CHAPTER NINE: Dinner Date

It was the middle of April, and I was just starting to look forward to another round of reports from Community Singles Group when I received a letter from a man named Allen.  His accompanying report looked promising.  He didn’t smoke, claimed to like children, was six feet tall, and held a respectable job as a chemistry professor at a local university.  I called the number he gave in his letter and reached an answering machine. 

The message piqued my interest immediately.  After introductory remarks and inviting the caller to leave a message, Allen added, “I just bought this new answering machine, but you have to be a damned college professor to work out how – ”

The beep cut him off in mid-sentence. 

The voice was deep and very sexy, and Allen obviously had a sense of humor.  Being a college professor, he had to be intelligent and earn a good wage too.  This compensated for the fact that he was six years older than me.  Jim was nine years older than I was, and the age difference had always bothered me.

I left a message.

Allen called back the next day.  After a few minutes of small talk, I asked him, “So, would you like to meet somewhere for coffee?”

“Not so fast,” he replied.  “I’d like to talk some more and get to know you a little, first.”

I was game for this but quickly found out that Allen’s idea of getting to know me was to ask me a long series of questions.  He actually went so far as to tell me that this was to be a kind of test; the answers I gave would determine whether or not he wanted to meet me.

I seemed to be doing okay until a question about movies came up. 

“What did you think of Silence of the Lambs?” he asked.

“I loved it,” I said.  “I’m a big horror movie fan.”  I realized I’d failed miserably when Allen informed me that he hated horror movies, especially ones involving violence toward women.

The second question I failed was: “Do you like the singer, Leonard Cohen?”

“I love his songs,” I said, “especially the one about ‘Suzanne takes me down to her place by the river, where she feeds me tea and oranges that come all the way from China.’  I have an L.P. of his.”

“I was afraid you’d say that,” Allen said.  “I went out with a woman recently who also liked Leonard Cohen.  I think he’s so depressing.  I don’t get what people see in him.”

“Oh,” I said.  “I guess I failed that test too, then, didn’t I?”

After nearly an hour of back and forth, Allen finally invited me out; but not for coffee.  He wanted to go on a dinner date so we could relax and talk.  Apparently my two miserable failures weren’t enough to deem me totally ineligible for a second chance.  

“Could you tell me a bit about what you look like?” I asked.  “All I know is you don’t weigh a ton, and you’re six feet tall.”

“Well, I think I’m okay-looking,” Allen said.  “I’m not really good-looking, but I’m pleasant enough to look at, and I keep myself in pretty good shape.  I do have a beard, but I keep it neatly trimmed.”

My heart sank at the word “beard.”  As I mentioned previously, I hate the things.  They do nothing for me, interfere with kissing, and food gets stuck in them.  However, we had come this far, I was pretty interested, and his voice was so sexy.  I decided to meet the beard and see what happened.  We set up a date for a few days later at a Chinese restaurant. 

When I told Andrea and Bronwyn about my date, they good-naturedly resigned themselves to another stay at Grandma’s house.  This wasn’t too great a hardship for them because Grandma kept a candy tin in her kitchen cupboard.  Firm, but fair, she spoiled them quite a lot. 

Grandma was also a Star Trek fan.  On the trips to school in the morning, her little red Geo Metro became a space craft.  She and the girls took turns shooting at marauding aliens with a dashboard-mounted contraption that made various space-age noises.  Since yellow school buses were deemed to be enemy Ferengi, the trip to school was a very noisy affair. 

Being a novice Trekkie myself, I was quite unaccomplished at using the noise machine.  As a passenger on one of the school runs in the Geo spacecraft, I hit the wrong button when I spied an approaching school bus.  Instead of laser gun whoops, a ringing noise issued forth. 

“Mom, you just phoned the Ferengi!” the girls admonished me.  We almost wet our pants, it was so funny. 

As my date with Allen approached, I dressed in form-hugging pants and top, fluffed out my hair, and painted my fingernails red.  I never, ever paint my nails but I wanted to look sexy and attractive.  First impressions mattered and this date did show some promise.

When I pulled up at the Chinese restaurant in my sporty Chevy Cavalier, Allen was waiting on the steps.  I looked him over as I climbed the steps to meet him.  True to his word, he did seem about six feet tall and quite slim, with long, mid-brown hair swept off of his forehead, and deep-set, greenish-hazel eyes.  His nose was a bit big, and of course there was the beard, but from what I could make out, he had nice lips and a good chin. 

He smiled hello, revealing an over-white, slightly protruding front tooth, which I later learned was the result of a lacrosse accident.  It gave him a friendly chipmunk look.  My first impression from the ample laugh lines at the corners of his eyes was one of kind cheerfulness.

I preceded Allen into the restaurant in my tight pants, wondering if he was checking out my bubble-butt. I gave it a few extra wiggles, just in case.  Over dinner, we exchanged background details and general getting-to-know-you information.  He grew up in Canada and moved to the area a couple of years ago.  He hadn’t had a girlfriend for the past year.  Being a rather nerdy science type, he spent a lot of time in his lab and seemed the last person I would expect to do something like joining a dating service. 

