The One at Web Dating

After two decades of being called an ugly effin fat frog my heart catches up with my head and my marriage ends. Almost 55 with too little time left to live on hope, I turn to the web through a daze of separation shock.

Somehow I find a dating site, register my profile, pay my dues. Deliberately, I photograph myself as I really am, chubby cheeks, daggy smile and all. As a writer by trade, I automatically put in lots of information, truth well told being more powerful than the cleverest lies.

Then I abandon hope. Am I mad? Who would have me anyway? But hang on, have I just been hit on? One contact in my email, another, then another! Emails bounce back and forth, my easy way with words giving me an advantage. Like me, the women want to talk with a kindred spirit to make them comfortable with uncomfortable emotions. Phone numbers are offered and long conversations ensue.

I start to learn the first box on the divorced woman's checklist: No Projects! They who have been around the singles scene for a while, have picked up, put back together and seen off too many rebound men. Often these women come to love their charges and are deeply hurt when the time arrives for thanks-but-no-thanks. But I persist, taking my knockbacks. It will be a process of elimination like panning for gold.

Then a date! Virginia has agreed to dinner after an hour of phone bashing. We natter like schoolgirls. She's a writer too. A whole book! My commercial techniques seem to surprise and enthuse her. I'm excited that she's excited and dinner is on! So much in common, so much to look forward to on my first date as a senior single.

She arrives, looking more 63 than 53. Do people lie in their profiles? Spends most of the meal holding one hand in front of a severely crossed eye, while the other hand throws down chardy faster than I can sink light ales. The book she is writing is left of Lenin, in fact her fond wish would be to reincarnate during the 1917 red revolution, if such were possible. Mouth faster than brain, I respond, "If your husband and father would have let you." The meal peters out and she goes for the close. "Are you going to ask me out again?" I am a rabbit in her spotlight. What to say? Prevaricate! "Maybe."

"That's a no then I take it!" Harumph. At least she ended the evening feeling in control. I retreat in dismay. Is this how it's going to be?

A healing hug

Now German lady has advertised for a friend. That will do me. Some female goodwill is my first need. If romance and lovemaking follow ... too soon to even think about those. She sends me a phone number and greets me with a Marlene Dietrich voice, hating her marriage, separated under the same roof, hoping to find a friend, don't even think about sex. "The loving comes before the shoving," I quip. Fortunately, she laughs, "Sounds good to me." We have a date.

She is dainty, wistful and about as gorgeous as we can hope to be in our sixth decade. She confides about the cold, aloof chasm in her marriage. Me about the irresponsibility and cruelty I have left. Especially about the ugly effin fat frog. She stops in mid-bite, frozen into a stare of disbelief. I will see that look several times again, from different women. "But vy vould she say that? You are very handsome man." She is straight-faced, guile free. My turn to freeze. It is decades since I last fielded a compliment from a love interest. Did I even thank her? I hope so.

We clasp hands, kiss cheeks and plan another date which ends in the sweetest, most healing of cuddles. We are both close to tears as she drives away, fingers waving. Our first post-marital hug! Yum.

With that cuddle, I have rounded a gentle bend in the river of senior singles. Whether I drown or stay afloat there is no turning back on the current.

Second virginity

The emails I send are always personalised, reflecting each woman's profile and telling her how I might match her lifestyle and standards - only if I first believe I would. It takes time but it works and soon I am on the phone with four prospective dates.

The first move, although I fail to recognise it at the time, is made by Holly from a country town. Will I visit her? Will I stay the whole night? Sure, chuck me on the couch, I promise to be good. In retrospect, what can I say but "Durrrr!"

Driving into her town I face my demons. It could be on! If she decides to have me it will be the second loss of virginity, the defining moment.

Dinner at her local is all done by nine-thirty. Sipping a cuppa and leaning on her kitchen bench, I suddenly find her face inches from mine. Lovely. A big smooch coming up?

"I like what I see," she declares and the rest is bed and breakfast, the first of many with Holly. She becomes my home away from home.

Her divorce story is a variation on the theme I will keep encountering. The selfishness, the unyielding, thoughtless, pointless, self-destructive scoring that drives people apart, even after decades invested in each other.

