I have been dining with strangers, as narrated in Dinner Time. Some have been enjoyable interludes, with little more consequence than pleasant, shared time, and the relaying of anecdotes. Some have resulted in friendship, and others may be of more lasting consequence, not for the friendship itself, but for what it may tell us about ourselves.

I had previously met Bahar and shared lovely time with her both at dinner, and during later time that we shared. And then there was another…

The second of these new friends presents an entirely different story. Lorraine is of partial Persian parentage. Fully American, and part Italian, she has a similarly varied international background as so many of my dinner companions share, having lived for some years in my homeland, and having traveled more extensively than is typical for an American.

Entering the appointed restaurant of our dinner, I escaped the stifling thickness of the July city heat early for our reservation and waited a few minutes for the maître d’ to arrive to usher me to our table, while enjoying the air-conditioned relief of the pleasant, if bistro-generic, atmosphere of my fresh surroundings. My eye was immediately drawn to an attractive dark-haired woman standing close by, in front of the bar. She was gazing intently upwards at the World Cup broadcast and was dressed in a lovely white summer dress and delicate gold-strapped sandals. Her clear, olive-toned complexion stood in bold sympathy against her dress, and as the maître d’ approached and I announced the purpose of my reservation, she looked directly at me and gave a warm smile. As our eyes met, she told me that she would be joining me as one of my dinner partners for the evening. As the first arrivals, I was happy to have this attractive companion to myself for a few minutes, and we talked easily before our tablemates arrived.

This proved to be a dinner that was like none I had experienced prior, as I found myself the sole male in our group of six. Wei was from China and as a later arrival, was seated at the other end of the table, opposite Laura a special education teacher. I have found at these dinners that it can be difficult to sometimes interact fully with others seated further away, and I regret that I did not learn more about these two nice women. Diagonally across from me was Dawne, a retired financial consultant, who was quite beautiful and youthful in appearance, with that easy charm that comes with a well-bred Bostonian.

And then to my left, Maureen, a dentist by training, and the third of our arrivals. Maureen was a trip. Short-haired, attractive, and flirtatious by nature, Maureen had the energy of a barely contained tornado. Frequently stroking my arm between taking swigs out of her beer bottle, and wrestling for attention, Maureen was given to dominating the energy of the room, continually and loudly interrupting conversations already underway with her own peculiar energy and sometimes erratic observations and questions. Although she was perfectly pleasant, I must admit that I began to feel increasing annoyance at her constant vying for my attention, which left me feeling quite exhausted.

But back to Lorraine, my initial companion. This was a woman to whom I could very easily relate, and who was sitting opposite me. She possessed an approachability and ease with those around me. Her deep brown eyes frequently met mine in unspoken amusement at Maureen’s frequent interruptions and outbursts: a secret joke shared between those whose temperaments clearly matched.

It was an enjoyable dinner. A first meeting for maybe-friends. A respite from the loneliness that some (perhaps all) at the table felt. Lorraine and I each ordered tuna poke bowls. Our server agreed to take our picture on my phone, and I shared the photo with my companions before we paid our individual checks and left. “I’m giving a thumbs up to everyone around the table when they send us the post dinner survey!” announced Maureen. We smiled and gracefully departed, Maureen making her way down the street in the opposite direction, as Lorraine and I had each parked our cars in a garage across the street from the restaurant.

“Maureen was a LOT!”, I declared, smiling at Lorraine, who returned her warm smile and giggled. Quietly, she had suggested earlier, “How about we go to the North End after this?” “Cannolis?”  I replied. “YES!” said she enthusiastically. So, there we were like two thieves in the night, making our escape from the rest of group, discussing the dinner, our tablemates, and general inconsequentials; Lorraine’s beautiful dress flowing gently in the breeze behind her. Crossing Atlantic Avenue, I could not help but notice the gentle curve of her hips as we hurried along, occasionally brushing against my own, filling me with unmet longing, as she occasionally reached towards me to steady herself during our brisk walk: cannolis beckoned!

