Always the Appetizer, Never the Entree

I really should say, most often the appetizer and seldom the entree. Because never and always are absolutes and rarely apply. But how do you get a clever title out of that? Without being excessively wordy. Not that I have a problem with excessive wordiness, but I like to save that for this larger space below the title. Titles ought to be pithy. Now that I have gone on and on about the title, let's proceed to the matter at hand. Which sort of concerns my fate, but is maybe more a pattern that has emerged, at least in my observation. It seems that I have some sort of magic touch, or something that nudges a man along to his next big romantic commitment. I could recount more than a dozen incidents in the last ten years of an interaction with a man, ranging from expressing an interest to a single date or kiss, or an actual romantic involvement that lasted a few weeks or a few months before it reached its conclusion. Then, no matter who breaks it off or how it ends, he rather quickly moves on to a serious commitment to another woman. Including marriage. At times this has struck me as terribly odd, due to the fact that they usually expressed that they weren't interested in a committed relationship, or an exclusive one, certainly not marriage. But then, directly on the heels of their involvement with me, turn on a dime and settle down into monogamy and matrimony. I don't really take this personally. Only one of them was a man I could see myself with long term. And I ended the entanglement just as often as one of them did. But I am left wondering what it was about me, or lacking in me, that might have influenced their romantic about-face. If it's my fate to be some sort of commitment catalyst that sends a man forth surrounded by an aura of devotion and consumed with a passion for fidelity, then so be it. My nature tends toward acceptance of such things with the hope that understanding will follow. My hangup at this point is that just last week I owned up to my attraction to a certain man. Honestly and sincerely. And not just here or to a trusted girlfriend, to him. Wouldn't you know, over the weekend a woman popped up out of his past, giving him the wink and nod, declaring that fate has dictated that he needs to take her out for sushi. Which is probably insignificant. Which I hope is insignificant. Could it be that there is cause and effect going on here? Or is this just some fateful fable I have assembled from the detritus of my failed romantic endeavors? I can't say with any certainty, I suppose I'm too close to the matter to be objective. What I can say is this. If in the near future this most recent fellow winds up in a serious thing with Ms Sushi, or anyone else, I'm hanging up my shingle and charging for my services. No more free dessert.