Dear J: My Other SOs
Hi [J].
Wow, you seem to have a knack for asking “loaded” questions. 
No problem though. And I will answer fully and honestly, every question you have about my past relationships. I place a premium value on honesty, as you seem to. I will NEVER lie to you. There may be some omissions in these stories. But not because I’d be trying to hide anything. It is just that there is so much to tell, that missing important information becomes very easy. It is not intentional.
There have probably been about 4 to 6 “significant” relationships, since my [first love]. By “significant” I mean a relationship in which there seemed, at least initially, to be a mutual connection, as you might put it. None have lasted move than 10 months. And they all ended, very generally speaking, because of one or more of the following:
• Some partners were discovered to be dishonest and therefore, untrustworthy.
• Some were ambivalent in so far as seeing only me was concerned. Several of them liked going out with me. But they also liked dating around. And I didn’t like that, especially after several months of dating them had elapsed. One of them even concealed the fact that she was sleeping with someone else from me, until I visited her apartment one night, and noticed some of “his” paraphernalia in her bedroom. G-O-N-G!!!
• Differing aspirations. One lady, Hane, about 7 months into our monogamy, decided that she wanted to have children, in the worst way. Well, since kids have never been a desire of mine, we were never able to find a win-win answer to that difference in our long-term aspirations for the relationship. And so, we parted, and last I knew, she is now married with two children. I wish her the best.
• Some were flagrantly irresponsible. One case in particular: In late 1997, I became enthralled with a beautiful woman from Ohio ( named [Vee]). We emailed and talked on the phone for about 6 months, and in February, last year, I flew to Dayton to meet her. I really thought I had found my soul mate then, we had a couple of those dreamy dates. And at the air port as I departed at the end of the week, we both cried. We then started to make plans to be together, and she was considering a move to Philly. But there were many, many strings, and the situation was quite complicated. Anyway, we decided that I would go to Dayton again in May to visit her. But when I got there, she never showed up at the rendezvous point, and I had to turn around and come home without knowing where she was or what had happened to her.
She could not be reached at her home for 4 days after that. When she finally did answer, she had NO answers and avoided talking to me. Well, I let it go. About a month later, she called back, all apologetic, and had invented this ridiculous story about how the guy she was living with (one of those complications I mentioned) had kidnapped her and took her to Tennessee the morning she was supposed to meet me. She had trouble answering the most basic questions about the incident, and I was firmly convinced that she was lying. Well, I ended that relationship last summer. Again, G-O-N-G!!!
Ask away, if you have more specific questions. I’ll be happy to answer them all.
More later . . .
