Polishing the Dating Resume

Mick drives. Terry and I continue drinking.

First things first: Terry looks at my profile information. I have a tendency to be wordy. She raises her eyebrows and says she loves that I am smart but having a great vocabulary is only really an asset when you are in conversation. An overly chatty response to a simple question might just look like "blah blah blah blah blah, yakkety yakkety yakkety" to a divorcee who sat at the dinner table each night for 20 years with Chatty Kathy, Patron Saint of the Endless Run On Sentence.

I allow her to edit.

When it comes to activities I am woefully lame. I don't ski. I don't golf. I don't run. I don't play tennis.

Where are the check boxes for frisbee golf? The walking? Dusting and vacuuming?

Terry is not hung up on accuracy. She checks "hiking." Her logic is that my walking is a lot like hiking. But walking sounds like I am an old lady in cross trainers. And possibly diapers. Hiking sounds outdoorsy and sexy. And not prissy. Tennis is prissy.

I want to make sure I don't come across as a tight assed priss. No trophy wife here. And no detail oriented homemaker either. Don't expect Carol Brady or Sue Ellen Shepard Ewing.

Terry gets it. Gets me. Vows to remove all evidence of priss from the profile.

Let's start with the Must Haves. She removes some benign and uninteresting entry I've made and puts in "A good IPA." Perfect. A girl who knows her beer. And has ideas about it. Distinctly unprissy.

Terry and I disagree about some of my pictures. My profile picture for instance. She thinks I look too polished. It is a great picture but doesn't necessarily suggest that I am easy-going. My hair and makeup are flawless. I may look a little high strung. I should look a little messier. Like I walked out the door a few hours ago and so what if the wind tossed my hair around while I tooled around town singing with the car windows rolled all the way down?

She askes Mick for his opinion. He likes the picture but sees Terry's point.

Good answer, Mick. Safe. No one is going to pick up an ashtray and whack you across the face with it for that.

She scraps and re-checks different boxes in response to the "how my friends would describe me" section. I am quite literally afraid to look at them.

We get to the part about what "chemistry" means to me. There is no free-form answer. It is multiple choice. I have checked that I should feel chemistry in the first date or two.

Terry nearly falls off the barstool and into the creek behind the bar.

"What???"

"What, what?" I answer, completely baffled.

"You are a recruiter, for God sake! You decide whether you like someone in under 30 minutes! Why waste another weekend night on a dud you don't feel drawn to?"

She's right. I have gone on second dates that have materialized into relationships, but probably not good ones. Scott and I weren't even sure about each other on the phone... but once I saw him, wham! That was chemistry...at least for two years. But it had happened like lightning.

And that's just it. Chemistry feels like lightning. Or should. An instant spark. A spark you can not take your eyes off of.

That's what I had with Craig. And no online dating service will ever let you feel that.

So maybe Charlotte is right after all. This will lead to nothing.

But Terry has created a masterpiece profile for me. Let me see where it takes me. Even if it leads nowhere near anything that resembles chemistry, it would have to be a better place than alone.

Cocktails and Cottages

I shower and change and turn up the tunes. Pour another beer and wait for my guests. I text Charlotte that everything is A-OK at the house and Hil is managing the Big P just fine (at least according to Facebook) and that I have fully registered for eHarmony and that I didn't think it possible but it actually made me feel more lonely. What???

I tell her about Jack and that I think I sent him a smile (whatever that means) but the rest of the matches are complete duds and I am convinced I have already dated (or she has married) the only worthwile men currently on the planet. I've had my chances and squandered them all.

She will have none of my boo-hooing but says she wants to interview all of my dates and there will be no underperformers getting through the tollgate. I can only imagine the interview questions. The role playing. The rifling through of the wallets, the bank statements, the criminal histories, the resumes, the school transcripts, the divorce decrees, custody agreements, restraining orders, tax records. I am sure only the strong will survive. And probably run screaming in the other direction, not stopping until they've crossed a minimum of 6 counties.

But Jack gives me hope. Maybe he'll smile back (again, whatever that means).

Terry and Mick arrive from their firehouse gig and pull into the driveway. I come down the steps to greet them and offer to pour a few pints before we go up. Terry takes me up on it (that's my girl!) but Mick wants to snooze in the hammock. He's had enough beer.

Terry comes into the house and is wildly in love with the place. And in fact, admits to having driven through the hamlet before and not quite understanding the hype. Now that her GPS has taken her on a leisurely meandering over hill and dale, she is passionately in love with the place. Tells me she wants to take a walk through the whole neighborhood when we've finished our beer.