Holly believes, because her experience had proved it, that there is only one way for her to orgasm with a man. She must take the saddle and do the work or nothing will happen. So she is amazed that I wait for her, encourage her, delight in her pleasure while savouring mine. She comes in a man's hands, at 53 years of age, for the first time in her life.

"I didn't know it was possible. Better than three pokes and a roll off!" They tell it straight, these country women.

I am equally amazed. Do men like her ex-husband still exist? How do they find women who put up with it?

After I have made love with Holly, I tell her that she was the defining moment. But it really happened inside my head, not inside her. The frayed old rope of my marriage has disintegrated, nothing left to repair. In Holly's arms, in her bed, I peer into the future with awe. Much to my surprise I am handsome for one woman, sexually appealing and satisfying to another.

Holly has a house for me to live in, work for me in her business, a big divorce settlement imminent. All for me to share. But she is just not the one.

She had deluded us with the classic "If we only have a few good nights, what have we got to lose? At least we will have that." It sounded good but rationalise as we will, there is nothing objective about love.

Tangles

Marlene was still good company whenever she came down from her hills and we were good for each other, sharing complaints, cuddles and laughs. Just listening to each other was a tonic. But her partially separated life made it impossible to develop a real relationship.

"I would love to make a lover of you, Marlene but I really can't see how. Not while you're still bringing up your son. Not while you're living it two ways," I reasoned, thinking it sealed the friendship and took the pressure off her. But her imagination was creating pressures of its own. Another surprise in store for this exploring senior single.

The emails criss-cross and the rejections mount up, along with some acceptances.

Phillipa, a part-Asian lady, meets me for lunch. She is chubby, chuckly, sweet smiling and acutely intelligent. In the old country she had been a chemical engineer. No boast, in time I would see the books on her shelves.

We enjoy each other's company, letting the barriers crumble at their own pace until we are comfortable kissing in the park like school kids. Her femininity is a power in its own right. This must be what pheromones are all about.

She invites me to a party with her ethnic group - tiny, gorgeous, welcoming, folk. She has chosen this night to make love with me and proves to be slow, calm and quietly appreciative, although taking few initiatives.

She refuses to sleep over, wanting to be home when her son and his wife arise. Reluctantly I kiss her goodnight, trying to smooth her hair which is five ways at once. This was to be our only love-making, the one that decided Holly's romantic fate with me.

Phillipa could have been The One but suddenly the love of my life is on the horizon. My attention will be fully occupied from now on.

Siren song

Circe's profile parallels mine. Similar family lives, dabblers in art and music, workers in related roles. She looks classy, demanding, expressive, confident. Her broad, symmetrical smile beams off the screen, captivating me.

The old insecurities! No way I can catch a girl who answers all my hopes so neatly! But I must try. She can only knock me back.

My email is timid and tentative but her response is forthright. "Of course we are doomed, we have way too much in common!" It became a prophecy, a heartbreaking prophecy.

Our phone introduction is lively and easy. Soon we meet for drinks. After a couple of rounds she is still hesitant, holding a lot back, toying with her keys and announcing time to go.

Seize the moment! "Circe, I think you are just fabulous, will you see me again?" More hesitation, a sideways look, lips slightly parted, keys dangling in mid pickup. For once, I shut up and wait, knowing there is nothing I can do to influence her decision.

"Alright," with a nod, "Why not?"

Our dinner date is a week later and we fill the gap with emails, disrupting each others' work, playing with words, flirting and revealing. From some deep, unknowable driver of my psyche, I just know she is the one. To my lasting regret, I never stop knowing.

We are the first to take a table and the last to leave. Anything one says triggers a lively response in the other. Five hours fly past. I am full of questions, genuinely fascinated by her. She listens actively, comparing broken marriages. I allude to various books, she has read them too. She has just experienced hypnotic regression. A lucid dream of herself as a roman soldier, who battled his way to pastoral retirement and peaceful death. I have read all about this stuff - we are off like the Melbourne Cup! Into mind-power, metaphysics, the mystery and uncharted potential inside every human skull. After closing time, we window shop to stretch the evening and the waiter chases us down the street with her forgotten bottle of wine. A contributor from the start, she brought the wine but we had been too pre-occupied to bother with it. What a find she is.

