"I really like you."

“I really like you,” he said.
Then he bit my hand.
Why was I annoyed? Perhaps because I didn’t feel that hand-biting was an appropriate form of expressing emotion. After all, we weren’t animals; we were civilized human beings with vocal chords and rapidly-firing synapses that gave us the ability to express ourselves with words instead of with our teeth.
Why was I annoyed? Was it really him, this sweet man, so naïve yet so well-versed, a student of music, poetry, the human condition, that made me want to jump out of my skin and run away? He brought me flowers, bought me dinner, stopped on every street corner to shower me with kisses, and constantly told me how beautiful I was. Could I really be so annoyed with him that I would be willing to end it?
Yes.
When I told a friend that I had ended the budding relationship because I knew it wasn’t going to last, she told me I thought too much and just needed to go with the flow.
“But Tara, you can’t date everyone,” I exclaimed, and I believe it to be true.
There are many fish in the sea, and fishing is some people’s favorite pastime, but in all reality, you cannot possibly date everyone. If that were the case, people would be getting married constantly, finding their loved ones early in life, in the first person they dated. Why doesn’t that happen? Because something doesn’t work out: either your goals and expectations are different, or at least one person just isn’t feeling the same sort of connection.
Why would you want to? What could possibly be so great about having a lineup of people that you like and like you? What would you do to choose, if you refused to pick out what you didn’t like in any of them? How could you ever find one if you were stuck with many?
In the meantime, hand-biters beware. I can’t just go with the flow, and you aren’t on my acceptance list.