Another Chapter, or Just a Story About Love, Lust and 'Ah, Hell, It's Just Sex' in the Time of War and More on Dos and Don'ts, This Time For Online Daters

by Rajkhet Dirzhud-Rashid

In the movies I watched growing up in my all Black neighborhood in Houston, back when I was plotting my escape from an abusive father, war romances seemed romantic. I guess the whole idea of someone being so dedicated to another person that they’d make promises, even as they knew a war would be between them, seemed like such a grand distraction to my mind back then. I mean, the whole angst of saying goodbye while a plane waited, lovers kissing – usually someone like Gene Tierney and Errol Flynn, or similar forties era and thirties era actors – just appealed to my budding romantic self. Then, last year I met and fell head over heels for a real soldier, one that had been in Iraq and was going back and is now there while I’m here, praying, hoping, and being lonelier than I’ve ever been in my entire life.

It’s not the movies, that’s for sure, though when we were together – before a nightmare (a result of his denied PTSD), and me telling him about it (because it woke me up in the middle of the night, when he spent the night) drove a wedge between us – we were sort of like Marlene Dietrich and Humphrey Bogart, I guess. We were crazy for each other, even holding hands while we fell asleep, kissing a lot on my little ‘pillow pile’ in my living room – him in his ‘civvies’ and ‘soldier boots’ and me in ‘Betty Boop’ nightshirt, sans panties. But we both knew ‘the war’ would separate us someday, we just pretended that would be ages from when we were having screaming, sobbing (me, not him) sex in my little bedroom in my Seattle Housing building on Capitol Hill. Ah, but then the ‘troop surge’ happened, and my darling ‘soldier boy’ (who really is a boy, compared to me, since he’s half my age) was off to Iraq, again, in April, not summer as we’d expected.

I cried a lot, tried not to watch the ‘body count’ on the nightly news, and cried some more, trying to cope with something nothing in my life had prepared me for. Then I started putting ads on Craigslist to try and find someone to dull the pain, to fill up the ‘lonely’, to stand in for my dashing, young lad. I went on two dates, decided I should be more specific and ask for a ‘man in uniform’, since by then/by now I’m pretty spoiled by dating a hot, young Army guy.

That has been an interesting roller coaster ride and an education, let me tell you! Would you believe that there aren’t many women, who like me, wait for their guys with the kind of fervor that has gotten my counselor, my naturopath and more than one friend to say: ‘maybe you should try to focus on other things’ or ‘what if he doesn’t come back to you’?. This I got from the flood load of answers I got from the three ads I’ve now put online. Also a lot of marriages go on the rocks when the soldier guy comes home (got a few of those two, but declined – hey, I might be horny and lonely, but I’m no longer the home wrecker I was several years ago), and soldier guy goes online looking for someone like me. Someone who’s dating a soldier, who’s lonely, and wants another soldier, or policeman, or fireman (hey, one uniform makes you want more, like potato chips, I guess) to fill the void. The literal ‘void’ between one’s legs, and in one’s heart. So, I’ve chatted up a few soldiers (one I’m truly hoping to meet and greet in a most friendly way), and a few firemen, and had some laughs. I’ve also acquired a pretty scary stalker. Be warned, not everyone online is who they say they are, but you know that already, yes? Never give your name, phone number or even cell number to someone unless that person feels like genuine gold, and still be very careful. Trust me, chatting and waiting beats late night nasty text messages any old day.

Bottom line, war sucks and honestly by now, I’m thinking George Bush should be held up, globally on war crimes charges. Not the least of which are keeping women like me without the men of their dreams and hearts, and making us desperate online seekers of sex, because dating a soldier does spoil you for anyone else. Oh, and I did report the stalker to the police and a very attractive cop showed up to take the report. Not missing a chance like that and feeling pretty shaken up by then, I actually hit on ‘officer friendly’, who decline my offer, because lucky him, he has a sweetie. A sweetie not in Iraq like mine. Bummer. ‘Love and lusting and sex do bite in war time, but I have to say, meeting my soldier and falling in love with him – and through him, the whole damned military it seems at times – had made me fiercer and stronger than I ever thought I could be. This, I shamelessly tell you.