Loving the unlovable meets the love that dare not speak its name

This has been going on for 2 years. It has never been a transactional sort of arrangement, but just this week. I receive a gift. An unmarked CD of songs that apparently remind him of me. How romantic. I find a time when I am all alone driving and relish the message that it brings. But wait. All the songs, it turns out one by one, are trans-global tales of Hapless females being done wrong by dirt bag philandering males. This isn't how I see myself or how I wish to be seen. It is, if I let myself think about it, somewhat demeaning. I am, if not crushed, strangely unsettled, unconsoled, and disappointed.

Then tears prick my eyes at the thought of just how compromised I have become, that I would yearn for human contact, appreciation, love, being fully willing to return it to someone who cannot do the same for me.

Yet to be given this, this offering.

He urges me to tap my feet to it, and not read too much into it. I guess there are people out there who don't really listen to the lyrics of songs.

I recall a time almost half a life ago, when a fellow at work developed an admiration for me. He was a good looking young chap, and he too had a girlfriend and he too expressed his pent-up, unexpressable emotions by sending me a tape of songs. Loving those who cannot love me back has been a theme of my life. Played out in return, in these instances, by a love that dare not speak its name.