You can check all the boxes, but you can't call it done.

When someone looks good in person and on paper, and is very interested in you, and you think you would want someone that looks good in person and on paper, most sane people would go for it.  Wouldn't they?  Well, you can consider me certifiably crazy, because I have again squashed my own "hope" (and his) of entering into a relationship with a previously mentioned admirer http://pukkapurl.blogspot.com/2010/03/plucking-daisy-petals-is-little-like.html.

He thinks his career is holding me back from the fray, but I don't think it is.  I could totally get on board with his traveling career, and I would trust him until I had reason not to.  So what's the problem, more to the point, what's my problem? 

I'm all about someone's vibe, and I don't know that our vibes match.  We have been exchanging e-mails over the last month or so, but he rarely engages me in subjects that spark my interest.  He mostly tells me where he is and then compliments me.  Don't get me wrong, I want to hear where he is, but after a while, its just another place.  And, everyone likes to hear compliments, but even those, if too frequent, start to fall on deaf ears.  

My last boyfriend told me that he looks for a partner who brings something to the table, someone who challenges him, someone who engages him, someone who teaches him something about life.  Someone that could add to his character (or something close to that).  I sort of took issue with his concept that I had to make him grow, because I believe we are individually responsible for becoming our own well rounded person.  I may now see his point to some degree.  (Note to the EXB:  If you are reading this -- and I know you will -- you should remember that I always tried to see your point of view -- after the fire was extinguished ;) 

I don't think it is someone else's responsibility for me to grow in any dimension, but I do welcome people in my life who open themselves up to me, sharing their feelings, their interests, their insights into the passions which they pursue, their day to day goings on, etc.  And, I am really attracted to people who have a great deal of interest in life in general.  I can appreciate a person's interest in one field of play, work or thought, but if it is a truly limited interest that I don't happen to share, their excitement for that passion doesn't hold the same weight with me, and I will start looking for their deeper appreciation and how it relates to life.  This is what I'm lacking from the situation at hand.  I know he loves his career, because he has sacrificed a lot to have it.  But, I don't feel I know him on the level that I need to know him, in order to fan the flame.  Thus, the cause of an extinguished ember of possibility. 

I honestly would rather be alone with my books, my garden, my gym time, my friends and family, than to try to force love like a flower bulb in winter. 

He took my decision graciously and extended an olive branch of friendship, which I will be happy to accept.  He has always professed a love for my rather extensive e-mails, so who am I to deprive him of those ; )

Don't think I haven't tried to be satisfied with having 98% of the boxes checked, because I have.  I have tried to like him in that way for quite some time, but I never liked him in the way that I liked my EXB and before I experienced that standard changing relationship, I always had the nagging knowing that Mister 98% wasn't for me.  Since he is amazing in his own right, I know that he was meant for someone else and I hope he finds her before the next star shoots across a midnight sky. 

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