that.”
I’d only been in Milwaukee for four days, but if I expected Elaine to be even marginally pleased with my efforts, I was doomed to eternal disappointment.
I heard a loud whoosh and the machine-gun staccato of helicopter blades slowly increasing in speed.
“I don’t understand what you’re doing wrong,” she shouted, as I held the receiver a foot away from my still-dreaming left ear. “I’m on my way to Martha’s Vineyard for the weekend. Dinner with the Von Strobels. Write up your first date and make it sound good. Fax me your weekly report and article by Monday morning. And remember, the dream! We’re giving our readers the dream!”
Unable to fall back asleep, I dragged myself out of bed and made a pot of strong coffee before shuffling over to my computer to type out my weekly report about applying to Single No More and the date with Trevor, an exercise that proved to be cathartic since the report only took five minutes to write. But writing an article about my date with Trevor and making it sound good would be about as easy as making an ad for septic cleaning services read like the greatest love story ever told.
After gazing at the blank computer screen, I zoned into a trance. My mind conjured a horrible apocalyptic vision that Trevor and I were holed up in an underground shelter, the last man and woman alive after a nuclear holocaust, burdened with the awesome responsibility to repopulate the earth or let our race die out. I chose death.
Another idea for my humor column sprang easily to my mind and I grabbed my journal from my purse to jot it down. I would call this column “Is Asexuality an Option?” This piece would be succinct and to the point: “No.”
I drank more coffee and urged myself to get those creative mental juices flowing so I could focus on my immediate assignment. For goodness sake, surely a person armed with an undergraduate and a master’s degree in literature could dredge up something positive to write about Trevor or that would at least indicate some commonality between the two of us. Many minutes of intense concentration later, I came up with the following exhaustive list:
1) Trevor has a vigorous enthusiasm for computers and deep-fried seafood;
2) Both of us are in our forties and never married; and
3) Both of us are carbon-based life-forms that breathe oxygen.
Finally, I gave up writing about Trevor and wrote an article called “The Mystery Woman’s Strategies for Sifting Through Online Personals: How to Read Between the Lines,” including such tips as: “When he describes himself as a ‘hopeless romantic’ focus on the word hopeless and move on to another profile.”
I pressed send and thought, Screw it. If Elaine doesn’t like this, she can send me to a city where I might actually have a chance to meet someone.
* * *
The next night I stood in my bathroom getting ready for Milwaukee date number two. Bad dates were like getting a root canal. You’re stuck in a chair for two excruciating hours, and then when it’s finally over with, you have nothing to show for it. I didn’t know one married couple who had met through a blind date and the few cool single guys I knew, like my traveling friend Andre, would sooner take up embroidery than agree to go on one.
I had a sudden urge to slather my makeup on really thick to make myself look like a Kabuki dancer just to see the reaction of my date, whom I’d chosen from Single No More.
Services like Single No More took little away from the blindness of these dates. Yes, you saw a photograph, watched their videotape, and learned a thimbleful of “facts”—and I use the term loosely—about your date’s life. But there could be any number of alarming oversights lurking behind that well-pressed suit, great job, and commitment to saving the manatees or fighting homelessness. Halitosis for example. Or worst of all, he could be an emotional midget, a man with the IQ of a snail who was incapable of thinking about
I’d only been in Milwaukee for four days, but if I expected Elaine to be even marginally pleased with my efforts, I was doomed to eternal disappointment.
I heard a loud whoosh and the machine-gun staccato of helicopter blades slowly increasing in speed.
“I don’t understand what you’re doing wrong,” she shouted, as I held the receiver a foot away from my still-dreaming left ear. “I’m on my way to Martha’s Vineyard for the weekend. Dinner with the Von Strobels. Write up your first date and make it sound good. Fax me your weekly report and article by Monday morning. And remember, the dream! We’re giving our readers the dream!”
Unable to fall back asleep, I dragged myself out of bed and made a pot of strong coffee before shuffling over to my computer to type out my weekly report about applying to Single No More and the date with Trevor, an exercise that proved to be cathartic since the report only took five minutes to write. But writing an article about my date with Trevor and making it sound good would be about as easy as making an ad for septic cleaning services read like the greatest love story ever told.
After gazing at the blank computer screen, I zoned into a trance. My mind conjured a horrible apocalyptic vision that Trevor and I were holed up in an underground shelter, the last man and woman alive after a nuclear holocaust, burdened with the awesome responsibility to repopulate the earth or let our race die out. I chose death.
Another idea for my humor column sprang easily to my mind and I grabbed my journal from my purse to jot it down. I would call this column “Is Asexuality an Option?” This piece would be succinct and to the point: “No.”
I drank more coffee and urged myself to get those creative mental juices flowing so I could focus on my immediate assignment. For goodness sake, surely a person armed with an undergraduate and a master’s degree in literature could dredge up something positive to write about Trevor or that would at least indicate some commonality between the two of us. Many minutes of intense concentration later, I came up with the following exhaustive list:
1) Trevor has a vigorous enthusiasm for computers and deep-fried seafood;
2) Both of us are in our forties and never married; and
3) Both of us are carbon-based life-forms that breathe oxygen.
Finally, I gave up writing about Trevor and wrote an article called “The Mystery Woman’s Strategies for Sifting Through Online Personals: How to Read Between the Lines,” including such tips as: “When he describes himself as a ‘hopeless romantic’ focus on the word hopeless and move on to another profile.”
I pressed send and thought, Screw it. If Elaine doesn’t like this, she can send me to a city where I might actually have a chance to meet someone.
* * *
The next night I stood in my bathroom getting ready for Milwaukee date number two. Bad dates were like getting a root canal. You’re stuck in a chair for two excruciating hours, and then when it’s finally over with, you have nothing to show for it. I didn’t know one married couple who had met through a blind date and the few cool single guys I knew, like my traveling friend Andre, would sooner take up embroidery than agree to go on one.
I had a sudden urge to slather my makeup on really thick to make myself look like a Kabuki dancer just to see the reaction of my date, whom I’d chosen from Single No More.
Services like Single No More took little away from the blindness of these dates. Yes, you saw a photograph, watched their videotape, and learned a thimbleful of “facts”—and I use the term loosely—about your date’s life. But there could be any number of alarming oversights lurking behind that well-pressed suit, great job, and commitment to saving the manatees or fighting homelessness. Halitosis for example. Or worst of all, he could be an emotional midget, a man with the IQ of a snail who was incapable of thinking about
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