A Letter to My Love

A love letter to my hypothetical wife

My Love,

I’m writing you because I’ve decided to quit online dating. No more OKCupid, no more Match.com, and nothing more than a flirtation with HowAboutWe.

For several years, I thought my words would convince you to respond to my messages. I rewrote my profile so many times. Each version was great, but I never found you, or you didn’t respond. I’ve tortured myself trying to sell the man that I am, the father and husband I would be.

I’m a writer, and words are my life. Musicians experience the world as a cascading bar of notes, and I experience the world as a composition of language and syntax. My life force – my energy, faith, hope, joy, and so many other emotions – are in my words. I’m so thankful to see the world this way. It’s beautiful. I know you see the world in your own beautiful way.

I’m going to stop using my words to find you now, though. That doesn’t mean I won’t put some effort into finding you. I’ll make the effort when we interact in person. I’ll bring the extra-large umbrella to our date with a 30% chance of rain. I’ll look goofy – it probably won’t rain – but I’ll be ready when a raindrop lands on your cheek. I’ll wipe it off and probably kiss you before we actually use the umbrella, but I wouldn’t dream of missing that opportunity.

I’ll text you when I know you’re asleep, just to say that your favorite episode of Castle is on TV. I won’t be able to sleep after getting home. Getting my heart rate down after seeing you will take some time.

I’ll remember your friends’ names, even if they’re still suspicious of my intentions. I’ll wait to drive away until you’ve entered your apartment building just in case a caped crusader runs by to steal you away. I’ll let you win at euchre, until you’ve figured out when to throw off-trump 9s. I’ll wear an extra layer in case you’re cold and I want to offer my jacket. Corduroy, tweed with elbow patches, these are both stylish and warm.

This will all start on the first date, by the way. None of it is meant to pressure you. I’m like this because it’s important to be these things – thoughtful, chivalrous, courteous, romantic, etc. – at all times. I want to be such a man and treat women with this respect whether or not we make it past the first date. In all settings really, I’ll offer my coat to anyone that looks cold!

As much as we’re flawed humans limited to be our best only sometimes and care about being our best only with certain people, I want to be my best all the time. I like this quote from Cameron Conaway, who says “Good men are made in moments...some are of astounding stress, most are mundane...these moments all congeal, and at the end of a man’s life people mull around a casket...and say or think: ‘he was a good man.’”

I don’t mean to be morbid. I just mean to say that I want to be a good man. A man who acts with honor and love in all settings. My words will not convince you to love me. My actions will. Because, that’s what I want, after all; I desperately want to fall in love. I don’t understand how anything could be more fulfilling than being in love with someone and them to be in love with you.

I’ve thought for a while that I had to be deliberate about finding you. I’ve thought that if love wasn’t a proactive agenda item – a top priority – it would never arrive. Thinking about leaving online dating and not doing something deliberate to find love makes me fatalistic because only negative things seem to happen when I don't put the work in myself.

I’m scared I’ll never meet you. I’m introverted. I’m trying to focus on being a good friend to a small group of people And frankly, that’s exhausting. Between grad school and other obligations, I’m worried I won’t have the energy to be at the same public place as you one fateful day. Would it be possible for you to carry around a yellow umbrella or have Bob Saget give me clues from the future?

I would’ve addressed this letter to “The One.” But, I don’t believe in that, or rather her. And yet, I’m still picturing a specific woman. I don't have a vivid image of you, but you're so many amazing things all at once. Kind and selfless above all (I do have a tendency to date nurses). Maybe, I’m just writing to “the woman (women?) I will fall in love with someday.” So, for now, I’ll think of you as “my love.”

I hope that I meet you. I hope that I meet you soon. With God’s timing, of course, but it’s so hard to grasp His will when He won’t tell me what kind of growing I need to do before I meet you. A list would be nice. “Stop being so anal about this, you jerk.” “Learn to just shut your brain off and enjoy the moment, you Energizer Bunny nutcase.” That kind of thing. I could focus on the right types of growing and speed this whole thing up.

I hope that you exist. That sounds weird to write, and unusual to think, but God’s will might not involve you. I may have been born for an important purpose that doesn’t include falling in love – just living with the love of Christ and loving my neighbor as myself, with Jesus walking at my side You may be a figment of my imagination. A green dock lamp forever lit in the foggy distance.

I’ve got to let you go for now, my love. At least for now. I need to stop writing to find you in every cute woman’s virtual profile. But, you better believe I’m going to chase after and do other ridiculous things to ask women out in real life, if I think they might be you.

Wishing you nothing but the best, my love;

Gordon