When The Sparks Not There
Have you ever enjoyed a correspondence with someone that had weaved through it, sensual undertones that left you feeling warm and tingling and in anticipation of his emails-only to find that once you met him in person and got to finally kiss him, that there was no spark there?
I remember I had started a correspondence with a man who lived only twenty minutes from me. Both of us were new to online dating, to researching the possibility that we each would indeed step out of our present relationships and gravitate towards someone else, just in the hopes of feeling something come alive within us again.
Since we each shared the apprehension and guilt that often accompanies such thoughts, our emails to one another started lightly, politely and without sexual content. Neither of us was ready to cross that line of meeting one another, so there was no pressure. Yet were both sexual people and as time went on, our emails took a turn, where we started writing about our hesitations and fear by creating stories of possible scenarios that included our possible first time meeting. Since actual feelings were reflected in these stories, both of us developed a feeling of slow building pleasure towards one another, and receiving one another’s stories became a sensual anticipation that we both looked forward to.
It was natural that when we did finally meet, I think we both had some sort of expectation that our in-person chemistry would be as much as it was on paper.
It wasn’t. The man I enjoyed so many sharing of thoughts and feelings with over a period of three months, didn’t do a thing for me in person. Yes, he looked exactly like the photo he had sent of himself and no, he wasn’t offensive or crude or disgusting in any way.
But when we finally kissed, not only wasn’t there sparks, there weren’t even embers. I felt absolutely nothing. It was an experience that had never occurred to me would happen and I had trouble understanding it.
So, to be fair both to him and myself, as he leaned forward again, I decided that we were both nervous and that basing anything on that first kiss was not a reflection on what the second and third and fourth kiss might be like. So I closed my eyes and gave it a shot.
There was no answering response within me. I felt a keen disappointment as I struggled through the rest of the date. Of course, after that, our correspondence stopped.
I felt bad after that experience. But I’ve since come to learn that we all have our likes and dislikes when it comes to physical expression. For me, kissing is important. I want to have it. It’s not being unfair: it just is.
What to do if you’re like me? Recognize your feelings and then, if you want, you give it a shot anyway. And if it doesn’t work out, so be it. You’re entitled