"Don't hate me because I'm beautiful"
Remember that line? It was from a commercial from the 80's - a shampoo commercial, I think.
Well, I live the opposite gender version of this -"Don't hate me because I'm handsome."
My name is Jim.
The product of a handsome Italian father and a beautiful Greek mother, I was a cute baby,
a cute little kid, a cute boy, a good-looking young man. Now ,in my early 30's, 6'2", in good shape, with my parents' dark Mediterranean looks, I've been admired, praised, gazed at hungrily
by women, (and some men) all my life. Think of (for you of a certain generation) Victor Mature,
or more currently, Chris Noth, Gilles Marini....
You get the picture.
Things came to me rather easily, as they tend to do to good-looking people, and I could have grown up to be a real conceited prick. But as much-loved as I was my both parents, my mother could see the reaction her son had on others, and wasn't about to stand for an arrogant little monster under her roof, especially being the only boy (I had two older sisters)
I remember when I was around 15, the girls were already calling, something my mother couldn't
stand. Evidently I had given 2 girls the impression that I was taking them to a school dance, and one of them was calling me to sort it out. I was sitting on my bed reading. Mom told me
about the call, but not wanting to deal with the drama, I said "tell her I'm not here."
Boy, was that the wrong move! I heard her speaking to the girl, she hung up, and next thing I knew she was in my room, smacking me upside the head with her slipper, telling me what a sin it was to be rude to people, how terrible it was to lead those poor little girls on, how she wasn't going to tolerate a Lothario in her midst (I had to go look it up later), and I was going to grow up to be a considerate, thoughtful and respectful man, even if she had to kill me first!
She was a Greek fury, and I apologized up and down, straightened the whole situation out, and made sure I never pissed her off like that again.
Of course, my father heard about it, laughed his ass off, said something like "welcome to the club." To this day he'll mention it every now and again, just to keep me humble.
Fast-forward to the present. Both sisters are married. I have nieces and nephews.
I have a successful career, a nice home, have a good life, and both parents and sisters on my ass
as to why I haven't found a nice girl and settled down. It's not that I didn't have plenty of choices-it was almost too easy, given my physicality (sorry Mom, but it is what it is).
I did a lot of dating and even had some semi-serious relationships. But I was looking for a lovely dark Mediterranean girl (just never understood the American male obsession with the blue-eyed blond California surfer girl look) with a great sense of humor, good sense of self and of what she wanted in life, happy in her career, same values as me, and I just hadn't quite run across her yet.
Until the day that a new woman showed up in church. I had noticed her in the congregation, but when she joined the choir where I sang bass, I had the chance to get to know her on a no-pressure basis. She physically met the criteria---She could have been my sister looks-wise (but that's kinda creepy so we won't go there!). Her name was Anna, we were of the same faith, she was friendly with all,she had an easy laugh and was obviously interested. So we started going out.
She was smart, could hold her own in conversations on any subject, and I found myself wondering why she hadn't been snapped up already. Of course, she probably wondered the same about me.
We'd been out a few times when she invited me over for dinner. She was a great cook, and after
the meal we were enjoying a drink out on her secluded patio on a lovely summer evening.
Now we'd done a little nuzzling and cuddling before, but I believe in taking things slow, letting the woman indicate when she wants more, since the expectation is that the man always pushes..
That approach had served me well through the years.
We were on the bench with her on my left, when we started kissing, my arm around her back.
This time, however, she returned the kisses more deeply. I kissed back in kind,
She parted her lips, and I teased her tongue with mine.
She looked at me with those dark gorgeous
eyes - "did anybody tell you you're a really great kisser?".
I replied " um, yes, but right back atcha."
She smiled and we went back at it.
I let my right hand tease the back of her neck and I could hear her "mmmmm" purring like a cat.