As the date progressed, however, I revised my opinion of Allen.  He wasn’t as nerdy as I’d initially thought.  Wacky scientist was a more apt description.  He was full of fun, very witty, and couldn’t stay serious for more than a few minutes, but when I regaled him with the story of my tenant woes and Johnny, the belligerent brother, he proved to be a good listener and was suitably sympathetic.  Over all, he was a very satisfactory dinner companion.

I could see myself reflected in his eyes: a thin five-foot-seven, who, like every good anorexic personality, thought she was fat;  mid-brown, shoulder-length hair bearing the remnants of a perm; a reasonably attractive face with a bump in the middle of my nose, courtesy of my mother, and a lump at the end, courtesy of my father; topped off by a pair of blue eyes that changed color according to my mood, the weather, or that day’s outfit. 

Wackiness aside, Allen didn’t appear to be a man who was easily fooled.  Maybe he discerned the real me beneath the teased hair and red fingernails and liked what he saw, because after dinner he suggested we go on to a movie. 

Now, this could be a risky proposition because of our different taste in movies, but maybe it was to be another test.  Looking up at the list of movies at the local mall, I redeemed myself in Allen’s eyes one hundred and ten percent when I announced I wouldn’t mind seeing Wayne’s World. 

We both enjoyed the movie and enjoyed each other enjoying the movie.  Allen laughed frequently and very loudly, but at least his laugh wasn’t as raucous as Wim’s laugh, which sounds like a wounded sea lion barking, much to my mother’s embarrassment. 

A successful date, I decided as I drove home that night.  No sparks of infatuation or romance, but Allen seemed to be one of those rare breeds of genuinely nice men.  He was kind, generous, and caring, and I needed that.  I looked forward to describing my date to the fearless Ferengi annihilators when I picked them up from my mom’s house the next day.

CHAPTER FIVE: Seeking Singles

Around March 1st, Wim told me some news: My ex-boyfriend, Jim, was getting married.  I knew he’d been dating someone he met in a bar soon after we broke up.  It didn’t bother me and we had even remained friends of sorts.  However, my reaction to the news that he was now going to marry this person surprised me.  Although I no longer wanted Jim for myself, I found myself overcome with insane jealousy.   I think the speed of their courtship had something to do with it.  I felt that our relationship must have been so bad at the end, that the minute Jim found a woman who was loving and caring and called him “Honey”-- something I had never done; it's just not me -- he was so pleasantly overwhelmed by the contrast that he had to marry her before she got away.
 

During my more rational moments, I could see another side to the story.  Our five years together had been fun, over all.  Jim was simply suffering from loneliness and missing the companionship of a steady relationship.  He was obviously still in the infatuation stage and was marrying this woman on the rebound. 
 

I comforted myself with the knowledge that rebound marriages often don’t last and felt very virtuous in sending him a card congratulating him on his engagement.  Most of the time, however, these rational moments were few and far between, and I wallowed in a deep trough of depression. 
 

After enduring a few days of my moping around the apartment bewailing the fact that no man in his right mind would ever want such a colorless, depressed person as me and declaring myself doomed to a life of spinsterhood, Andrea and Bronwyn decided enough was enough.
 

“Mom, you can’t go on like this,” declared Bronwyn, interrupting me mid-sob.
 

“Yeah,” agreed Andrea.  “You’re driving us crazy.”
 

“Well, thanks for the sympathy, guys, but how am I ever going to meet anyone?” I wailed.  “I’m the shyest person in creation, I hate going to bars, and there’s no one at work I’m interested in or is interested in me.  Even if there was, I don’t think I’d like to date someone I work with.”
 

“How about joining a dating service?” Andrea suggested, remembering the commercials for various singles dating services we sometimes saw on the television.
 

A light flashed on in my head.  “A dating service!” I exclaimed.  “What a good idea!  Why didn’t I think of that?  Come on, girls.  Let’s look in the Yellow Pages, right now!”
 

We sat down at the kitchen table and rifled through the phone book. 
 

“How about this one?”  Bronwyn’s grubby finger pointed to a large, square display ad surrounded by cupids and hearts.  I observed the grubby finger fondly.  Though my youngest daughter favored feminine, frilly skirts, nine-year-old Bronwyn was a real tomboy at heart and impossible to keep clean.  She was always grubbing in the dirt to examine insects, climbing trees, or racing around the paths behind our apartment complex with a group of boys.  They were drawn to her pretty face and vivacious manner like bees to a honey pot.
 

