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Yesterday I really should have been thinking about Martin Luther King, since the kids were off from school in his honor. Now, I did show my boys the “I Have a Dream” speech, just so you know, but my mind was not on MLK. It was on Dustin Hoffman and the Golden Globes.

My mind wasn’t really on Dustin Hoffman either, I did see him through my television at the Golden Globes though, and it reminded me of something he said at a dinner party years ago…

It was at the Venit’s house. The Venit’s were like family to me then, but though they say blood is thicker than water, in Hollywood, it’s usually business first, unless someone says something anti-Semitic in public, then principles may take first priority! (For those of you who do not know who Adam Venit is, he is the partner of Ari Emanuel, whom the hit series “Entourage” is based on. He is my ex husband’s agent and used to be like family, but then the divorce and a line was drawn between me and his people like the one in the middle of the ‘S’ on the dollar sign.) Adam and Trina always had the most fantastic dinner parties. Anyway… at one of these fantastic dinner parties I sat across from Dustin Hoffman, who by the way, is the most humble, self-effacing Hollywood man I’ve ever met, as, who brought it up I don’t remember, probably me, (The romantic!!!! Quelle BEAST!) but the subject was “True Love.” We were discussing TRUE LOVE with Borat at the other end of the table! But, he was busy having what could be construed as a conversation with an incredibly hot blond. Anyhow, Dustin said he felt that true love was very rare and that people were together mostly due to the timing of when they met. (Like comedy, it is all about timing). He said men decide they want a relationship and then look around and pick from the available selection. He may have had other better, more exciting beautiful women he loved more in the past, but he was not ready at that time. (So ladies, now, if you see your once true love settled with someone who does not even compare to you– you can now see it’s all just timing! Nothing personal!) So, men, he explained, get ready, look around and BAM! It’s not like the ultimate true love walked into their lives and turned their world upside down, made their heart, mind and penis explode simultaneously and they ran off and got married, it was more like a well-timed business affair. I felt rather sorry for his wife, sitting next to him as he said this, as he was not exactly professing that he had found his true love, but perhaps she is far more practical than me and did not mind at all.

Suddenly many things were being explained to me about my dating career. My early twenties, dating in Los Angeles had been incredible in many ways, but ultimately a big disappointment. It felt a bit like Alice falling down the rabbit hole. It seemed to me the guys I liked didn’t like me and the guys who liked me I didn’t like. (I also have to confess I was a pretty mixed up kid, who was arrogant and stupid (is that redundant?) and turned down incredible men I could kick myself over now! Always 20/20 on the hindsight!) I had often wondered why after the godlike models, the hot actors and the water polo player (I’m not crazy about watching spots, but I do make exceptions!) I dated, I had ended up with a funny, short, insane, strange, ill-tempered, not so fuzzy, little Hungarian who did animation. Not exactly what I expected. It wasn’t even on my radar AT ALL when we met. But now Dustin had it all explained for me, it was timing. We were just both ready for a relationship at the same time and WHAM O! It wasn’t that we were each others true love, it was timing that had sucked us into this trap called marriage with children.

At the time of this dinner, I was seriously contemplating leaving my husband. In fact, I would have liked to do anyone else in the room, maybe even DH! As I was thinking along those lines, Trina ironically turned to me my husband and said, “You guys are such a sexy couple.”

I turned to her and said, “Well I guess I shouldn’t dump him them?”

She laughed, everyone laughed. People always laugh when I am dead serious.

Perhaps Dustin’s comment was on my mind so much because I had just had the most ill-fated love affair over the weekend. I began to see how timing was everything. I liked this man, a banker, not my usual, but we had chemistry and relationship potential, but he had flown out from New York at exactly the wrong time… of the month! Yes!!! The timing was incredibly bad, almost bloody hilarious.

The timing was not just bad for this reason. It was bad for another reason. Something had happened in New York that had had an absolute perfect timing to it. One in a million kind of perfect timing, top secret love affair beyond the beyond, everything in a split second. And it was throwing me off. No, it hadn’t thrown me off– The experience had thrown me ON! Yes, it had thrown me on my game and shown me where I belong… Suddenly I had a new perspective that had made my inner desires very clear.

