Now that three months have passed since THIS happened, people have been more comfortable asking me how I feel about dating, love, and the like. Here’s the thing. This? This time right now? This is my favorite part.  After a handful of broken hearts and a fistful of failed relationships, I’ve come to know that the time right after a breakup is when I’ve made some of the most incredible discoveries of self.  I’m alone. I celebrate it.

Still, I become enamored with people very easily and often, and my unrealistic imagination fires up fantasies accordingly. “Unrealistic” in that I assume that they, too, are enamored with me, as if the world was put here for me to fall in love with, and vice-versa. By the time the wavy-haired boy at the library has broken his one second of eye contact, I’ll have concocted our adorable, witty repartee in my head.  (Reality?  I probably just had mustard on my face. And he walks away.)   Inexplicably, I do this ALL THE TIME, with complete strangers, guys I know or have known. And Bess, that flibbertygibbet, she’ll feed into it. I’ll say, “I haven’t heard from so-and-so in a while…” you know, someone with whom I’ve manufactured a make-believe romance, and she’ll respond with something like, “Do you think it’s because he finds it too difficult, because he’s discovered his true feelings for you?” Dead serious, like it’s not hard enough for me to stay tethered to earth on a daily basis.  It’s incredible and hilarious. Or possibly just narcissistic and sad. I’m not sure.   I mean, I also fall hopelessly in love with things.  Like Mozart concertos, or a good hollandaise.  Logic dictates that I just shouldn’t throw around the word love when talking about a clarinet quintet or a basic emulsion but I swear to God,  it’s pretty damn close. And much longer lasting. (You hear me, Billy Collins? Yeah, I know ya do.)

Jesus. What was my point here. I’m not even sure now.

Inevitably, if someone intrigues me, I’ll start stalking them online, not in a creepy rabbit-in-the-stew-pot way, but in a if-you-list-The-DaVinci-Code-as-one-of-your-favorite-books-I’ll-know-to-just-stop-now way.  I was flipping through one such person’s photography today, and something stopped me when I came across one particular image of a woman he knew. Holy crap. He was in LOVE with her. You could tell by the photo.  The composition and the light and…everything. He was in LOVE with this girl. He was NOT going to be giving me any glances, not even for one second.

It reminded me of the shot of Judy Garland in Meet Me in St. Louis, at the end of the song “The Boy Next Door.” It was during this film that Vincente Minnelli, the director, and Judy had fallen in love. And man, can you TELL. Minnelli constantly frames Judy like she’s a moving painting.*

Yep. Perhaps we could trace the origins of my romantic frivolities back to the first viewing of that last, insanely diffused shot.

*It should be pointed out that although Minnelli was a pretty private man, he seemed to live a predominantly gay lifestyle.  So it’s possible he didn’t “love” Judy in “that way,” and instead managed to fulfill every gay man’s dream by directing a film with Judy Garland. That’s good enough for me. If I can’t be on the opposite end of someone’s insanely obvious infatuation, I could stand to be a gay icon.