The Alisa Valdes Magic Show

Chica-Lit author Alisa Valdes fell in love with four different men in two months, and the year had only just begun! Her love life is magical.

All eyes turn to Facebook as our borderline Bullwinkle steps out on stage.

Watch me pull a boyfriend out of my hat, says the super intelligent, insatiably sexy, hugely beautiful and surpassingly talented actress, adjective-lover, bestselling author, business executive, cougar, diet guru, executive director, fitness instructor, fundy pro, intellectual, journalist, life coach, mother, motivational speaker, moviemaker, musician, office manager, photographer, politician, producer, relationship coach, reporter, selfie model, screen writer, singer, songwriter, tour guide, writing teacher, zumba instructor, whatever. It's a borderline thing.

On 8 January, Alisa pulled her first lover of the new year out of her hat. He's a chemist who is "Super stable, both emotionally and financially. Same job 19 years. Can fix anything. Collects art. Is art... Freaking Hot as hell... Digs me.  I dig him... Sweet and Kind. Next, indeed. Had no idea such a man was out there ... living in my neighborhood. Thank you, universe."

 

She immediately posted his picture to show how handsome he is. If her BF is handsome, than she must be pretty. It's a borderline thing.

 

Poof! The universe shrugged and her new lover dumped her the next day. There was no chemistry. She deleted his photograph and headed out to find her next rabbit.

She pulled soul mate number two out of her hat three weeks later, and immediately posted his picture on Facebook: "Him, *sigh*."

Oh, and I have a new boyfriend," she said with the mock surprise of a seasoned stage magician. "He's a handsome nurse ... with a 150 IQ and the best sense of humor. Compassionate, great communicator, kind. ... a socialist, very cute, trustworthy, sensitive and just easy and fun to hang out with. No issues. This is a good day in so many ways."

"I refuse to say MALE nurse like everyone else because that's sexist," says Alisa, the first politically correct Femme Fatale in the history of magic. He was one of the nurses who worked on her when she tried to commit suicide last year.

Poof! Nurse Hot Hips vanished in 24 hours and so did his picture. Even the smiling emoticon that celebrated their true love was gone without a trace.  Now you see it, now you don't. That's her patter: love, blather, delete.

On Valentine's Day she reported that she was alone and loving it. Then she reached into her tiny hat and pulled out another man.

At 4:20 PM on 14 February, she announced that she was "In a Relationship!" It was her third relationship in forty days. She falls in love instantly, the way a mother bonds with her newborn. She was so excited she posted the new relationship again at 5:20.

The new guy was smart, sexy, and handsome. She had a picture to prove it. "Him!" she said, using the same appellation she used with her last boyfriend. When you fall in love as often as Alisa, you need to recycle your chamuyo. Alisa assured her audience that her new relationship was the real deal.

Pay no attention to the men who just disappeared behind her magic curtain. This new boyfriend is The One. He has all the qualities necessary to be her novio: a pulse, functioning genitalia, and the appearance of someone young enough to be her son. Her audience wasn't buying it.

"It takes about 5 years to really see a person for who he or she is," warned Danielle, a concerned member of her audience and longtime fan. "The desperation isn't ever gonna work."

Magic Alisa did not agree. "I appreciate your concern," she replied. "I am happy with my decision. Hope you can be happy for me in five years."

Poof! Her new beau dumped her in five hours and she immediately washed that man right out of her hair. Her love for him vanished as quickly as it had arrived and so did her Five Year Plan for True Love.

Our magician briefly stepped offstage to celebrate her graduation from a Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) support group. Alisa was diagnosed with BPD four years ago, but her therapist now says she no longer meets the criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder. DBT has rewired her brain. Wow! She's a first class magician if there never was one. She cured herself of an incurable mental illness! Her Facebook audience applauded and Alisa went back to her never ending magic show.

Watch me pull another boyfriend out of my hat.

