MY MAN

I read this beautiful piece of writing that I had stumbled upon by a guy called Charles Warnke and thought I'd have a stab at a retort. I found the original sad yet moving, also.
It's essentially an Ode to the one that got away.

You Should Date Boy Who Doesn't Smile

Date a boy who doesn’t smile. Find him in the booth in the furthest corner of the bar, drinking his beer, looking over walls of drunken sweat, fingers playing whilst he considers if it’s been long enough since he last left for a cigarette. Pick him because he has that attitude that you crave for so much; nonchalant, blasé. Give him those eyes you use to attract attention; accept his pick up lines and laugh politely. When the night is through, agree to his offer to walk you home. Let him kiss you in the rain because that is what they do in the movies and when you reach your door, let him in. Forget making love. He’ll fuck you.

As days turn into nights, let yourself fall awkwardly and unintentionally into a relationship. You’ll find that you have similar interests like liquorice and reggae music. Make those shared interests a fort that you will return to any time a small shadow of doubt creeps over your mind. Don’t think too much and talk about things that don’t matter at all. Months will pass. Agree to move in with him. Decorate. Fight about things that really don’t matter like whose turn is it to empty the fucking dishwasher. Let a year pass unnoticed.

Go to dinner with him in that expensive restaurant you’ve always wanted to try. When the waiter brings you a glass of champagne with a modest ring inside it try to muster all the happiness in your body and push it into your face with a covering glaze of sincerity. Don’t be alarmed by the feeling of your heart falling out of chest and being stamped on, or even if there is no feeling at all. If you cry – keep smiling.

Let the years go by. Quit your job, have three wonderful children and commit yourself to the school run. Raise them as best as you can – no doubt you’ll fail more than once. Fall into a bored indifference. Let him have his mid-life crisis whilst you take up pottery classes or have book club meetings with your girl friends. Die, but only after you realise that the boy who didn’t smile never made your heart oscillate with any true feeling and passion, that no one will write about your story and that he’ll have died, too, with only a slight regret that nothing ever came of his ability to love.