You Keep Choosing Cheaters in Different Packaging

You meet a man and, well, this one really does feel different.

The last one had that slippery sort of charm that eventually came with another woman, several explanations and a phone he suddenly treated like classified material. This man does not seem anything like him at all.

For one thing, he has darker hair. Already we are making progress.

He is confident, interesting and just difficult enough to read to keep you curious. An ordinary evening with him somehow feels a little more exciting, and there is something about him you cannot quite put your finger on.

Which is funny, because you have put your finger on it several times before.

You see, the man may look completely different, but underneath there are those familiar notes again—rather like choosing a beautiful new perfume and realizing later that, somehow, you have bought the same scent all over again.

Well, welcome back to the perfume counter.

No, No, This One Is Entirely Different

It is a beautiful counter, naturally: pale stone, gleaming bottles, tiny gold caps, and a saleswoman who has been watching you make romantic decisions for twenty minutes and is beginning to have concerns.

The first bottle is very handsome, all smoky glass and mysterious label with something expensive happening around the cap. You spray a little onto a paper strip and give it a moment.

Interesting.

There is charm at the top, a little unpredictability underneath, and somewhere in the distance a faint note of my phone is private.

No.

Absolutely not.

You have learned.

So you reach for another bottle, and this one looks nothing like the first. Lighter, cleaner, not a hint of smoky glass anywhere. You try it and, oh, this one opens beautifully. Confident. Attentive. Very appealing.

Then something slightly elusive begins creeping in underneath.

You sniff again.

Is that… I’m just naturally flirtatious?

Surely not.

The saleswoman looks at you. You look at the bottle.

No, no. This one feels different.

And off you go.

Somehow You Keep Liking the Same Note

The trouble is, familiar taste rarely introduces itself properly.

You are not strolling into the perfume hall saying, “Good afternoon, I would like something with poor boundaries and a faint possibility of betrayal.”

Of course not.

You like the charm, the confidence, the little bit of mystery—and, well, that feeling of never being entirely sure where you stand can be rather exciting at first. Put all of that into a handsome bottle and it can smell remarkably like chemistry.

Then, somewhere around the third date, another note begins to come through. He loves attention, has several female “friends” whose exact role remains a little unclear, and casually mentions that his last girlfriend was jealous—which is unfortunate, because you are starting to understand her much better.

Still, you keep sniffing. Maybe it will settle differently this time. Perfume changes after a while, after all.

And so do people.

Possibly.

By now the saleswoman has brought you coffee. She may be staying late.

And no, these men are not carbon copies of one another. One is funny, one is quiet, one knows every good restaurant in town, and one owns an alarming number of jackets.

The bottles really are different.

It is that familiar note underneath that keeps turning up.

Madam, You Have Purchased This Before

By now, you have become very good at explaining why each bottle is nothing like the one before it.

You have excellent reasons. This man is more mature, that one had a completely different childhood, and this one communicates much better.

Also, he owns a dog.

Case closed.

Then, just as you are feeling rather pleased with your completely different purchase, the familiar note begins to come through.

A message appears and disappears rather quickly. A story about an ex suddenly develops an extra chapter. He mentions someone who is “just a friend” with the relaxed ease of a man who has said those exact words before.

And suddenly you are standing in your bathroom holding the bottle up to the light.

Wait.

You know this scent.

Not the man.

The feeling.

That little mixture of attraction, uncertainty and competition that keeps turning up in gorgeous packaging.

At this point, the saleswoman finally reaches across the counter.

“Madam” — with affection — “you have purchased this fragrance four times.”

And before we blame the customer for what the bottle eventually does, no. If he cheats, that belongs entirely to him. You liking the packaging did not make him lie, hide things or start collecting secret little chapters behind your back.

Maybe “mysterious” has been getting away with a very convincing impression of unavailable. And that little flutter of uncertainty you keep calling chemistry? Someone may simply have put it on the wrong shelf.

Meanwhile, one perfectly lovely bottle has been sitting quietly at the other end of the counter.

It does not seem to be trying very hard to seduce you. No smoke, no mysterious French name, nothing requiring forty-five minutes with a fragrance strip and a concerned saleswoman.

You try it anyway.

It smells good.

That is slightly concerning.

You wait for the strange note.

Nothing.

You sniff again.

Still nothing.

The saleswoman smiles.

You narrow your eyes.

Surely something is wrong with it.

Maybe that is what unfamiliar smells like for a while: nothing strange hiding underneath, nothing to decode, and absolutely no reason to spend the evening turning the bottle around looking for the catch.