Her fourth relationship in two months was proclaimed on 2 March. This six-two, kind, gentle, smart, and talented young man fell in love with her, just like the last three guys, and she is madly in love with him, just like she was with every man who came before. Sure, she's old enough to be his mother; that's why they hooked up in the first place. She's a "cougar." ¿No sabes? 

"Just when I'd resigned myself to being happy alone, there he was," says our modest magician. She's already forgotten her three previous novios of 2016. Out of her hat, out of her mind.

"Brilliant, gentle, funny, patient, talented, self-aware, sexy, courageous, available, and ... in love with me. ... Right time, right man. Right now. True love." She sounds like Ekert Tolle.

Poof!

I have not published the names or photographs of any of her vanishing soul mates. These men did what they needed to do. They deserve sympathy, compassion, and privacy.

If you want to keep up with Alisa's boyfriends, keep your eyes glued to her Facebook Magic Show.

Now you see 'em, soon you won't.

(If you have something to add to the story, please share in the comments section below.)

Dating Madness DOT Com

Driving down San Francisco Street one December morning, I saw a friend on her way to work.  She prefers to walk, but on this bitterly cold morning she readily accepted a ride to her store on the Plaza.  I will call her Alice  because she has the same views as the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland.  She thinks Santa Fe is Wonderland and everyone who lives here is completely Mad.  If we were sane we would live somewhere else.

I told her I had met a woman online and thanked Alice for telling me about her brother's success with internet dating.

She was horrified.

"But all the woman on the internet are crazy," she said.  "I never meant for you to do it."  She was serious.  Alice said her brother had met, married and divorced three different women on the internet.  All of them had been crazy.

"I've met several of those," I agreed, without mentioning that such women are my cup of tea.  One of my early love objects suffered from a personality disorder.  Put me in a room with a dozen women and I will zero in on the one with the most prominent symptoms of borderline personality organization.

At the local community college I was immediately attracted to a woman who said she had moved here from Massachusetts.  For our first date, she asked me to pick her up at her therapist's office.  I immediately recognized her therapist as a national authority on the treatment of Borderline Personality because I had read her book.  Santa Fe is Mecca for women with BPD.  They are everywhere in this city.  No wonder Santa Fe has more therapists per capita than any other city in the world, Buenos Aires included.

"Dating women on the internet is like picking up prostitutes on the street,” Alice said.  There was some truth to this as well.  Promiscuity can be a symptom of borderline personality.  The first woman my dating service matched me up with said she had hooked up with ninety-two partners online. She kept all their photographs and E-mails in a folder on her computer. She also liked to pick up men at Whole Foods.  Another early match was a state employee who said she had gone online to meet a better class of men than the ones she had been picking up at the Tin Star.   Going to bed with her was two-for-one, because she would pass your number on to her a young coworkerl at the state finance office who liked to date older men.  She had abandoned her young children in Dallas and moved to Santa Fe to discover who she really was.  In my experience, borderline women who are sexually promiscuous have all suffered horrendous childhood abuse.

I told Alice I met a local artist on the internet, whom I will call Ann. I said Ann and I were moving in together.  Naturally, I did not mention that Ann had been a victim of childhood sexual abuse or that she struggled with borderline personality organization.

We arrived at her store and I asked how she was doing.  She said the economy was not good and she had not made any new pieces, but she hoped to start a new project in the spring.  She said her partner, a carpenter, was working at a job in Artesia.  He came home every weekend.  She talked about a few of her artist friends.  Then she returned to her concerns about online dating.

“You have to be very careful with people on the internet,” she said with genuine concern in her voice. "People online really are crazy, especially if they live in Santa Fe."  

"Like you and me?" I asked.

 "Yes, just like you and me."  Alice had to move out of her family home when she was still a teenager after her schizophrenic brother literally chased her around the house with an ax.  Her mother wanted to keep her son at home and out of an institution, so she put her daughter’s things out on the front porch.  Alice definitely was on the spectrum, but she was already in a committed relationship.

 "Please be careful," Alice said, as she leaned across the center console and gave me a kiss.