Burning Bright

(Melanie has insisted that I be utterly honest in what I thought and felt on this date, so I will abide that rule as best I can. It is not my fashion to be as frank as I think she wishes, but it'll turn out okay in the end. Promise.)

What Melanie may not know is that already have devised a score of reasons not to commit to her before I even meet her. Okay, so I have exactly three-her age, that she lives in Ohio when she is not at Bard, and that she is spending much of her summer in France or Ohio-and I only need these arguments because I am otherwise becoming rather infatuated with her sight unseen. She is eloquent and literate, sweet, funny, caring, scientific, sexy, polyglottal, brilliant, cute... I feel that I could grow to love her in time, a statement I do not make lightly or easily. I have this picture in my head of the perfect girl for me and it isn't Melanie, but it also doesn't matter. It wasn't Jen or Kate or Emily, and I loved them all. It wouldn't do to sit waiting for someone who does not exist when there is someone amazing who craves my company as I crave hers.

All of this suggests to me that I am in the grips of a fierce rebound crush, which may just be another excuse because, if this is real, I don't know what I will do. I have only ever before acceded at a chance at something authentic and lasting, at the seed of permanent romantic love. I have never had cause to resist it and have never witnessed genuine affection back down when confronted with the sword of logic. You may as well fight a fire with a frozen gasoline scepter for all the good it will do you. My exclamation of this was shouting at her every time she said something witty, "Be older!" though this quickly mellowed to giving her arbitrary and uncounted points for her multifarious virtues. Eventually, I just admitted to her that, were she a bit older, I would not have to see her to know that I wanted to be with her, and I meant it.

I enter the Campus Center at Bard, our designated meeting place, though I realize I will be unable to really recognize her amongst a sea of collegiate faces. She has only ever been two-dimensional, a series of letters and instant messages on my computer screen, the two photos she includes on her profile. I peeked at her Facebook when she added me and, while some of her pictures are very pretty, some looked too young (a playground behind you will do that) and one was unattractive (though this was largely owing to the monster face

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