Why finish? We can take them with us?

Now she is even more in love. We top off the pints and head out into the twilight. The twinkling lights are just coming on on all of the porches. The play is just beginning at the Playhouse. The crowds are forming at the ice cream shop and the cottage porches are filling with cocktailing grownups and board gaming kids. It is a typical night. One of the many things that draws me here.

Terry and I have not had a chance to talk this week and have much to catch up on.

I tell her about my frustrating job search. She tells me about her new project at work and the asshole who is threatened by her enormous talent.

I tell her about my angst about going to court on Monday. She gives me an emotional pat on the back and tells me she'll be on hand for tears and beers or even hiding places.

I tell her about Craig's vanishing act and how sad it has made me. That it has surprised me how anything - anyone - could affect me at all after all of the life I've lived in the last year. She is careful not to dis him but tells me what she has said before: I am a prize and any man who does not realize it is a boob. And further, I have been given a chance to reinvent my whole life, including career and love life and goals to be writer. I need to nab them and leave the past in the dust.

She tells me about a cool new art technique she learned and that she'd like to set up a workshop here among the cottages. I tell her about the French linen store and the workshop space they have for rent.

This is a very productive little walk we're taking.

We return to the cottage, check in on the snoring Mick, refill our beers and head out again, yakking and sightseeing and taking down addresses of houses for sale and open houses that are scheduled. We've had a few beers so we are also peeking in windows of vacant cottages, ooohing and aaahing about the decor and the design.

And then I lower the boom. Tell her about eHarmony. She nearly croaks. I tell her I need help with my profile; I have no idea what I'm doing. Terry remains a man magnet even as a married woman. Men adore her. Thank God she has found her soulmate in Mike or she'd never have time to work for all the dating. She's exactly who needs to help me. And her husband's opinion wouldn't exactly hurt either.

She calls Mick and tells him we need to go to the biker bar around the corner. We have a mission.

Rogues Gallery

I text Priscilla.

I take a snap shot of the men I have been matched to and place a series of question marks under the six photos in the text.The smorgasbord is hilarious.

There is the anonymous blue head profile pic of Joseph who was not only too lazy to upload a single photo, he was also too lazy to put his city and state in the required fields. He put his zip code instead. I suppose I am just too lazy to look up a list of zip codes to see if Joseph becomes more appealing at all. The odds are stacked against him. I doubt the zip code is that of an exclusive neighborhood. It is probably one of those neighborhoods hoping for a Renaissance.

There is the Richardd. Yes, two Ds. Dumb and dumber. No thank you.

There is Steven who hails from Craig's neck of the woods. Like I need another long distance date and the possibility of running into my other away game player on said date.

There is Peter who is pictured in each of his 10 photos in a wife beater and black elastic waistband workout pants and sneakers. No explanation necessary.

There is Alex, smiling away on his boat, holding a halibut, his gold tooth and bald head glistening in the sun. The boat and the fish are the best parts of the photo.

And Mark, who looks like a rare book collector, posts his height at 5'7" (my height), looks like the sun hasn't warmed his skin in decades, claims to drink alcohol only on special occasions (isn't every day special?) and lists his mother as the biggest influence in his life. I don't even need to open the profile.

Priscilla responds with an OMG and and LOL. But tells me to hang in there. It is admittedly hit or miss, but if I keep honing my profile, the matches will get better. Let the matches roll in.

But I scroll down a little and there is someone interesting.

Jack. Jack who is pictured in front of an old time beer truck with a pint in his hand and wearing a cool shirt and baseball hat. He looks like he's fit. His eyes are pretty. He has a very cute smile. One that looks like it doesn't have to be forced to his face. Good start.

I rifle through the pictures. One in a tux at an event. One of him cooking in what seems to be a pretty decently appointed kitchen. One of him in a retro-looking chair holding a glass of red wine. One of him in Sonoma, and one in Paris. Another of him on a motorcycle and another still of him in his "place at the shore."

I decide to read the rest of the profile.

Jack and I both like to travel to the same kinds of places. He is not a couch potato. He is in the pharmaceutical industry. He has a Masters Degree.

Good, good, good and good.

He likes the same kinds of movies I do, and likes dogs (no mention of cats, but I like dogs, too). He can't live without coffee (I am amazed anyone can) and would rather be out doing something fun than sitting at home having a quiet dinner. He likes a woman who stays healthy and fit but is not going to be afraid to eat a bowl of ice cream once in a while.

