Cougarling: Epilogue

I said in my last post about the cougarling’s visit that he never replied to the ‘thank you’ email I sent him a few days after we parted.

I was concerned that I’d left him with hurt or anger or bad feelings, and thought that his lack of reply may have been a reflection of that.

But he did reply, finally, and long after I had reconciled myself to not hearing from him again.

I was surprised, not least because it was super sweet, lovely.

At my best, I hope that men I have had in my life in some capacity are happy to have known me. I don’t always achieve that, of course. That’s impossible. I have had men declare that they thought I was nice or kind, but I’m not at all. If someone does wrong by me, refuses to respect me or my boundaries, behaves poorly towards me, I’m not understanding or sweet about it. Because a big fat ‘aw hell no’ to that.

But for those who make it into my life in any real capacity, where we each do our best even if it goes nowhere, I want them to leave with good feelings for whatever it was that we shared. Part of that is ego, if I’m honest. Feeding myself the idea that I’m an amazing person who sprinkles happy-domly fairy-dust on everything I touch because of all the awesome I am. Part of it is guilt, which I feel keenly about everything forever and always, and often for no reason. And part of it is that if I spend time with someone, it’s because they are fine men with wonderful qualities and I don’t want them to regret investing their time and energy in me.

And in light of all of that, I was happy to get something thoughtful and positive from the cougarling, even if it was a month or so after the fact (a delay for which he apologised).

He said he’d enjoyed our time together, agreed that it wasn’t the crazy play-fest we had hoped for, and had an explanation for his withdrawal which was different from what I’d felt in the moment. He also had lovely-hot things to say about the play we did have and I’m glad about that.

He closed with this:

I remember our very first meeting and how I smiled to myself as this tall, slim, beautiful and smiling woman was walking toward the table where I was sitting. It was the same feeling I got when you stepped out of your car at the airport to pick me up. You are a very beautiful, unique and stunning woman. Any person you allow into your life is indeed very lucky.

*happy sigh*

So we did well, he and I, in navigating this ‘let’s do casual’ thing that didn’t really work so well. We gave it a go, did our best to be kind, and each walked away thinking well of the other.

I can’t ask for more than that.