Happiness is Possible by Oleg Zaionchkovsky

exquisite haute cuisine, in which she was highly proficient. By deceitful means, she bore Mikhail a delightful daughter, hoping that the joys of fatherhood would counter his perverse tendencies. It was all in vain and two or three years later, their marriage was annulled by mutual consent. The female judge shook her head as she divorced them, and we can only share her amazement at the petty trifles over which good families sometimes fall apart.
    Be that as it may, the taciturn Barbotkin disappeared over the horizon and I am glad that I never made friends with him. Once again Surkova was left alone, but with an appendage in the form of a small daughter. Other appendages, rather depressing ones, attached themselves to Lida in the region of her waist and buttocks. That, basically, is the full story of her two failed marriages, as I know it, mostly from what Tamara told me.
    Now let me tell you about the third, successful marriage. But first a brief digression. Moscow, as everybody knows, is a very big city. A vast number of men live in it and visit it. But if you’re an unmarried woman of middle age, then you know how difficult it is to find a genuine man, especially one who’s not already taken, in order to build a serious, long-term relationship. I suppose that Dmitry Pavlovich, who snatched away my ex-wife, was one of the last remaining specimens. But unmarried women also know something else: large as Moscow may be, it is not the only inhabited world. While we nocturnal smokers gaze up into the murky Moscow skies, what do you think the unmarried ladies of Moscow are doing? They are sitting at their PCs, monitoring the inhabited universe, near and far, for all they’re worth. The glow of the screen is reflected in their eyes; their right hands caress their mice. The ocean of dating sites is infinitely deep and broad . . . With how many men does the statistically average, unmarried Moscow lady spend the night? How many does she reject, how many does she mark as ‘selected’? This is not for us to know . . .
    Trying to catch men on the Internet is just like fishing, only backwards. Imagine a pond in which there’s a huge glut of hungry, but mostly inedible fish. You spend all your time taking them off the hook and tossing them back into the water. The important thing is to remain vigilant, otherwise, when a worthwhile fish does turn up, you could automatically toss it back as well. I have also heard about another problem. Women anglers can sometimes get so caught up in the process of virtual man-hooking that when they finally land their prize, they no longer know what to do with him. Like my dog, Phil, who loves to go hunting for rats in the park, but loses all interest once he has polished them off.
    However, regardless of certain overheads, catching a man on the Internet is far more convenient than granny’s old method of natural acquaintance. It allows you to be economical with your own distinctly limited resources of charm and magnetism. You don’t even have to put on makeup and buy new outfits. Just drop in the bait – a photo of yourself twenty years ago – then sit and wait. It’s a shame that the Internet only became a universal presence so recently, and most of the women in my age group first sat down at the keyboard when they were already well-battered by pre-computer reality.
    Now, why did I start talking about that? Ah, that’s right! Our friend Surkova has also, at long last, become an IT fan. There’ll be another gap in my story here, because this was the period when Tamara and I were separating, and I had no time to spare for Lida and her electronic HR. It was a rather edgy time for us, although in the end everything worked out okay. No one committed suicide, and Tamara began her new life with Dmitry Pavlovich with a clear conscience. I even became an infrequent but – as they assured me – welcome guest in their home. And then one day