I like his writing style. He sounds like he is sort of laughing when he's writing. The humor comes through. He sounds sincere without being serious and maudlin or sappy. He is not trying too hard.

I am not sure what I'm doing but I want to get to know him. I think. I don't know. I don't know anything.

There is a little icon at the bottom that looks like a smiley face. I press it with my thumb and it grays out.

I have no idea what I've just done but have to believe that a smiley icon would not lead me down the road to ruin.

I'll let Mick and Terry be the judges of that.

E-Unharmonious

The beer actually helped. I finished my dating resume and paid for the membership. Got my first matches.

Oh boy.

There is a reason these people are single. I wonder if they are saying the same thing about me.

First on my list of grievances are the pictures.

I went to great lengths to put the right pictures out there. My profile picture is one that Charlotte referred to as "stunning." (Which I guess is better than "shocking.") I made sure I put a photo of myself with each of my children. Photos that deliver the message that I am a mother, a mother of exactly one boy and one girl, that we do fun things together and Mom still manages to be consistently inoffensive in her appearance. I was careful to refrain from posting any picture, no matter how flattering of me, with any man from any stage of my life, no matter how long dead the stage has been. I put pictures of me engaged in fun activities - boating, on the boulders on Arizona, attending a football party, or hugging the pro baseball team mascot. I skipped over the ones (again, no matter how flattering) of me holding an adorable kitten or a gurgling and cooing baby. I also make sure that my pictures show various hair lengths but consistent dress size, if you know what I mean.

Some men make no such effort.

Some men post no picture at all. What??? If you can't make the effort to find or take one photo of yourself that means one of two things: You are either really lazy or have a face that even makes your mother cringe.

And if all of your photos are either selfies taken in the mirror with the phone obstructing the view or have been all taken on the same day because you are wearing the same outfit in all 10 of them, you have had an abysmally mundane life that was not worth committing to pictures. I will forgive a house fire in which all memorabilia was destroyed, but not much beyond that.

And if you can not be discriminating enough to exclude the grossly unflattering, wildly inappropriate, hideously attired and groomed shots, you are either too dumb to date or have no good friends to talk you out of selecting those photos.

And if you don't have the good sense not to show a really filthy house in the background, you don't need a date. You need a maid and a smack in the face.

If you've cleared the picture hurdle, let's move onto orientation to detail.

Misspellings are unacceptable. Particularly in your own first name.

When filling in the data section one seems like a boob if he fills in the "city" section with "Boston MA," and then the "state" section a second later with MA. Boston, MAMA may as well read "Boston, Idiot." Small detail, but come on. Life is in the details.

And if you do not have the integrity to use your name (only your first name is published) and have to resort to a nickname, you do not have the integrity to be interacting with people. Any people. And names like "Serendipity" make you seem like a kook. And "kook" trumps "no integrity" so it's a lose-lose situation for you. Especially if you misspell "Serendipity."

I decide to wait for Mick and Terry to arrive. They will help me zero in on why on Earth I would have been matched to such a bottomless pit of undatable losers. In the mean time, I file through the profiles, cringing and laughing and almost crying again.

Choices, Choices

I do some homework.

Priscilla is on Match.com. She's had some very fun dates. She's had some clunkers. She says it's hit or miss. But she is having fun.

Joy tells me that eHarmony is known for better quality of matching. It's scientific. You also pay for it so people who are out there on it are more likely to be serious about a relationship. She's had friends on Match and eH and the buzz is better for eH.

Charlotte tells me she thinks I am out of my cotton-pickin' mind and that online dating is going to be nothing but an enormous mistake brimming with disaster. It is not my style. I don't need it. She wants to screen all of my dates. (And let's be honest, I have really dropped the ball, in glorious, graceless fashion, in the "screening out" function. I think my chip is damaged.) But I tell her I am lonely and not working and men just aren't dropping by the house to say hello, exactly.

Hil says to go with eHarmony. She likes their commercials. Pat says I should figure out what's going on with Craig first and not be too hasty to get rid of him. He says I seem to like him a lot. But if I do decide to go fishing in a new pond, can the pond be closer to home? They want to meet the next guy.