A sweet kiss goodnight, a repeat kiss to be sure and I will not see her till after a ten day visit to her daughter. Back into suspended animation. By phone text I contrive to pick her up from the airport. "Absolutely you are picking me up," she texts back, causing the first of many adrenaline jolts I will get from Circe.

The untangling

Now I am in stalling mode with three girlfriends. Marlene and Phillipa are intermittent anyway so my inner coward can wait to face them. Holly has been sustaining the romance with nightly phone calls but now I have made love with Phillipa and have hopes for Circe. It would be total hypocrisy to string the affair along. How to tell her? I have not been in this situation for over 30 years. Am I kidding? As a young bloke, I only ever had one girl at a time, between droughts. Uncharted, unprecedented territory.

I face the difficult conversation and return one of Holly's many messages. She has been a real friend, generous hostess, good company and an enthusiastic lover. Now I am going to hurt her.

She howls, she blames, she questions, "Why, why, why?" So much for the "What have we got to lose?" of two months before. She is sobbing and I am writhing. Apologies are useless, explanations empty. Holly has been gazumped and she knows it. How to soften the blow? She has my empathy and genuine affection. It is not her fault that she is not the one. Some things just is. I promise to maintain our friendship and to my surprise, that's what happened. There can be goodwill after an affair.

Holly is onto her third boyfriend since and seems about to settle down. I wonder if she is risking a mistake but that's her business. All I can be is a sounding board, ready to congratulate or console.

Thank you Holly for being the one who helped put me back together, a role that sophisticated city girls avoid. So sorry you were hurt. So glad you bounced back.

Marlene invites me to meet her at a friend's house. She has something to tell me and sits primly on a chair, rejecting my invitation to join me on the settee.

"I like you but we mustn't let things move too fast," she declares.

"Don't worry Marlene, I won't be a nuisance to you, in fact I think I have met the love of my life." See? No pressure, we can remain friends. Mature, objective, worldly.

Launching from her chair, Marlene collapses onto my chest, sobbing. Wondering what the hell, I hug her, stroking her hair.

"Just when I am starting to get close to you and introduce you to my friends, you are taken away from me," she wails. Did I miss something? She has never let me near her. She asked for friendship and I have been true to that.

"Marlene, you just didn't let me know. Why didn't you let me know?" Months later she remains a friend and is about to go travelling with her new man, taking the big risk at last. Go girl, let me know how it works out.

At the airport, leaning on a pillar, I watch Circe head for the luggage pickup. Her eyes scan the crowd, looking dismayed until I walk into her field of view, which lights up her face. How I would come to love that smile!

We are a little awkward, driving to her home, though she likes the little gift I bought for her. By way of thanks, she shout me to dinner. Again, we are such easy company, chatting away on chinese tea without even feeling the need for social lubricant. A real, grownup, self assured, independent, talented, charming woman who likes my company.

At her apartment, we toast our acquaintance till, at the polite time, I pick up my keys, thanking her for her company. Just so she knows where I stand, I venture, "Circe, if we ever get into bed, it will be spectacular. We are such good friends already."

Having risked that, it is definitely time to go.

"You know, I have been thinking about that," she replies, two arms suddenly round my neck and the smell of her skin making me dizzy. I already adore the woman, can this really be happening?

"You pass the kissing test at least," she decides. Do all single women have a check-list in their handbag? Who cares? I have passed so far. Press on.

We smooch on the couch, settle the condom question, agree for me to wait while she showers. I lay back, hands pressed together, almost praying, "Please don't let her change her mind."

Circe returns in a silken white robe and climbs astride me, letting me loosen the sash.

"Well that was a nice reaction," she laughs at my breath-taken response to her torso. Breasts of a teenager, skin like a baby, a little tummy flowing smoothly into her curves, imperfect enough to make her human, approachable, as I stroke her sides. She throws a towel at me and directs me into the shower. Yes, ma'am!

