these three are the ones that I have been thinking about tonight. Who knows if another one will someday emerge from his ancient cocoon and contact me in some bizarre fashion?! I am not sure why everyone thought they were supposed to name their son Michael 60-65 years ago, but it's just ridiculous that there are so many. Now there's a deluge of 30-40 year old men named Josh. In 2050, it'll be an onslaught of Liams and Noahs...