HELL: Nothing but feelings

Within 10 minutes he'd described his feeling of anticipatory anxiety in watching me walk briskly toward the door as his date for the evening; his tenderly reluctant feeling in mentioning that I'd been 10 minutes late; his relieved feeling that I had quickly apologized for being late; his anxiety again, wondering what I thought of his appearance; his reluctance again in having mentioned his anxiety about his appearance, which might have been too much insecurity to share on a first date; and his mixed emotions about having agreed to Indian food for dinner, considering his experience with a woman named Sylvia.

I'd wanted to date a man who wasn't afraid to express his feelings.

His name was Paul, and he was the first man I'd met online who mentioned an Eastern European family background, like mine, though not exactly. Having borscht and blintzes in common was a plus. Perhaps he could help me reclaim my long-lost interest in colorful wax-decorated Easter eggs. Or at the very least help me to understand my recurring childhood nightmare about hiding, shivering, in a huge stone church.

There were three Sylvias in Paul's complicated past life, it turned out. As I chewed on a stubbornly crunchy piece of puffed bread and tasted bits of fried eggplant, Paul described how he'd dated the first, who'd left him, the second, whom he'd left after she acted crazy, and the third, whom he'd loved but for some reason didn't love him.

He shared lots of feelings about the third Sylvia, how they'd started out dating, her moods, his moods, how things had become complicated, and yet toward the end of the story -- which was never quite the end -- I still was confused about the connection with Indian food. This confusion is new for me, I told him, since I'm a journalist accustomed to getting the facts in interviews. He laughed.

The night wasn't over. As I picked at the leftovers of my tandoori chicken, realizing I'd hardly said anything, Paul told me a story about his father. It was a long story, and it had something to do with war, and barbed wire, and a confession in a snowstorm, and I once again lost track of all the details because by then I had realized that despite our mutual love of the Danube River, I didn't want to be stuck in a boat on the Danube or anywhere else with Paul. Our meal over, I gave him a comradely kiss on the cheek and said goodbye.

-- Alice Lipowicz, Washington, D.C.

HEAVEN: "Lovely weirdo wanted"

I returned to Salon and Nerve.com after a few dubious experiences on other sites. I was already dating someone casually, but I wanted something more. I was completely fed up with everybody being so damn casual all the time. I was idly checking out profiles one day, thinking I would only reply to someone really perfect. "Lovely weirdo wanted" read one headline -- it seemed promising. He was looking for someone who didn't mind reading subtitles or watching silent movies. I replied: "Subtitles read here."

His picture caught my eye immediately. He was a cute Jewish boy with a tattoo of an ant on his arm. Something about the way his shirt sleeves were rolled up made him look tough, but it turned out he wasn't tough at all. He was the most gentle person I've ever met, and the sweetest.

I was a bad, bad girl the first night we met. I cut our dinner short, pleading fatigue, to go over to a backup guy's house. I was distracted and couldn't remember much of our conversation. I was afraid I talked too much about myself, which was a novelty, since 90 percent of the guys I met never asked me a single question about myself.

But he seemed nice, so I gave him another chance, and another, and tried to give him a chance to talk. I was suspicious at first, because he didn't have a car, which is nearly against the law in L.A., and he did have a poodle, which surely should be against the law. And it wasn't a good-looking poodle, either.

But he turned out to be both gentle and sexy. His ex-girlfriend came and took the poodle away for a while. He seemed quiet at first but turned out to be fun to talk to. And he had the amazing habit of noticing everything I liked -- he saw what kind of coffee I had at my house and bought some for his house. He saw how I mixed two cereals together and prepared it that way while I was in the shower.

At first I was afraid it was all too much. But he was growing on me. He was crazy about me, and he was cute, so what could I do? I watched him get a new tattoo. We both picked out the same one -- a red, blue and green compass -- at the same time. That night he unloaded my dishwasher, and I fell in love. I keep worrying I'm not weird enough for him.

"You may not know it," he says, "but you're weird, and you're lovely."

-- "Patty Berlin," Los Angeles

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