I check with my friend James. He is a font of information. He says there is a freebie site that is like a dumping ground of all manner of people hoping to scrounge up a date for the weekend and perhaps not much more. There is Match, which is the mid-range site, higher caliber, lower cost, fewer rules. He knows about this one because it allows same sex connections to be made. eHarmony does not, which makes me cringe. They don't endorse THAT kind of dating? Isn't love love no matter who has done the falling? Anyway, he says, he recommends eHarmony for me since he is sure I don't have the patience for the usual bullshit and deserve better than to have throngs of dirtball overly-optimistic suitors contacting me like a pack of wild dogs.

I go with eHarmony.

I sit in the cottage and go through all the steps. There are a lot of them. So many that just when you think you want to skip the rest and go pour a beer, the system itself sends you an encouraging little note. Gives you a preview of some potential matches. Tells you to keep going. Love is out there waiting.

Puh-lease. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

There are thoughtful questions with boxes to check and comments to make. There are free form answers and pictures to upload. It is sort of fun, and just as I'd expected, a lot like writing your own resume. Only so personal. So exposing.

And I have to really search my soul for some things. For instance, how important are looks?

Well, important and not. I have dated some ordinary looking men but it was certainly much easier to date a Chippendale look-alike like Scott. And those unremarkable looking guys, I met them as friends first when looks weren't part of the selection criteria. And as I got to know them, and began to become attracted to their personalities, they became much easier on the eyes. The charming, soft-spoken funny guy also suddenly had really long eyelashes and a very pretty smile. The confident, studious romantic had really nice masculine hands and a beautiful thick head of black curly hair.

But I wouldn't be meeting these guys first. Looks would have to be kind of important. If all I get is a picture and a few self-authored descriptive notes, I am going to have to make a judgment call. And if he's 5'7", has a comb-over, is 40 pounds overweight and dresses like pro wrestler, I am not sure I give a hang if he has a beautiful soul.

I rate looks on the high end but not top banana. Safe answer, I think.

How important is religion? Am I religious or just faithful?

This is a loaded question. I'd like to have someone in my life who practices a faith, but I do not want a Bible-beating zealot who is going to ask me to repent if I drop a few JCs in vain in the kitchen making dinner. I also don't have much exposure to wildly different religions than my own. And from what I can tell, I'd be a really crappy obedient Jewish wife. Maybe a reformed Jew who can't be bothered with most aspects of his religion would be tolerable but then that isn't really having a faith, is it? And I could never date a strict Jew. He can't touch women who aren't his wife? What? I could just see me introducing him to my friends. Kate would kiss him on the cheek and he'd be flogging himself all the way home with his nose in the Old Testament.

I am tired of thinking about myself. I would like someone else to think about me. In the meantime, I am going to go pour that beer.

Decisons, Decisions

Hands shaking, I return to the cottage. I need a shower. I need a nap. Hell, I need a drink.

As I ascend the stairs, Joy calls me. We have Girls Weekend coming up and we have some details to chat about. It is good to hear a voice of pure reason. I tell her about my wicked mother and she and I agree it is a blessing that there are 5 states between us. It would be a long way for either of us to drive and continue to hold on to thoughts of strangulation upon arrival.

I also tell her about what I fear I can expect from Lars when I go to file for Child Support on Monday. She knew him when we were dating. She knew him as my husband. She watched him morph into someone I did not know when we became parents. She knows exactly why I am nervous. She is happy to hear that I have a lawyer. Even happier that I like the new lawyer so much. Maybe this one will help me finally get Lars to stop insisting on picking my pocket and go and make his own money so he can (really) support our children and presumably his half-assed yoga instructor wife. In the meantime, she wants me to make sure I can go to Charlotte's or her house if he goes berserk and I need to go undercover for safety and sanity.

I go upstairs and prepare to shower. The cottage is quiet and it is nice to be able to take the time to do things slowly. To walk around without a towel if I want. To hog the hot water. To sing Half Breed really, really loudly in the shower because no one can hear. (At least I don't think they can.)

Hair dryed and broken-in jeans and sweater on my back, I return to the first floor and think about putting on the radio. I don't. Silence, or rather, silence laced with birdsongs and bullfrogs and squirrels at horseplay is all the accompaniment I need.

I slice a few pieces of cheddar cheese and get out some crackers. Lunch. Because it's only me.

And I flip open my laptop and click the button to watch it come to life.

It's show time, folks.

I have decided a couple of things in the last few days.

One of them is that Craig has dropped out of my life voluntarily and does not look like he's coming back. So I have to move on.

Another is that moving on is much harder than it seems like it should be.