And then it happened: “Fireworks!” as the sky exploded before us, stars of red, white and blue rained down partly obscured behind a skyscraper. We hurried towards a bridge to get a better view, Lorraine beaming with delight and light laughter filled her eyes. I took her picture on that bridge before the display was over, with the fireworks exploding behind her.

We arrived at our oasis, Mike’s Pastry, just in time to join the end of the queue before it closed, hot and sweaty from our exertions in the thick July heat, and then grabbed a vacant porch swing on the Greenway just as the previous occupants left. It felt as if the universe was pulling us together; the timing of everything had been just right!

Sharing a bite of each other’s delicacies, the conversation turned deeper: to family and our vacated marriages, separation, and divorce. For each of us there had been two failed marriages, her divorce only recently final, while for me the pain was closer, and events more turbulent, but somehow over the past month or so I had felt more at peace and accepting of my new life. We spoke of our excitement at new beginnings: that the end was merely the start of something new over which we each had conscious agency, perhaps for the first time in our lives. I shared my love for the wisdom contained within my current reading, Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet. We talked there for the better part of an hour, sharing a new friendship and easy connection. I could already feel myself falling.

Returning to our cars, I accompanied Lorraine to hers. Before leaving, I suggested “Hey, are you doing anything on Saturday? I have a friend playing a gig in Marblehead. You want to come and spend the afternoon with me?” “I’d love to!” She had said earlier in the night how much she missed her boat, “I have friends in Gloucester with a boat. Maybe we could hitch a ride? I’ll ask them.” She beamed, gave me a hug, and we parted with a substantial peck on the lips. I returned to my car, head swimming with pleasure of what I had experienced with this extraordinary, warm, good natured, and quite lovely woman.

Once home, I found a text that she had returned home safely and sent her the photo I had taken on the bridge and retired, wearily to bed, just before 1am, exhausted, but covered in a warm glow.

The following day was the observed Fourth of July, and had been designated for catching up on work, with no other plans. But I woke up early, settled down to a partially eaten cannoli and juice, and texted a picture to Lorraine. She confessed that she had thought of doing the same thing and took it as a sign that she should do so. We shared pictures of each other’s balconies: our healing retreats from the cares we had each so recently experienced…and she texted a photo of the cover of her own copy of The Prophet thanking me for reminding her about the spiritual poetry in that volume.

The remainder of the afternoon was taken with tasks and recovery from the night before. I was exhausted and not much was done. And then a text came in from Lorraine: “want to see Disclosure Day tonight?” “I am SO TEMPTED by that!”

Driving to our rendezvous, with excitement and anticipation at spending more time with this lovely woman, I performed a reality check upon myself. In learning more about ADHD, I also encountered the concept of limerence. It is not unique to ADHD, but it is common among those who have it: an intense romantic infatuation often mistaken for love, characterized by imagined futures, emotional longing, and the tendency to fill gaps in our knowledge of another person with hopeful imagination.

Was my excitement merely a projection of some unmet need within me? When I had first met my estranged spouse, I had fallen for her remarkably quickly and intensely. Within weeks, I had effectively moved into her house, while keeping my own apartment and space in name only. After six months we agreed it to be ridiculous that I was still paying rent for a place in which I had only slept perhaps seven or eight nights. Our courtship was quick and intense, and over years we had settled into a kind of easy partnership. But cracks emerged in later years, and I increasingly felt the limitations of what I felt to be controlling behavior, while she had her own frustrations. My life had a pattern of quickly moving out of one marriage or relationship to another. I had never given myself the room or the space to discover who I really am; continually collapsing myself into another’s life. And yet I had met this wonderful, warm, caring woman, and my feelings were beginning to resemble those that I felt in those early days with the woman I would later marry. And I had not even known her for 24 hours! Perhaps I had begun writing a story that reality had not yet earned. I did not want to repeat patterns. I resolved to keep my feelings and imagination in check, to play it simultaneously warmly, but keep my internal cool.

