No Guarantees

Having gone public with gone fishing I have heard reports of a strange phenomenon called The Rebound, my understanding of which leads me to believe it would be a less than peachy experience. Seeing as I am not up for anything that falls short of peachy in my current frame of mind methought further investigation would be required.

As with all things that require further investigation, I googled it. And evidently The Rebound is quite a well understood phenomenon as Google took only 0.51 seconds to return 63,000,000 results. I didn't feel inclined to check them all so I ignored 62, 999, 995 of them. From the rest I gained some useful insights. And some not so useful ones too.

Useful: "If you spend most of your time thinking about your previous relationship, feeling sad and questioning where things went wrong, you are probably experiencing a rebound relationship."

"What relationship?" I queried. Fifteen years with Him Formerly might count as a relationship on a technical level and yes, as evidenced within these blogs I have done a lot of feeling sad and questioning where things went wrong. However, during my time of my soul-searching, anguish and recovery, Him Formerly has made it a whole lot easier for me to get over the shock by revealing a whole host of colours I never knew existed. Or at least didn't see. Him Formerly is not The Bear I started a relationship with. No, no. The Bear left the scene a long time ago - he just neglected to tell me and I had my fingers in my ears anyway.

Not Useful: Send off $39.99 for your Guide to Avoiding A Rebound, Guaranteed.

Useful: "Check your compatibility with anyone you want to embark on a new relationship with."
"Ok" I replied and got out my checklist.

Good looking. (No, I am not that shallow but a certain amount of physical attraction or chemistry is important if you intend to swap body fluids with someone. Otherwise you might gag. Or retch. Which could prove embarrassing for both parties.) Check. In fact, C.H.E.C.K.
Good talker. Check.
Emotionally intelligent. Check.
Good listener. Check.
Good listener (well, I talk a lot so it's better to be doubly sure.) Check.
Trustworthy. Scary as it might seem, Check.
Good sense of humour. Check. PMSL. Check. Need a Tena Lady. Check.
Good with dogs. Check. Check. Check.
Creative. Check.
Intelligent. Check.
Too bloody intelligent for his own good. Check.
Knows he's too bloody intelligent for his own good. Check
Good at knowing what you're thinking before you say it. Check.
Good at being an all round good guy in a too-good-to-be-true-so-it-probably-isn't-so-take-off-your-rose-tinted-specs-kind of way. Check.

Not Useful: Send off $39.99 for your Guide to Avoiding A Rebound, Guaranteed.

There are no guarantees. I can't promise you I am not experiencing The Rebound. I can only promise you I have gone into it with eyes wide open and scale free. And I can't promise Project: Life Changing won't see any more tears. But there is always the possibility they might be tears of joy.

Like those shed when Mr Too-Good-To-Be-True witnessed me stamp my feet and shout "I want a pony." He heard what I said and handed me a Unicorn.

Yours in hope & fear, AJ x