...but does he LIKE like her?

What year is it? For a number of reasons I feel like I'm back in high school again. Of my group of regular friends and correspondents it seems a large number of us are recently separated or divorced or between significant others. And some of the conversations I've been involved in are straight out of third period.

(The names have been changed to protect the hapless.)

It seems that Suzie likes Joe. But even though Joe likes Suzie, he also likes Joanie. Joanie likes Joe as a friend but really isn't looking for a boyfriend and Suzie would really like a steady beau. But Joe doesn't want a committed relationship although he really likes Suzie... and Joanie.

And I'm the doofus who is passing notes for them between periods.

Then there is Bill. Bill seems to date a different girl every week. All of his friends welcome the new girls and take the time to learn their names. We all encourage Bill and the girls all seem nice. Yet, by sometime mid-week they've broken up and he's on to the next one. What I'm wondering is how he keeps getting his class ring back?

Then there is the case of Debbie and Rick who were friends of Elaine and Mike. When Elaine and Mike broke up Debbie and Rick stayed out of it. Until one day Mike got a call from Debbie wondering if she and Rick could hang out with Mike. Mike said, "Sure. C'mon over." Later on Mike found out that Elaine has been hanging out with Debbie and Rick and she was sending them to Mike's to spy on him. Which Mike thought was funny because Debbie and Rick would have been the first people Mike's hung out with since Elaine left.

And the high school analogy is apt. I mean, I'm 56 years old and actually found myself saying, "I know he likes her - but does he like like her?" What the hell's wrong with me?

At this stage of our lives you'd think the whole dating, courtship rituals would have sorted themselves out in our heads, would have begun to make some sense, and we would have a procedure for this stuff. This is, after all, the generation that gave the world the inter-web, right?

But it seems that the spark between people, that certain something that excites us and makes us act all goofy, does not go away with age. I don't truly remember the extent of my own high school goofiness but I'm sure it didn't have anything on the me of today. Recently, I've begun to think of it not so much as a spark as a short circuit.

Whatever it is, though, and however goofy it may make us seem, it is this spark between two people that brings us back to life when our prior "true love" ends. It provides us with a reason to look forward to tomorrow and to be happy today.

To quote Bobby Vinton:

Only love can break a heart... and only love can mend it again.



Now if my face would just clear up!

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