Dating Woe

Dating Woe

         I'd say I'm pretty content to be single. I can stock all the foods I like in the refrigerator, and I'm fairly sure they'll still be there when I want to eat them. I can even cook when I'm hungry, and not when someone else's stomach is vibrating the couch.

         My closets are my own with nobody to measure the space of my clothes versus his, or to count off and label the number of drawers I'm using. I don't even have to have "his" and "hers" towels. The towels are all mine. (Even the one that is twice as big as the other ones, and everybody always wants it.)

         I can leave my shoes in the hall and no one yells, I just broke the stupid flower arrangement sitting on the table by the door, where I told you not to put it because it was in the way there; it was your fault because I tripped over one of your shoes, which was never supposed to be left in the hall. Why don't you ever remember to put those shoes in the closet like I do?

         Yes, I am very happy being single, but my married daughter keeps insisting that I have to meet someone so I can live happily ever after in love like she is. (She has only been married six months -- what does she know about happily ever after? But, of course, I don't say that to her.) After hearing the same refrain for months, I finally gave in and went along with her idea about meeting someone.

         The first guy she set me up with, I met in a doughnut shop. (His idea of a great place to meet.) He was late by twenty minutes and spent the next ten minutes cussing out the traffic. (I mean really, traffic at 9:00 in the morning on a Saturday in my little town?)

         He offered to get me a refill of coffee, but I'd already had three cups, and while I was waiting I'd jogged up and down the doughnut shop walls and ceilings for twenty minutes.

         My tension by then was thicker than the doughnut shop grease. The guy offered to get me a doughnut. I said OK because I didn't want him to know I'd already eaten two to counteract my coffee high.

         I'll get you any doughnut but pink," the guy told me. "It's a man thing, you know what I mean? I just can't get a pink one. They'd think I was one of them sissies."

         He said all that about the pink doughnuts with a straight face. He wasn't kidding. I started to groan but I turned it politely into a cough. As he brought me a chocolate-iced, I kept wondering what would be a suitable reward for my daughter's helpfulness.

         The rest of the date was just about as thrilling as going to the dentist for a root canal. Well, maybe a little bit better, at least Leroy didn't charge me for an appointment.

         The next time my daughter started in about dating, I just ignored her -- for at least six weeks. (She never stops.) This time she wanted me to meet a fellow teacher. The man and I had so much in common, she kept telling me.

         I met the teacher "dream date" at a fast food restaurant. He came strutting in with shiny black cowboy boots that jingled each time his foot hit the ground. He was wearing an enormous chocolate-brown cowboy hat. The jeans and Western shirt he had on were OK, but the hat looked like it would be too big for Arnold Schwarzenegger.

         I sank down low, hoping he wouldn't see me, but I was the only person by herself. He slid into the booth with all the grace of a cement truck.

         Once I came back down from the impact, and had finished checking my neck for whiplash, we started talking. My daughter had embellished a bit concerning how much Tex and I had in common. It was true we both loved music, but Tex only listened to Country, and I only listened to Classical.

         Yes, it was true we both loved books, but Tex only liked them made into movies. And the only movies worth going to see, he told me, were the ones with "lots of action, a couple of chase scenes, some kind of fighting, and lots of real good sex."

         Still, Tex would have been endurable if he hadn't kept stealing food off the salad bar. He'd go up there, clinking away, and reach down to grab a handful of stuff every time he went to refill his drink. He kept saying, "They don't care. After the food sits out for an hour, they have to throw it away, anyway."

         Tex made three trips to refill his drink, and he came back with enough olives, pickles, red onions, and cherry tomatoes to make a salad for three people.(Boy, what I wouldn't give for hands the size of his. I'd be able to pull up every weed in my garden without ever needing a wheelbarrow.)

         I couldn't wait to finish my burger. I was sure the police would be there any moment, ready to handcuff the cowboy to his cherry tomatoes. I sure didn't want to accompany him, either -- imagine being jailed with Mr. Onion Breath!

         It wasn't a week later my daughter started in about my going on another date. She knew this great guy who loved watching nature programs and was a member of the Audubon Society.

         He's probably a wonderful man, and I know we'd really hit if off, but I told my daughter that I was thinking about becoming the world's first protestant nun.

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