Excerpt 1 from Middle Ageish
I slouched at my computer and peered at the screen. The letsclick.com dating site was becoming my best friend.
The first email in the lineup was from Luke. Soulmate Guy, I called him, because he was the first who’d talked about the soulmate thing—even though there were 7,000 other guys online clamoring for a soulmate.
Cute, too, with Jeff Bridges hair. Jeff still had hair, didn’t he?
A popcorn sound startled me––newbie dater that I was––and a cartoon bubble appeared on the screen with Luke’s image. Would you like to chat with Luke?
Well, that was a dumb question. I hit the yes button. Yes, yes I would. Chat was the site’s version of texting and this was my first time.
—Luke: Hey, got a few minutes? This messaging is friendlier than old school emails. How goes it? Back from vacation. Went to the island. So different there in the winter. Beautiful in a different way. Just came home from doing a little bar dancing. I stayed about an hour. Every once in a while, I do that on a tense night. This was my tense night.
—Sunny: Tense, shmense. What’s wrong?
—Luke: One of those old girlfriend things. We have a lot in common—biking, riding, skiing, and some total madness thrown in, but she doesn’t give me space. It’s complicated.
— Sunny: What’s with the old girlfriend thing? If you’ll be so kind as to be my dating mentor, I have a question. Dating mentor, is it wise to redate old girl/boy friends?
—Luke: Absolutely not, are you nuts? My prob is I don’t like being alone. I like sharing things with someone.
—Sunny: So what is it you look for in a woman? Really, I’m not fooling around here.
—Luke: I know you’re not. I’m taking your question seriously. Well, I’m past craving the 30 year olds with zero body fat and total flawless skin. That is a truly good thing since I’m 54 and they wouldn’t want me anyhow. But our bodies are important, the only one we have, so I can’t pretend I don’t care about the shape a woman is in. I like smiles, legs, arms, necks. You get the picture. Oh, can’t forget that erotic zone called the mind. That’s most of it.
—Sunny: Wow!
—Luke: I can’t stand it anymore. I’m signing off here so I can call you. Give me your phone number. Please. Now—
Excerpt 2 from Middle Ageish
I hadn’t seen Noah since our kissy-face first meet. He’d taken on extra shifts, and I’d been busy packing and meeting guys whose names I didn’t remember.
I checked my email. A text blew in from Noah.
––To: Sunny
From: Noah
Subject: Kiss my face
Dear Sunny,
I’m a programmer and an analyst and I figure our date was really three hundred dates in one (1) and so the next will be #301. Here are the stats:
Canalathon: 6.0 hrs.
Eating: 2.5
Spot decisions: 0.3
Communication: 3.4
Navigation ie you: 2.5
Good night peck: 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1…
Final peck 9.0
I had a very pleasant time on our date to see if we should date.
May I accompany you to the theater Friday night?
Yes, dear.
Our seats are side by side
Sweet sleeps
––Noah
To: Noah
From: Sunny
Mr. Noah: The theater? Such a delight. Thank you, yes.
I logged off and sat looking at my half-eaten sandwich. Noah made me laugh. I was having fun for the first time in a very long time. There was an upside to getting closer to Noah, concentrating on Noah, letting it go wherever it would take me, whether it finished in a dead-end or a long-term relationship.
The sandwich was tuna with mayo on rye bread. I took a bite. A tad dry because I didn’t have lettuce or sprouts in the house.
No sprouts in the house.
The phrase tinkled in my head. Noah would like that.
Even though I’d known him a short time, I knew he’d like that.
EXCERPT #1 Eat Your Heart Out
In front of the monitor again, I took another sip of wine, clicked on a drop-down menu and filled out search criteria, then began my man-troll. Ten photos to a page. Third from the top, Monty55, athletic body, his photo the size of a postage stamp. I clicked on his profile, the better to examine the goods.
“Okay, ladies,” Marc announced coming up the stairs and sticking his head in the room. “Ten minutes and dinner’s ready. So, quick pick, a man who can cook,” he called in my direction. “Someone who’s into wine. Can’t go wrong.”
“Your father and I cooked together. Every night.” I eyed a second photo of Monty lounging under a weeping willow, the drooping branches framing him, one dog in his lap, another at his side gazing up with adoration. Had to be a female.
“I know, Mom, and you still got divorced.” Sam was tired of hearing the old stories. “Marc means well, but it’s a numbers game. You can’t pick just one.” She looked to Noelle for approval. “Online dating is good for the old self-esteem, don’t you think?”