Meeting at the movie theater that evening, we shared popcorn and water and settled in for an exciting Spielbergian ride after which we visited The Tavern on the Square to discuss the movie. The conversation quickly turned to deeper topics centered around our dreams and our divorces, with another soccer game playing above our heads. Realizing that I had not had a single thing to eat since my breakfast cannoli, and the better portion of our popcorn, I ordered a burger.

And then she asked a question that hit me like a brick. It was something that touched on something deeply personal that I cannot yet share on this blog. Something that has torn my life to shreds. Something that affected my self-identity as a liberal woman centric male; something that has created for me very real danger, only partially resolved; something which had for a time caused deep shame.

I had a carefully rehearsed answer to that question. One that is partially true, but how could I not be completely honest with this woman who had already shared so much of herself? Of her own frustration and pain over two failed marriages? Of the alcoholism of one spouse and the porn addiction and profligate spending of the other? Of the years spent in separate rooms? Of the pain she had endured and kept bottled inside?

So, I shared fully. I shared every detail of my still-active-on-paper marriage. Of the increasing separation of our lives together, of her increasing distance, of my attempts to bring us back together, of my very real love for the wife I had to leave, and of the shameful end that terminated any hope of reconciliation. I shared it all, and she listened. She listened with deep compassion and empathy, and she understood.

I paid our bill and we left, and as I walked her to her car, I told her: “I must warn you. When I fall for someone, I tend to do it fast and hard. I know that about myself, and I try to keep it in check. I never want to make someone I care for feel stifled again.”  At her car, I turned to Lorraine, our eyes locking each other’s gaze, “I really want to kiss you.” She approached me, and our lips locked in an embrace: a light embrace, but far more than we had shared the night before. It was a tender, gentle kiss, My heart beat a mile a second. She looked at me “Oh man, I’m not sure I’m ready for this, you’re the first man I have been with since my ex and I separated two years ago. I need to figure out how to handle this.”   

We made brief arrangements to meet again the following morning for the drive to Marblehead, with me to pick her up at her apartment. Returning to my car, my mind was whirling a mile a second. I thought first I had missed the ramp to the turnpike, found a gas station since I was empty, and carried on, this time actually missing the ramp. It was as if time and space were collapsing around me. A whirlwind of conflicting thoughts and emotions.

The following morning, Lorraine had texted me: “Hi, can you please give me a call when you wake up? Thanx!” Already up, and sitting in the sanctum of my balcony, I saw it as it came in, and immediately called, and she answered. “I really don’t think I’m ready for any of this. I have never dated before, and I literally didn’t get any sleep last night as I thought about us.” We agreed to stay in touch but cool it right down. There would be no trip to Marblehead. No visiting friends on their boat.  She needs time, and her own space to integrate all that has happened, and take things way slower, in all probability without me as part of her own journey towards healing and living a new life. Adjusting to her new reality. She is not ready to date.

I understood completely and made no attempt to convince Lorraine otherwise. I took it all with a curious philosophical calmness, because I understood. We all have our own journeys as we seek to rediscover and rebuild our lives. Sometimes they run together for a while. Sometimes they simply cross, leaving each traveler changed before continuing onward.

By the logic of linear time, Lorraine should be further along the road toward embracing new beginnings than I am. Yet it is I who seems more willing to engage with what might come next—or, more correctly, with what could be a complicated but possibly glorious present. There is no logic to healing.

I messaged a confidante and told her the news. She encouraged me to go to Marblehead on my own and maybe drop in on my friends with the boat. But I chose not to. Instead, I knew that I must write. I had to make a dent in the million articles and posts that have been swimming through my head for months. But before I did so, I had to write this. To understand it. To integrate it.

So, I have returned to my cocoon for a while longer, and the sanctity of my balcony and my desk. Maybe for a day, a week, or a month. I do not know. But I also know that I can only bring love into my life by discovering my true self, and by giving myself the space to breathe. To experience my own independence before I can invite another fully in to share it with me.

And as I write this, with Independence Day fireworks exploding in the distance, I know that I will never forget these 48 hours, and my brief time with that cup of bubbly wonder and joy that was Lorraine.

…and I am a LOT!