So where was I? Oh, right, D’s. He and I spent a lot of time over the next few weeks alternately forming a mutual-admiration society and driving each other crazy.

He proved to be just as quirky, intense and difficult as I initially suspected. Allow me to count the ways (btw, he knows I’m writing this, so don’t worry that I’m dissing him behind his back. Believe me, he likes the attention):

• He is all for reckless abandon as long as you use a coaster and don’t step on his rug with your shoes.
• In pretty much every situation, he likes to decide what will happen, when it will happen, and how it will happen (some would call this behavior controlling.)
• He is enormously vain and his bathroom is filled with a plethora of mysterious metrosexual potions ( Plethora is one of his favorite words, but don’t hold that against him.)
• Aside from the Fresca/vodka concoction he consumes regularly, he is vehemently anti-carbohydrate; this is especially frustrating at about 11pm, when you really, really want some Haagen-Dazs and all you can find is turkey salami.
• He thinks he’s funnier than I am, which is not funny–or true. Our debate on this matter turned into a shouting match of  “I’m funnier!” “No, I’m funnier!!” (I know, we’re both insane.) Then we settled down and shared a protein bar.

And that’s the tip of the “quirky, difficult” iceberg. However, he also did things that redeemed his impossibleness to some degree:

• He lavished me with compliments, frequently calling me  “hot,” “leggy,” and “brilliant,” as well as a “babe” and a “goddess”–and, sheesh, how do you tear yourself away from that, I ask you?
• He makes excellent omelets, even though you can’t have toast with them.
• He is the least-smelly man I have ever known (see potions, above.)
• He made a little video dedicating a waterfall to me; it was funny and sweet.
• He’s a fan of e.e. cummings and Charles Bukowski and often read their poems to me over the phone.

And now that I have devoted–what, five posts to this guy?!–it’s time to bid him farewell. He goes down in history as the perfect rebound guy for me, but I hope it’s clear that a steady diet of him would have sent me to an early grave. One thing I never felt around him was calm.

After a couple of months, things drifted into a friends-with-benefits type of arrangement and then into friends-sans-benefits.

In fact, D stopped by the other day and we had tea in my backyard. It was almost like having a tame cup of coffee with a nice man.  Almost.