A Knight in Shining Armor?

It's been a while since I've been here. Good to be back.

Things have been going along swimmingly. New Year's Eve was a success. The dress, the shoes...it all worked as well as could be hoped. I met a new man and re-connected with an old one. One didn't work out (why, oh, why is it so difficult for some men to just be honest?). One is scarily working out well. Re-connection, apparently, can be a very good thing.

The old one I reconnected with on NYEve goes back a long way. I must have been about 19 or 20 and was dating a guy I thought was a real hotshot. And so did he. It was my birthday and we had gone to dinner and then out for a drink. We met up with a friend of his named Clay. Drinks flew, date got obnoxious and started yelling at me for talking to Clay, and finally stomped out, leaving me sitting there in the bar, fifteen miles from home on a snowy November night.

On my birthday.

Clay, gentleman that he was even then, gallantly finished the date as if nothing had ever happened and that I had really gone out with him all along. Needless to say, I was bowled over by his chivalry and promptly got a crush on him. We went out a few times. We even took a trip to Indianapolis to go to the NHRA Nationals (God, we look young in those photos!). But it turned more into a friendship than a romance. I was so very young and he was only 5 years older and quite the player in those days. It kind of fizzled into a good friendship and we were both fine with that.

As the years went by, we stayed on friendly terms even though we rarely saw each other. We vaguely and intermittently kept up with each other's lives. I moved in with XDBF, he moved in with a girlfriend. We'd have a beer or a hug when we ran into each other and that was that.

Fast forward from 1978 to New Year's Eve 2005.

As I sat at my sister's bar waiting for the NYEve festivities to begin (and for the guy she was trying to set me up with to arrive), I felt someone grab me from behind and kiss my neck. Surprised, I looked up and it was Clay. He sat down next to me and we began to catch up on the last twenty-five years. By the next time I looked up, two hours had gone by. Midnight was fast approaching and my sister was on the war path. Seems she had planned to set both of us up that night; me with a financial consultant and Clay with one of her bartenders. So we split up to our respective "dates" for a New Year's kiss at midnight, but vowed to keep in touch.

We met up at my sister's bar again the next week for the Steeler's wild card game against Cincinnati. And again for the Indianapolis game. And one more time for the Denver game. By that time it was obvious that a real date was a necessity.

We had that last weekend. Saturday night to be exact. I made dinner at his house. He met me at the door with a gigantic bouquet of flowers and two bottles of shiraz. We drank wine, talked, and cooked (well, he chopped and I cooked). We ate, drank some more wine, and talked some more. He got out the chocolate-dipped strawberries and champagne he had gotten for dessert and we talked some more. We started on a third bottle of shiraz and talked some more. And then we quit talking.

I woke up the next morning with him whispering in my ear that I was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen in the morning. And then we quit talking again.

When we finally rose at 8, he made me coffee and then took me to breakfast. The January weather in Pittsburgh this year has been just stunningly beautiful and so we decided to go back to sit on his deck and drink some bloody Marys. And talk. We talked about everything. Religion, politics, stock car racing (!!!!!), football, local news, mutual friends, our families, the loss of my parents and his father, history, philosophy, and, finally,...

us.

I'm afraid of this man. I've always had an attraction to him. And though he is much older now, I am even more attracted to him. And apparently, he is even more attracted to me. He is pursuing me like I've never been pursued. Flowers, phone calls to say good morning, phone calls to say good night. And wanting me to tell him where I think this relationship is going. He is seeming to be so wide open in his emotions with me that I almost think it's a miracle.

This is not the Clay of 1978.

But then, neither am I the Geggy of 1978. I've been badly hurt and it wasn't that long ago when I was in the depths of despair. I'm much older and much more cynical than that child of the 70s. And I am wary. I'm wary of him because I think he very much wants to be in a relationship with someone like me. I'm wary of me because I think this is too soon for this to be anything other than a rebound relationship for me. And, if I'm going to have a rebound, I don't want it to be with him.

I think I've settled on what is right for me in this situation. My Big is still in the picture. In fact, he will be arriving on Friday evening to spend the weekend here in the 'Burgh, preparing to watch the Super Bowl with me and our friends. Clay will be out of town until Sunday, but has been quite insistent on spending time with me on Sunday since he will be leaving town again the next day for two weeks.

I will spend my time and my pent up sexual energy on Big Friday night. I will have a talk with him on Saturday about where I think I want my life to go. Because it's Big and he knows me and the limitations of our relationship so well, I'm sure he'll understand. He'll happily take the mantle of my rebound relationship. And he'll still be my friend when it all comes down to it.

And then I can take Clay's call, as he has indicated he will do, Sunday and happily meet him for the game. And I'll even bet that Big buys him a drink.

Oh, and by the way? It will be 24-17 Steelers.