For five hours we made love, each giving and getting as good as the other, both surprised how long it lasts. That's a bonus of this stage of life. Although compounded by stage fright, my delayed climax is definitely to the woman's advantage. It is such a powerful pleasure to please a responsive woman! Circe jockeys the last ride and I have my first experience of female ejaculation. "What the bloody hell was that?" I ask, but she is in too mellow a mood to answer.

Over breakfast, she tells me it is called 'Amrita' launching my fascination with all things Tantric. It is a wonderful, natural, sexual supercharge and most women in western cultures are missing out big time!

We soon become quite expert at it. The moment is beyond conscious control but if a man really pleases his lover, she can ejaculate a special fluid, quite different to sperm and urine. It is produced in the Skeine's glands which line the urethra and it is absolutely gorgeous to touch. Tantric mystics believe it is healing to mind and body, clearing psychological blockages and often leading to sobs of joy and release. It certainly did for me.

As we drift into sleep I stroke her skin and blurt something that unnerves me, "Bless the living God who made you." Would Kipling have minded me twisting his words? Have I found religion? I simply, totally, uncontrollably adore her. Things gets curiouser.

At home, dazed, on the toilet, I put my head in my hands. Suddenly a startling howl fills the room. It is me I am hearing, as if from a third person. A howl erupting long and deep from an unknown source in my own persona. I sob for minutes, fat teardrops sploshing on the terrazzo. Freud, Yung and Shirley McLaine would have loved it.

Speculation, not explanation, is all I have to cling to. Perhaps it was, as Circe believed, a psychic clearance, a letting go of all the pentup frustration and anger of my marriage. The Amrita could have caused it. She accepts things metaphysical easily and she may be right. Or was it my stunned response to the girl of my dreams accepting me so passionately, in such total contrast to the marital decades of battered self esteem? Was it the notorious Primal Scream?

These explanations fail to satisfy me. All I can say is, it happened as described and shattered my illusions of control. In religious times, it might have inspired a revelation or vision. As an atheist, I know it was about me, even though I am struggling to understand. Making love with Circe dragged something deep out of my soul, challenging me to know myself as few ever get the chance to do. Over six months later, I still relive the awe of that moment and still wonder how to process it. If you have any insights, please let me know.

From then on, there is only Circe and my total commitment to our future together. She is the one.

Days later, Phillipa phones with her cheery trademark introduction, "Want some company?"

Truth time.

"Philli, I am so sorry but it looks as if I have found the love of my life and I am going to concentrate totally on her." She is icily brief. "Well, thank you for you advising me." Gone.

Hopes and plans

Circe and I are lucky with our timing and have the whole festive season free for each other.

Her place and mine, visiting friends, meeting relatives, buying gifts, making love under the stars, under the sun, in the sea and by the fire.

We start searching for a country property, calculating that if we lived together, the savings would pay for some modest acres.

The sexual surprises work for both genders as Circe and I explore each other. We read everything we can find on Tantric lovemaking, looking more for explanations than for tips and techniques. It is a relief to learn that my 'dry' orgasms are actually a hard-won skill in Tantric lore and not a flaw in my ageing anatomy. By restraining ejaculation, I can enjoy what we call 'girl comes' over and over, keeping the sex game in play for hours. It is deliriously good fun and we often emerge hungry and disbelieving of the clock, whole mornings lost in a blur.

In the half-consciouness before real sleep, my system becomes prone to 'bliss bombs', a name we had to invent for lack of any better information. Circe could bring me to an orgasmic state just by cuddling up, boobs in my back and warm breath on my neck. Some chemical or electrical phenomenon would race up and down my spine, curling my toes and shuddering my whole body. The feeling was related to 'someone just walked over my grave' but much more powerfully erotic, warm, ecstatic, soporific. Shiver me timbers.

Soon we would be sleeping together every day. Obviously the sexual honeymoon would settle down. It would have to for a normal life! But my happiness would be complete. And I would live to make Circe happy.

She phones me before work. "We should make the move sooner, rather than later. Move in as soon as you can. Why not? Everything is so right and we are too old to procrastinate." I melt inside. All my dreams and hopes are coming true and the future is glorious. I tell her as much, although memory of my exact reply is buried in an overload of bliss.