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.