You see, I set my standards high– basically, I’ll settle for ultimate. But, then, well, the dating pool doesn’t…. reflect my wishes and at times… I get lonely and lower my standards, sometimes, in rare cases, significantly!!! But after spending over a decade with the wrong man, though we did make beautiful children, I just won’t get involved past a few dinners unless it’s dream come true material. I’m pretty independent. Now my friends tell me I should maybe be more realistic (not my strong suit), but it’s rather hard, when you are spoiled with Peirce Brosnans, Kelly Slaters, Laird Hamiltons… I could really go on and on and on some more… and other godlike men running around Malibu, a girl can get awful spoiled. It can just… ruin a girl, well, the prefect timing New York love affair ruined me beyond ruination. A quick taste of the ultimate.

It is similar to the time that I was supposed to see an ex of mine for a rendezvous– always good to have a rendezvous with an ex so the numbers don’t increase, but I had run into another ex of mine earlier that day on the beach who I STILL was not over, and it just ruined the evening. I just couldn’t get into it. My mind was on the other ex. Anyway, that was the last time I was with anyone. Since then no one has broken my devotion to my standards… It seems forever ago, almost a year… Until the perfect timing love affair jumped right over the bar. A powerful glimmer, a taste of ultimate that has me hoping lightening strikes at least twice– Can I say infinitely? (Yes, damn it, I WILL!) Or at least a half a dozen or so times? Now, the bar, that I had been told I was setting too high, hadn’t just been met, it had been jumped over and now… maybe it’s even higher… Who can out do it? I’ll just put that out into the universe and see what happens… Just for fun. (Giggle) Though I am fine with it just being jumped over again. (Giggle… Okay, more of a cackle!)

Perfect timing… True love… Mr, Martin Luther, I have a dream, too!

Dustin’s theory would explain a strange call I received one night just two weeks after I had been married– an ex-boyfriend had hunted me down via private detective and was calling to ask me to marry him– talk about bad timing. I actually was head over heels with him at one point, but at the time he was a top notch playboy in full two-at-a-time glory, outdone only by the man who had introduced us (I’ll give you one hint.. “Winning!” Yes, THAT bad– Though he couldn’t really compete with the Warlock– Thankfully– but he did give it the old college try.)

I have always, unfortunately, had a weakness for playboys– as my friend Paige tells me, I have a “bad man picker.” It’s my father’s fault and his father before him– Womanizers!!! I swear it is completely unconscious. I do not want one, not consciously. It’s like they sneak in past my thinking brain and make there way in the backdoor with a secret handshake where the subconscious lets them right on in! The fool! Then my thinking brain catches on at some point and says, “Not again!!!” And then its time to work up the energy to do the dumping. Funny, how even when breaking up is the absolute right thing to do, it’s hard. Worst pain ever invented– breaking up. But, the good news is, I am growing, becoming far more discerning, not falling for the same old bag of tricks.

Well, one day, months into “dating” the playboy, after several red flags had so rudely erected in right front of my face, I decided it was time to change my phone number. I had to change my number because I didn’t trust myself if he were to call. So I had given this ex the slip–

“Just slip out the back, Jack
No need to be coy, Roy,
Just listen to me,
Hop on the bus, Gus
Don’t need to discuss much,
Just drop off the key, Lee, and get yourself free–”

(Naturally one of my father’s favorite songs…)

I had given him the slip and it worked for years until one day, two weeks after I was safely bound to matrimony, he called asking me to marry him. Not that I was really “bound–” as my lovely husband at the time had decided upon and “open marriage” (“Bret don’t be so rigid!’ A word I have neither before or since been described as! At the time I found his idea quite shocking, then emotionally impractical… Now I’m not too sure if he wasn’t on to something… honest.) But, this ex, he called to tell me… HE WAS READY, as if THAT made the world turn!!! He was actually dating someone else, but I was the one he really wanted. He hadn’t been “ready” before and now he was. Well, though I was not thrilled with my particular marriage so far, I didn’t want to marry him either– Can you say, “Over it”? So, he proposed to the poor, silly sap who had been hanging onto him for years… He told me after he proposed to her, in Hawaii on his knees in the very exact Four Seasons I had been married, (Coincidence or what?!) that he would call it off if only I would marry him. I was absolutely bewildered. Clearly, I did not understand men at all! How could he marry another woman when he really wanted me. I couldn’t grasp it. He just kept saying that he was ready to get married and he was going to get married with or without the woman he wanted to marry. I had marveled at the concept until Mr. Hoffman so simply stated that relationships (notice the lack of ‘true love” in this sentence) are all about timing.

I am grateful for all of the love I have experienced and for all of the true love to experience. I am also grateful for all of he perfect timing I have experienced. Now I wish for them to collide. I wish it for all of the warmhearted lovers, the romantics, the truly alive out there, I wish you all perfect timing in true love. Because I think Mr. Hoffman is right, relationships are all about timing…