I arrived at the restaurant a few minutes before him. As the hostess took my coat, a plan popped into my wicked little head.
You know what single people pine for? The benign neglect of a happy marriage. Do you know what married people pine for? The luscious attentions of the dating world. And there you have it: the Möbius strip of relationship dissatisfactions. We are all Madame Bovary. The longer you’re married, the more enchanting the dating world seems; the longer you’re single, the more idyllic soup and slipper Saturday nights seem. But nobody pesters the marrieds for the particulars of their relationships. It’s the singles who get badgered for the minutiae of their romantic lives. So, in honour of Valentine’s Day, I’m going to share some of the finer points of a few of my trips to the trenches.
He was considerably older than me and had been widowed months earlier. His wife had been a sort of mentor of mine. Seated in one of Vancouver’s boisterous eateries, he announced that he was ready to start dating again. Well beyond lonely, he was consumed by a frenzy to embrace all that life had to offer. I occupied myself by cutting my meal into micro-morsels, praying that this wasn’t a preamble to him pledging his troth to me. I’d always liked him, but our ages and interests were too far apart; surely he’d recognize that and not put me in an awkward spot? While he went on describing his vision for his future, I inventoried gentle ways to deflect his attention. “So, what sort of woman do you hope to meet? I asked just before popping a triangle of skirt steak into my mouth. He outlined the usual clichés: warm, funny, smart, fit and then came the thing I hadn’t expected: the woman he was looking for should be in her early thirties. He was in his mid-sixties. The steak lodged in my craw
I was never, even for a moment, in his crosshairs. In his books, I was a complete and utter non-starter. I was relieved and annoyed in equal parts. The next time I saw the widower, he had alarmingly dark hair, spring in his step and was linking arms with a woman in her thirties. I was relieved and annoyed, but this time in unequal parts
Another man; another dinner. He was flying into town — private jet — and we were meeting at a restaurant he’d chosen because “they knew him there.” We’d met at one of those big-ticket events and had established an instant rapport. There had been phone calls, emails and flower deliveries, but this was the first real date. He’d kept up a filibuster from our introduction. I’d managed a lone interjection that had resulted in what I’d taken to be raffish charm. “Oh, no,” he exclaimed, “we’re not done talking about me, darlin’!” In several hours of conversation, he’d maintained an immaculate monologue about himself.
I wondered if he actually knew my name.
I arrived at the restaurant a few minutes before him. As the hostess took my coat, a plan popped into my wicked little head.
“I’m about to have dinner with someone who thinks he’s a very big deal. Do you think you might be able to work my name into the evening at every possible juncture?” The hostess was instantly on board. I gathered that they did, indeed, know him there.
“Do you come here all the time?”
The evening’s only reward had arrived. Yes, Mr. deMille, I was ready for my close up.
I took a long slow sip of my Amarone, placed the glass on the table, blotted my lips, and pushed a hank of hair back over my shoulder, then with a cool and level gaze, answered him:
“No.”
The next day at Starbucks, with coffees in each of my hands, a young man jumped up from his seat, and held the door for me.
“You’re Jane Macdougall, right?” he asked.
“Why, yes! But how would you know that?”
“I was your busboy last night and that was just brilliant!”
I guess. But the quest for soup and slipper Saturday nights remained unfulfilled.
Some dates, however, were magical. I’d had a botched hair cut. I told my date that I didn’t want to be seen in public. The doorbell rang. I’d cut eyes out of a paper bag and quickly slipped the bag over my head before opening the door. Standing there was my date, also with a paper bag over his head. If it was as bad as I’d stated, he said he wouldn’t want to be seen with me, either.
That one I married.