Do wine and beer mix?

"Let me put it this way: You're wine and art galleries; I'm beer and NASCAR," uttering it with just the right ratio of gentleness to sternness the way you'd let a child down with ease, but let them down none the less.

My face turned into a question mark. I couldn't understand. Then it flashed, strong as quicksilver, narrow eyes and tight mouth. When someone tells me that I can't do something, mustn't do something, I become as petulant and single-minded as a child.

"Can't someone like wine and go to NASCAR," I retorted? "Well . . . they can, it just doesn't happen like that usually," he countered, staggering his words like Jimmy Stewart.

Swift had been pursuing me for a while, but in contrast was like a shimmering silver moon fish, entrancing yet elusive. He would tell me five times a day in different ways how much he missed me, then he'd retreat via text, "I can't do this."

He wanted me, wanted an "us" but couldn't accept that he was a blue collar guy and I was "privileged." These perceptions all his, impenetrable as stone. Untrue.

Some days we'd waste time talking about nothing of any consequence--something I loathed and he enjoyed--other days we'd layer one discussion over another making the most mouthwatering of intellectual trifles. I’d float to sleep lulled by "night, baby" cooed slow and rich like sweet cream.

But from the beginning, he said it wasn’t going to work and it didn’t. We parted.
Was I wrong? Or was he spot-on right?

When I learned that he was a truck driver, I’ll admit I flinched. I’ll admit I found the fact he had trained as a chef more fascinating. But I was also open to finding out who he was. But how open? Several times the thought crossed my mind that if this worked, he’d have to meet family, friends. What would they think? He assumed I’d be “humbled” by meeting some of his tribe, a vein of thought I found insulting.

Was I blind to think that we were just two people getting to know each other? With some commonalities and some differences, navigating and negotiating?

He prickled upon discovering I didn’t golf, didn’t fish and didn’t like fish boils. I became irked that he scoffed at my like of theatre, upscale restaurants and the social aspects of my profession.

But we both despised laziness, loved camping and cooking, could spend hours in front of a healthy fire and are Nazi-like in search of good service. We both believed in people taking personal responsibility and felt passion in one's life ranked high.

I thought there was potential there; I would not have agreed to a beginning if I saw at end so quickly in sight. But the issue that keeps gnawing at me is that I'm not sure what did us in: our diverse backgrounds or the fact that he couldn’t get over our diverse backgrounds.

Maybe it's not like he didn't like wine; the issue was he wouldn't even try it.

©L'uragana