GIRL 37
KARATE GIRL
The warm fall weather began to yield to cooler, shorter, cloudier days. The novel I'd written in the log cabin ("VERTICAL DIVE") needed another week of work, and I was writing it around the clock. As my fictional torpedoes sped to their targets, the real life torpedo of Karate Girl detonated in my email.
She hit on me hard, with long soulful emails, and she had a long writeup in her pictureless profile. She was a martial arts instructor and part owner of a gym, and she spent half her time as an actress in independent films -- karate movies, of course. But even though her career was interesting, pure pain came through every sentence. I was sweet to her, despite my experiences with anonymous profile women, because it seemed like she was really hurting.
I told her that she must be fresh out of a marriage and that she was an ICU trauma patient, emotionally, anyway. She replied with her pictures. It was easy to see why she had done movies. She was breathtakingly gorgeous.
She told me more about her situation. She described her gym rat husband, a musclebound, powerlifting, macho, master-of-the-universe type who split his time between the city (where we live, "the city" means Manhattan) and central Jersey. Karate Girl had done the same, but had made her career expand in NJ. As she and her husband spent less and less time together, they began to see their differences. It took almost two years for her to even remotely consider separating, and another year for her to imagine dating again. When she did, she considered only one man, me.
It was incredibly difficult not to fall in love with her. She was one of the most adorable, sweet, kind, gentle and soulful women I had met since Girl 6. Our emails were involved and spiritual and deep, but through them I saw the thread of Karate Girl - she wasn't ready, and confirming my belief, she was new to romance. She had married her husband after having dated all of three guys, the marriage had lasted a dozen years, and she never felt like she had explored what or whom she wanted.
So many divorced women do this. They are so convinced they want to go from one faulty, broken relationship directly into another one. It can't be done. The woman has to date casually at first, then more seriously, and have three to five mini-relationships, each one exploring multiple aspects of what a relationship means. Sex with a new person needs to be explored, as does the emotional attachment. It takes tons of work to go from a marriage to a new relationship. Women think they can do it as easily as catching a bus.
I tried to make myself believe that after Girl 6, but I knew I was deceiving myself. It took a year to pick myself up off the pavement. And that had been a three month fling.
My first email to her said that she had a long journey, and I was probably more appropriate as her guide and friend than as a romantic prospect. She vehemently disagreed, and her emails grew more and more intense. She really wanted me, she said.
I met Karate Girl at a cool bar in a town south of me. She was as lovely as her pictures, but something nagged at me. I was falling for this woman, but I was wary of my heart's safety. I decided to try the "knee test." I'd invented this a decade before. It goes like this:
If you're not sure if the girl likes you physically, when she least expects it, put your hand on her knee, then immediately stroke it upward on the inner thigh as if you are heading for the pot of gold. Watch her body language and her eyes. A woman attracted to the male will shiver, her eyes will widen, her pupils will dilate, her face will change to become intense, and her body will "bloom" away from the center of gravity. A woman threatened or not attracted to the male will clench, her body tensing into a ball, her face will cloud, she'll frown, her eyes will narrow and odds are, she'll grab the hand before it gets three inches along its way.
I reached out to Karate Girl's knee. She clenched.
The romance was over in that instant, but our friendship began. Over the next year I was her midwife, delivering her from one trial relationship to the next. There was a lot of emotional trauma, some of it almost reminding me of that of a teenager, but that was because she'd never risked being in love before. Those who don't have to go through all the things an adolescent in love has to suffer. You don't start playing baseball in the big leagues. You start in the sandlot.
Eventually, Karate Girl listened to me. The result was a love relationship stronger than just about any I've witnessed. She called me when she got back from Paris with her new true love. She was crying tears of joy. She had taken the risks, and she had won the jackpot.
I'm not a big believer in marriage. I love the statement it makes, that this woman is my dearest, and stay away from her. I worry, though, about how I would feel in the year 2018. Hell, I worry about how I would feel in December. Or next Friday. When we make vows that talk about "till death," we forget about the plot twists life deals out. I could make a vow to be with The Girl until the next bend in the road, but I suppose being a pragmatic realist goes against the very meaning of marriage. All that said, while I'm not a big believer in marriage, I would gladly attend Karate Girl's wedding.
And I think for the first time in my life, I will actually cry at a wedding.
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