Love Is Stranger Than Fiction

"I'm gonna blow this damn candle out
I don't want nobody coming over to my table
I got nothing to talk to anybody about..."

-Joni Mitchell, "The Last Time I Saw Richard"

We lesbians often wingwalk from one relationship to the next, rarely unpacking baggage and expecting the new, improved love to clean up all the shit the villainous ex left behind.
Everyone knows shit needs to dry out a bit before it's swept up, else it smears all over the place.
Yet we persist in trying.
Rebounding is not a red flag in our community, it's a sacrament.
So immersed are we in the concept of "having the ideal lover," we often scramble for the recently single lesbian, knowing she won't be on the market for long.
How whacked is that?
When my lover and I split for the final, intractable time in October, I thought the idea of getting someone else's DNA on my bed linens and myself as soon as possible would provide the only relief I needed.
I started dating a local woman, and I almost settled for someone who was into football, country music and lots of social drinking, none of which interest me in the least.
Sweet as she was, all we did was knock back Crown Royal and talk about our exes, and that as you may know, is like sprinkling silica gel in your pants.
I have learned that when new interests trigger old responses, it means I am not as healed as I thought I was.
I spent a year dealing with a woman who could not exorcise the ghost of her horrendous ex lover. Her name came up far too often, yet I was unwilling to walk away and say "come back when you are over this" because I was afraid she'd never come back.
So I tolerated it all year and when we broke up, guess where she went? Straight back into her ex lover's flabby arms.
There was a lesson to be learned there, and if I didn't learn it, it's my own damn fault.
So my candle is out for now, and so is romance until I can find someone who isn't still sticky from her ex lover's fraudulent kisses, and still believes in her ridiculous alibis.