Andrea studied the ad.  “It says here ‘no bar scenes’ and ‘inexpensive membership.’ ”
 

I smiled at her last two words.  Dear old Andrea.  She was the more serious of my two daughters -- shy and quiet with strangers, though even more tomboyish than her sister, with a healthy talent for gymnastics.  She’d also inherited my thrifty nature.  Though only ten years old, every penny was carefully considered, and she worried endlessly about the cost of clothes, shoes, and the amount of child support her ‘poor’ father was paying.  Of course, her spendthrift concerns didn’t extend to candy and other tasty items at the supermarket, nor to the expensive gymnastics classes in which I had been forced to register her so as to spare the bedsprings and furnishings in our apartment.  I didn’t think our landlord would take too kindly to footprints on the walls, courtesy of indoor cartwheels.
 

The singles agency in question was called Community Singles Group, or C.S.G.
 

“Call them, Mom,” Bronwyn urged, eagerly. She was such an affectionate little girl. “It’s Saturday.  They might be open.” 
 

“Okay,” I said and picked up the phone.
 

A woman explained the program to me.  The way it worked was this: Community Singles Group would send me a check-off questionnaire to fill out concerning my likes and dislikes, the kind of person I was interested in, job information, child issues, and so on.  Each month, for the next year, a report of my questionnaire answers would be sent to ten men who C.S.G. felt matched my interests.  In turn, I would also receive ten reports.  If any men were interested in meeting me, they could write to me, care of the agency, and I could do the same.  It was then up to the clients to exchange phone numbers and arrange to meet if they wished.  The fee to join was a steep $149.00, but I was desperate.  I liked the sound of the program, so I asked the woman to send me the necessary paperwork. 
 

After the phone call, I felt a little happier; and by the time the paperwork arrived a few days later, the shock of hearing about Jim’s rebound marriage plans was beginning to fade.  Being normally somewhat of an optimist, I began looking forward to the prospect of meeting some nice men.  If I worked at it long enough, I was sure to find someone. 
 

Most importantly, however, the person had to like children.  This subject had been a bone of contention between Jim and I.  He didn’t really like children, and although he grew fond of Andrea and Bronwyn over time, the thought was always in the back of my mind that a long term future with Jim was doubtful as long as the girls lived with me.
 

In the early days of my infatuation, when Andrea and Bronwyn were about four and five years old, I’m ashamed to admit I sometimes considered letting my ex-husband Albert have custody of them.  I would listen to their endless squabbling and egging each other on in the back seat of the car for miles on end while driving to and from the visitation drop-off point and hour and a half away.  My patience quickly reaching the end of its tether, I would try to force myself to dislike my own children, imagining what life would be like if they weren’t a daily part of it.  Sometimes the idea was tempting.  It would mean so many things: Long, lazy days of lounging on Jim’s deck, peaceful barbecues and hot-tubbing, freedom from the constant attention-seeking and refereeing of fights . . .  Just think -- no more trying to force vegetables into Andrea, no more school lunches to prepare, no more getting up early to do school-runs, no more babysitter hassles, no more fear that Jim would dump me on one of the girls’ more impossible days . . . But, no -- even on the worst of days, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.  After each bout of wistful longing, I would berate myself for even considering giving up my children, my own flesh and blood, for a man who couldn’t love me enough to love them too.  I’d already given away two adorable Siamese kittens because Jim didn’t like animals and I was hardly ever at home to care for them.  My children were not going to follow suit.
 

After filling out and returning the questionnaire to Community Singles Group, along with the accompanying check, I settled down to wait for the mail to bring me news of eligible men.  Trying to ignore comparisons between myself and Jim, I was hoping to meet some men who liked children but didn’t have any of their own.  Though I dearly loved my own children (most of the time), I wasn’t too interested in anyone else’s unless they were well-behaved.  Undisciplined children, and the lazy parents who allowed them to be so, irritated the hell out of me.  Also, ex-wives and child support payments could be a drag.
 

Community Singles Group sure moved quickly.  During the third week in March, I received my first ten reports and perused them excitedly.  A few I discarded straight away because the men were smokers.  A few men didn’t mention liking children, and a few were under six feet tall.  Height was important to me.  I had always felt uncomfortable being married to a man who was two inches shorter than I was.  My ex-husband Albert had always puffed up his ego insufferably so as to compensate for his short stature, while I had adopted a worse slouch than usual in order to try to appear shorter and had felt increasingly inferior as the years went by.
 

I narrowed down the C.S.G. applications to a few likely candidates, wrote a few letters, and a few men wrote to me.  I went on three dates.  We usually met for coffee so we wouldn’t be forced to endure a long meal if no sparks of interest were present.   The first two dates went okay, I guess.  To tell you the truth, I don’t remember much about them.  They were obviously not very memorable.
 

My third coffee date was with a bearded young man.  I hate beards.  Over the course of our date, I realized he was very likely gay, but he either didn’t know it yet, or was in denial.  I got out of there as gently as possible, vaguely agreeing that it might be nice to meet again, so as not to hurt his feelings.  I find it difficult saying no to people, and he was a nice guy.  When he called me a few days later, I told him that an old boyfriend had come back into my life and I was no longer available.