And the next is that Mr. Right is not going to come a-knocking on my door. I am not working so there are limited opportunities to browse the selection in the halls at the office. (And even when I was, the line up was so abyssmal I may as well have been working in a State Penitentiary.) I am not in any socially invigorating clubs, so meeting someone interesting at the Yacht Club or the Music Festival Planning Meeting is not a possibility. And my friends are almost entirely of the married set and can only be relied upon for fun-filled nights out once in a while, and never on the fly when I find myself bored, lonely, thirsty or looking for trouble (which happens with surprising regularity.) And lastly, though I've gotten much more comfortable with the idea, I can not always just go grab a bar stool at one of the local pubs by myself. I do not want to get the reputation for being the Hag Bar Fly, and I am about one more solo visit from doing so. My last trip to the bar was during a blackout and the bar had only bottled beer and spirits since the generator could only run the lights and A/C. The male patrons abruptly left when the power failed and left me to share the bar with only a beefy lesbian with a poorly concieved outfit given her size and bra strap configuration. Not exactly a meat market.

So my last decision is this: eHarmony or Match.com?

Hell Hath No Fury Like A Woman With A Cell Phone

As I walk through the lush hamlet surrounding the Charlotte and Jack's hideaway cottage I cheerfully dial Mom's number. Endorphins must really put a whammy on a person. I had the unabated courage of a drunk dialer.

Mom answers on the second or third ring. She probably had to A)find the phone, B)figure out that that sound was it ringing, since it is undoubtedly an unfamiliar sound, and C) do that squinty thing she does to try to read something without her Hubble Telescope readers.

She answers cheerfully in a voice that sounds as though she's swallowed turpentine.

I say hello and Ask how she's doing. Loaded question. Her response could be anything from something as benign as the weather to annoying as Bill's latest health issue, whether it be ass or elbow, or as inflammatory as a Fox News inspired rant about the government and how we are turning into a Communist Country. Again, endorphins make you brave.

She was just back from the Piggly Wiggly or some darn store and had not had any in-the-aisle-across-the-aisle confrontations, pricing disputes or parking lot altercations evidently. She seemed to be in a good mood.

Or not. You never know. There is a coiled snake waiting to spring at any moment. I just need to say the magic words.

And I did. Without even knowing them! What a coincidence!

I told her I'd gotten her text and wanted to tell her that she'd probably be better off getting a bare bones contract with an actual carrier rather than her current situation of being held hostage by the plan that is no plan.

She starts to object but I ask her to listen. I tell her that it is not a coincidence that she and Joe have the same no plan plan and have the same problem. They are the only people having this issue with me, and I send a pant load of texts. The problem lies on her end of the line, not with mine.

And though I was fairly certain that the conversation began with my mother, at some point she had apparently handed over the phone to Satan. She bellowed back in a demonic voice (even worse that the chemically burned one she had at "hello") and screamed that IT WAS NOT HER PHONE IT WAS NOT HER PROBLEM IT WAS NOT JUST HER IT WAS EVERYONE AND JOE MADE A PHONE CALL TO THE COMPANY AND THEY CORRECTED HIS BILL BUT SAID IT WAS THE PHONE THAT RECEIVED THE TEXT THAT WAS AT FAULT.

Had it been a text, it would have been in the Screechy Howler Monkey Bold font. Red. Twenty-four point.

I pulled the phone away from my withering ear and put it in front of my face as though I were about to say something directly to her.

I hauled out my best Mercedes McCambridge/Exorcist voice, ramped it up a few decibels and bellowed. "DON'T YOU DARE YELL AT ME!" and hung up. (A most unsatisfying hang up. There isn't even a click on a touch screen hang up. It should sound like shattering glass or flying bowling pins.

And with shaking hands, I call Charlotte. A feel good call. She is always bearing the brunt of Mom's rage (no one else really talks to her) and feels like she is Mom's special pet target for venom and meanness. I get her voicemail.

>"Hey, Char. It's me again. I won't rain on your bicycle ride but I just wanted to let you know what happened when I called Mom. She Jekyll and Hyded on me and went from zero to sixty in under a minute. Over the texting thing. I believe I am in the dog house for good. I also may have profound hearing loss. I'll let you know if she sends me a venomous text. Or calls back. Or sends me a letter bomb or some kind of exploding package."

I am sure Mom's next call will be to Charlotte to screech about what a flaming beyotch I am. She'd be smart not to answer her phone. Or carry it at all. I consider her forewarned by my voicemail. But may have to text her a smoke signal to make sure she is duly notified. That is a snake pit she most definitely should know to step around.