My sister and I are off to shop for a wedding gown — for her! Yay! Lise (that’s her in the comments) will soon marry a lovely man she met through Match.com, and we, her family, couldn’t be happier. But wedding gown shopping leaves little time for writing! So I thought I would present the following: a 2006 rumination from just before she met said lovely man, in which I consider internet dating, and what it may or may not say about the American character, through Lise’s experience. (That’s right, baby — the personal is ALWAYS the political!) It never appeared in print — ah the life of a freelancer — but it damn sure shoulda! So now, it sees light of day…. Enjoy!
**************
Ah spring, when a young man’s fancy turns to baseball, and a middle-aged woman’s to romance.
I feel it every year, and probably always will: the warming of sap, the blooming of flowers. I’ve been happily married for ten years, but as one pal says, that doesn’t mean I’m dead. I recently found myself talking with friends about kissing. “Do you remember?” I asked as we shared our tales. “Do you remember getting to know someone, and just kissing and kissing and kissing?”
I accept though, and cheerfully, that “happily married” means I’ll never go to that brand-new place again, and really, it’s a small price to pay. Indeed, lately, I’ve had reason to remember that for every delightful kissing session — there were usually about 12 morons.
Maybe I exaggerate, but it sure seemed that way. It appears to be the case for my dating-again sister.
At 45, my sister finds herself back in a market she thought she had exited permanently. Like many, she’s divorced, having ended an unfortunate marriage to someone she should have avoided all together. Unlike many, she’s learned from the experience, and is a wiser, funnier person as a result.
She is also, truly, one of the most beautiful women I know. Curvy, athletic, blonde (well, that’s fake, but it’s well done!) and ready with a smile, she’s a health care professional who earns a good independent income, speak two languages, and reads voraciously. Smart, funny, and hot, too. You’d think she’d be beating ‘em off with sticks!
Actually, she is. The problem is, mostly, they’re morons.
Ok, that’s a bit harsh. But watching her assay the brave new world of on-line dating has been a real education.
Never in the history of human pairing has it been possible to meet so many wrong people in such quick succession. It used to be that you went on a date, it didn’t work out, you spent a few weeks bemoaning the opposite sex, you tried again.
My sister, on the other hand, has been fending off 28 year-old horndogs and 53 year-old nutjobs (some people really deserve to be divorced) at the rate of three to five a week. And that’s not counting the informal “winks” one can send (in lieu of an actual introduction) that she just ignores.
During the winter months alone, she met nine men, felt a frisson with three, dumped one, was dumped by another, and was relieved when the third let her off the hook before she herself had to do the hook-letting-off.
Good lord! It’s exhausting just to hear about it! The night she called to tell me she’d been stood up by a man who had pursued her avidly, I turned to my husband and whole-heartedly quoted that dating touchstone, When Harry Met Sally: “Please,” I said, “don’t ever make me go out there again!”
I think that we Americans tend to look for greener grass. In fact, it could be argued that the desire to trade up is in our genes: If we didn’t personally pioneer the West or leave the Old World, we were raised to admire those who did.
Moreover, somewhere in the advertisement-saturated 20th century, it was agreed that it’s one of our unalienable rights to have best of everything, immediately – whether lovers, ice cream, or cars. And what is dating if not one big search for the Best?
A good divorce is undeniably better than an awful marriage, and I’ll tell you what, if your car breaks down, you’d better get a new one. But if my sister’s experience proves nothing else, it establishes that any notion of a world swimming in potential “best”s is at least mildly delusional.
She really is a quite a catch, my sister, and I’m confident she’ll find someone worthy of her. In the meantime, though, boy am I glad I’m not out there. From where I sit, my lawn is a lovely shade of emerald.
Emily L. Hauser is a freelance writer who lives outside of Chicago. No, her sister doesn’t want to meet you.
