Dos, don’ts and dish
from Diana Blaze Teller
My quest to find love began on January 1, 2006 in the early morning
hours. The night before had been New Years Eve – and it had
sucked.
With my usual dumb optimism, I hadn’t made any plans. I
was sure something would turn up; some party invite would roll into my
inbox. I wasn’t really paying very much attention because
as always busy busy busy but then, about two days before, I suddenly
stopped typing and swiveled to look at my living room in the gloaming
and realized, dang, New Years Eve is day after tomorrow.
And I don’t have a thing to do.
I picked up the phone and called Susan, my friend since college; she
and I are single again after (between us) three marriages. Two
for me; you do the math.
“What are you doing New Years Eve?”
She took a moment. Finally she said, “No plans at
the moment. ”
“Great!” I said. “You want to get together or
maybe ask a few people over?” We’d given New Years
Eve parties before. In fact, we gave a Millenium party which about
three thousand people attended (I exaggerate). But that was
when I’d been a rich Manhattan girl (my second marriage ruined
me) and now I live way out in the wilds of Brooklyn. Any
party invite would have to be her place.
She paused and then I heard her say, “No. I just want a
quiet time, this year. ”
“You want to be by yourself?”
“What’s wrong with being by yourself?” she answered
with a tinge of combat in her tone. This is one of those questions
to which (if you grew up during the hippie/feminist era as I did) there
is only one correct answer.
“Nothing,” I replied, “nothing at all. Well. That’s
really cool that you’re okay with that,” I said.
Nothing at all. Really cool. Not a reflection on your
whole effing life – a proof of that sickening pill you fear at
3 p.d. (personal demon) time when you can’t sleep – that
your life has failed in some major way, that you’re pretty much
alone in the world, that you are not popular, have no friends, aren’t
wanted. . .
As an ex-hippie and a friend of the founder of Omega, I must at all
times be continuing my personal evolution as a being on this planet. And,
I remember thinking, maybe the best thing for me would be: to
bite that alone bullet, and realize that I didn’t need to party on
New Years Eve – I could be alone. I could eat alone. I
could go to sleep early, or think of it as any other night.
Oh my God. No.
I’m notthat evolved. I could get very depressed by myself
on New Years Eve. I am a mythologist; I over-produce my own life;
I see things as totems, signs. Alone? That could spin
out deadly. Deadly depressing. Must call someone. Who? You
can’t just tell anyone you’ve got no plans. This
is a bad reflection; this is not good personal branding; not everyone
is your friend. I skimmed the remaining list of possible cohorts,
and came up with just one name. . .
Leslie.
Leslie is my single girlfriend who is fifteen years younger than me
(early forties) who is very beautiful and very much alone because she
is a world-class bitch; hideously judgmental of everything male; very
successful (a much-shown world-famous painter); very much in demand socially
(for all occasions except New Years Eve and her birthday); and the person
with whom, in the past, I’ve made last-ditch last-minute New Years
Eve plans more than once.
We’ve always managed to hook up with other people and form a small
ball of Orphans who then achieve Critical Mass and attract Others; and
then we go out, and have our own small and seemingly exclusive party,
with dancing and such. At some cool apartment on the Bowery or
somewhere.
“Hi. Les?”
“Yeah. ”
I could tell from the way she said, “Yeah,” flat-like, that
she had no plans.
And so, at the last moment, I hooked up. I called around
for any possible orphans who needed rescue. Everyone had plans. This
over & over of Oh I have a party or Oh we’re going dancing
or Oh my cousins are staying over or Oh we’re hanging out with
the kids could’ve been depressing. But I had my cohort;
I was safe.
Leslie and I would go out New Years Eve, just the two of us. Two – are
we – is it true that we are – well she isn’t – well
I am – middle aged women out alone on New Years Eve? We ended up
going to a tavern called Tavern on Jane on you guessed it Jane Street
in the W. Village.
I have never seen such a group of pathetic losers. The place was
filled with sad sacks, and that included us. We tried to have a
good time. We drank; we tooted horns; we watched the ball drop. We
didn’t admit that we were horribly depressed but we did leave,
her to a studio apartment in Chelsea, me to my one-bedroom in Fort Greene,
at about 10 after midnight on the first day of 2006.
It was in the middle of the night, when I woke up from the liquor-induced
swoon I’d fallen into, that I sunk into the inevitable gnawing
pit. Leslie and I had indeed been two middle-aged women out alone
on New Years Eve. Nobody had paid the least attention to us. We
looked just like all the other middle-aged women in twos and threes;
all of us trying very hard to look happy. There’d been no
one to kiss; not even somebody else’s merciful boyfriend.
Not even the stubbly-faced, slack-jawed, glassy-eyed loser guys at the
bar had paid us the least mind. Well. What do you expect. You’re
57 years old. Not a hottie any more by any standard. And,
truth be told, there’ s nobody asking you out. Nobody calling. Nobody
wanting to be with you.
That kind of thing.
