Blind date

Sex, the next frontier.

And I mean it; 10 years ago, nothing was farther from my horizon than sex. At the time when this story took place, I had been married far too long, long enough to ask for the mercy of the court, and plead insanity, God forbid something would have happened. Like a sudden death by suffocation with a dirty sock from under the bed .What can I say, it was the best of times and it was the worst of times.

My father, helpful in his own right , reminded me every chance he had how I have a special gift for picking up the good looking dysfunctional alcoholic slob from a room full of men . Not that I was ever in a room full of men but however true that statement may hold in retrospect, I can’t lie to myself that his rather crude prophecy didn’t affect my choices in mating at one point or another.

I was in my late thirties and freshly divorced after a 10 years marriage. My self-image gravitated towards the floor, just like my once perky assets the superficial men value. Men, seemed as extraneous to me as, rocket science .Or wait, I take that back, I probably would have been able to decipher semi decently a manual for a self-propelled rocket .

My colleague from work, we will call her Linda but you know that is not her real name, felt that I needed to be dating. In her well intended line of thought I was miserable because I didn’t have a man in my life not because my husband left me for a 10 years older woman, sending me in a corner , knees up to my chin and scratching my head in utter stupor . Linda came to my desk one day and proudly announced that she has the perfect man for me. I ignored the oxymoron and found out she meant her cousin , we will call him Larry .

Her testimonies made him look like the answer to my chagrin , the reason to wake up in the morning and go to bed at night . I resisted as much as I could. Voicing out the desire to be alone for a while and ponder life was only met with loud protests and confident reassuring Vis a Vis Larry’s uber qualities.

Larry called me next night and in a good fella’ , Joe Pesci way of spitting out words told me that my happiness was just around the corner, that he had never met a woman who didn’t end up ecstatic after meeting him.

Now seriously, how can you say no to such an advertisement? He asked me if I liked Italian food and again, who says no to Italian food ?

When the time came, my doorbell rang and as I opened the door Larry blurted impatiently something about being double-parked hence I needed to hurry up. I did not even have time to do the expected once over as I rushed frantically out the door and straight into his red Camero sporting artistically painted flames on both sides. Larry seemed to be very proud of his loud sense of style so I complimented humbly his flair to which he seemed to implode with pleasure. I said to myself as I felt a little of my own vomit in my mouth :” OK, do not panic, the night is still young. We will have a good meal, a nice glass of red wine and I am sure the night will be decent. So Larry and I didn’t have the same take on self expression but he had as much right to be proud of his larrymobile as I had to be proud of my obscure art degree for example.”

I acknowledged officially in my head that things were going downhill for me as we were pulling in the Olive Garden parking lot with the blasting stereo and Larry’s arm hanging nonchalantly off the window . I struggled to get out of the passenger seat and tried to catch up to Larry who was already a couple of steps ahead of me. I caught up with him and made it inside to a table for two. The waiter showed up really quick to take our drink order and my enthusiasm was quickly deflated while Larry proceeded to loudly order a glass of chardonnay for himself and also for “his lady”..

By the time, our main course arrived, and of course, it was ordered by Larry without the slightest consideration for my own desire, I was fantasizing for ways of escaping this dreadful night.

I had made no prior escape plan. I found out later in the full-fledged laughter my friends complimented my story, that people do make a plan B all the time in the event that a blind date turns out into an exercise of human patience and restraint.

I remember during dinner going to the lady’s room and pondering an escape through the small window on the back wall. I did not. Instead I returned to the table and listened to Larry’s stories from high school (which incidentally was the last record of schooling on his resume) where he played football and apparently was very good .

I somehow made it through the night without the big vein on my forehead exploding or my fork wedging itself between Larry’s eyes.

I spoke with Linda the next day at work and she relieved me of the burden of explaining my annoyance when she sheepishly tried to rationalize that Larry thought I was not his type.

For the sake of filing taxes jointly, I made the trip to the altar again with a man that tolerates my flaws now, and he warns me every time I look for a fight :

“Remember, Larry is still out there, single, and looking for a mate.”



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