More time than he's worth? Look again.

I wrote in April of my increased ability to maybe not forgive but certainly quickly forget boys. I had taught myself to pick apart a young man with the skill and precision of the finest surgeons in the world. With my scalpel in hand -- or eye or ear -- I had the ability to quickly decide that a guy was not what he had appeared to be and that I would be better off not wasting my time or attention on him any longer. I also predicted that this would be a dangerous thing.

Turns out I was worried for nothing. Apparently I also have the ability to pinch myself and remember that people are more than they appear and they can certainly be more than just the sum of desirable (and undesirable) parts.

My new boyfriend Chris is proof that a guy can be more than you'd ever imagined. When he took those first steps up to my house, I got worried. He wore a fitted cap; something I considered, as the result of having two male cousins who purposefully bent their brims and adjusted size of the hat with Velcro strips, odd and possibly a sign that the wearer considered himself gangster (or gangsta as I've so disdainfully been reminded by peers). I don't do gangster/a.

Despite this, I reminded myself of his mastery of words so beautifully displayed in those OKCupid messages and texts. This was a guy worth taking a closer look at.

But isn't everyone? I guess one could argue that with as busy as our world is, as much as we juggle on a daily basis, it is uneconomical to spend an hour on someone we're pretty sure, five minutes in, is all wrong for us.

I don't know. I have always sort of given guys who seem all wrong for me more time than most girls probably would. And while, for instance, learning how O.U.A.T.B. rolled was by no means a waste of time, I have certainly spent more than a few hours on guys I wish I'd never bothered with.

This is how we learn, I suppose; the way we discover what's right and what's wrong -- at least for us in terms of relationships. And who would deny themselves an opportunity for growth?

And I have grown. I have learned from every botched relationship -- some of them lessons like: the pasture isn't always greener on the other side and some guys really just like to play games without concern for the heart attached to those strings they're pulling.

Best of all, I have seen hearts of gold in people who are a little -- forgive the overused expression -- rough around the edges. And I'm a lot different from the girl who loved Ben Swann, the kindergarten heartthrob who crushed on the thumb-sucker. Amen to that.

As it turns out, Chris is far from gangster/a. He's kind of a big softy while maintaining a knack for brutal honesty. He's even self-actualized enough that, had I not seen it with girlfriends, he would have sat through Sex and the City 2 with me.

I can only hope that my family will have a good first impression -- and that my cousins don't break his back over the fitted hat.


(The above photo is of Carrie Bradshaw and Mr. Big in Sex and the City 2. The photographer is Craig Blankenhorn. Source: allmoviephoto.com)