By dawn, I’d fought my way up through the haze of loneliness and
rejection, to one of the first New Years Resolutions I’ve ever
actually like: kept. I would not be alone next New Years
Eve. By the last day of 2006, I would have me a boyfriend. I
would do that. I did do that. It wasn’t easy.
Here’s the bad news.
Once you are past the Golden Age of Desirability – your twenties – if
you want to find love (boyfriend or husband) you have to think of it
as a job.
Let me repeat that for all you businesswomen. Job.
I can just hear you saying: Job? I have a job. I have two
jobs (for those of you who are single moms). And you’re telling
me that finding love is another job?
You thought it would be fun?
Listen up and listen good. Meeting guys is fun when we’re
in high school and college because it’s easy. We are young
and beautiful and firm and desired by men of all ages; what’s
more, there are men.
But for those of us who’ve turned thirty – did you hear
that thunk? – that is the sound of a door closing behind
us and suddenly, we’re in the Life Corridor where:
- Most of our girlfriends are married or hooked up;
- Each of those girlfriends has a man;
- Those men are not available to us;
- The ones who are left are not all picks of the litter;
- In fact, a lot of them are litter;
- And where are the men?
Yes, from the age of thirty or maybe thirty-three on, for the rest of
our lives, we will be asking the question: Where are the men?
There’s a mysterious shortfall. There are more single women
than single men everywhere. In my next column, for
all you hard core business types, I will supply some statistics from
the U.S. Census on this matter, but trust me, they won’t reveal
the answer. (My personal theory? There’s a really horny
Amazon who abducts men off this planet every night and takes them back
to her colony on Mars where she keeps them for her personal pleasure
and, at last count, she’s got more than twenty million guys up
there, because that’s how many we’d need to make things equal
here in Earth. )
It’s a job.
My first piece of good advice to all you girls over thirty who are looking
for a boyfriend or husband (and not just a quick roll, which isn’t
too difficult to get at any age but which, for many of us, is not very
satisfying; more on why, later) is this. And I know you’re
not going to like this either.
It’s a job, and you are the product you’re selling. It’s a job, and you are the product you’re
selling. You are the product you’re selling.
Now let me ask you something. You’re a businesswoman. If
you were selling scarves, would you try and sell a frayed soiled scarf? If
you were selling peanuts, would you try and sell an over-salted shriveled
peanut? If you were selling helicopters, would you try and sell. . .you
get the picture.
When you are looking for a man, you are the product you’re selling.
Are you trying to sell an overweight, dowdy, unattractive product in
one of the most competitive markets in the world?
Ladies, here’s a bitter pill that you must take if you want to
meet that special one. You love to be natural? Be natural later. You
want to be 100% yourself? Be 100% yourself after he’s
fallen in love with you. I don’t want to hear, “But
I like my hair short and salt & pepper, and any man who’s going
to love me needs to love me the way I. . .blah. ” Yes you’re
right but so what? Do you want to be right, or in love?
Here are a few facts from the world of men:
Men are visually oriented.
While women are most attracted to men’s eyes, men are most attracted
to women’s bodies.
Men look at a woman and spark immediately to certain visual stimuli
including: long hair, high heels, short skirts, colorful clothes,
red lips and low decolletage.
Oh and by the way: What’s wrong with being a sex object? Is
sex something we want or we don’t want? Well that’s something
only you can answer for yourself but watch out for creeping Puritanism;
it comes in many forms.
Start today.
After I made my New Years Resolution, I was truly motivated. I
began immediately. Went on a diet (I like Oprah’s no-eating-after-six). Grew
my hair. Stopped coloring out of a box and went to a professional. Bought some sexy new bras, a few short skirts and some gorgeous hi-heel
boots.
It was not an easy year. There was a lot of hard work – drudgery – involved
in finding the man I’m with today (the world’s most ideal
and wonderful). He is not the man I was with on New Years
Eve; that man was just a fling. My man today is my man;
forever I pray.
But I believe that everything I did, everything, made it possible
and maybe even inevitable for the Angels to notice me and hear my plea.
And I mean everything. I created a profile and joined an
online dating service. I checked it every day. Got over three
thousand hits; answered and sent umpteen letters; spoke to a hundred
men on the phone; eliminated nearly all but diligently dated those I
thought had a prayer; kissed several frogs before I met my prince. Plus,
I openly announced I Am Looking and shamelessly asked everyone to
introduce me to anyone possible. Some of you may’ve
seen my Thousand Dollar Challenge on this very website, offering one
thousand bucks to anyone who’d fix me up with a man I’d still
be dating six months from now.
I found my Mister Right. As it turns out, he’s somebody
I’ve known for years. So was all that hard work, all
that self-improvement for naught? I say: the world helps those
who help themselves. When you put in the time, do the work, make
the investment, it does pay off. And that’s the good news.
Send your questions about meeting and dating to: dianablaze@womensbiz.us
Selected questions will be answered in this column next month. |