“Self-esteem? Uh, Sam, honey,” Noelle said. “It’s obvious you haven’t done any internet dating.”
I was deep into Monty55, drinking in his profile as if it were a superior zinfandel. Here was a man with sensibilities close to mine, who’d choose a quiet, intimate place for our first meet. My chest expanded with expectation.
“How do I write him?” Hands curled over the keyboard. Ready.
Noelle showed me how to grab a sentence or two from his profile, weave it into the email message, add a question at the end. “Make it easy. Most men hate writing.”
I could do this, entice this man with my email wit. Monty’s middle paragraph was all about cooking with his honey after hiking a few trails, a love of the outdoors, the smell of the forest. Searching for four leaf clovers. Clever thoughts skipped ahead. So this was what all the excitement was about and why had no one told me?
“Stop!” Noelle and Sam shouted behind me.
“What?” I jerked mid-word. “You wanted me to do this. I’m doing it.” I wheeled the chair back allowing them a clear view.
Sam breathed out in relief, hand over heart. “You can’t tell this guy you’re ready for an adventure.”
“You can but it’s a lousy idea,” Noelle added.
“Why not?” Folded arms across my chest, the surge of energy evaporating. “Now you’re grading my writing? You said I should have an adventure.”
Sam and Noelle exchanged looks. Noelle made a face.
“Well, Mom, we hate to let you in on the secret code of internet daters, but telling strangers you want adventures? It’s a sexual come on.”
I opened my mouth to respond and shut it.
Sam patted my head. “Hey, nothing we can’t edit.”
“Why can’t I just meet a man in my dance class or at the supermarket fish counter? Like Sunny.” Now I was whining.
“What dance class?”
“You hang out at the fish counter?” Noelle peered at the screen, laid her hand over mine on the mouse and clicked. “Where is that email?”
“It’s right there,” I drained my wine glass, noting the email disappearance with little concern. “Maybe I minimized it.”
“Your message to Monty55 has been sent,” Sam read from the screen in a Bugs Bunny voice.
Excerpt 2 Eat Your Heart Out
Bora Bora on Chapel Street was the best after work spot for people watching and enjoying beer on a splendid afternoon. The kiss of the afternoon sun urged me closer to drowsy and relaxed. It had been a while since Alex and I had been out together.
“Look. On the other side.” I gestured with my chin. My mean girls, poised to cross the street against the light, a trio of teenettes, primped and pouty and aware of their power. I widened my eyes and slipped down my sunglasses, nudged Alex, who wasn’t paying attention, with my elbow.
“Ouch—”
“Your ten o’clock.” I could almost smell their perfumed perfection from a block away. “I’ll bet they ignore us. If they come this way.”
The Snotties headed down the street to our left, but I had no doubt we’d been sighted. Mr. Bethany and Ms. Narvana. Together.
“Who cares?”
“You will. When they spread the word. The whole school—”
“Enough shop talk, Ms. Narvana. Don’t be an alarmist.” Alex chin-jabbed in the direction of two twenty-somethings crossing the street. “See that couple there? Well, she hates it when he sneaks a smoke late at night in the kitchen downstairs, wearing nothing but his argyles and tighty-whities.”
I leaned over to whisper into the crook of his arm, breathed in his faint piney scent with a hint of beer breath. “When they’re at her parents’ place, house sitting, they do it in the master bedroom, secretly hoping the parents will come home early and catch them en flagrante.”
Alex made a face that gave him a bedraggled look. “En flagrante, huh? You revised my story. I’ll let it go this time because you added clever details.” Using his radio announcer voice. “And she used foreign words.”
“My turn, smartass,” I said. He had trouble keeping a straight face.
After Alex escorted me to that fabulous dinner at Union League and kissed me, we’d spent a few weeks waving hellos across the corridor. Two or three cancelled planning sessions later, it was clear he was backing off.
Until today when he asked if I wanted to go for a beer. So now, I needed to warm up to him. Again.
As it turned out, warming to Alex was all too easy. This likability irritated me.
“Give me a target,” I told him.
“Your three o’clock.”
Two women walking, chatting and laughing. “Former lovers,” I said. “The one in red has gone over to the other team, but they’re still friends. Now she’s telling her ex-partner about sex with her new man.”
Alex’s raised his eyebrows and wiggled them, the classic bad actor, and I almost burst out laughing.
“May I change the subject?” Alex asked. I shrugged, and he continued. “I read about this study done in Massachusetts. On happiness. Questions as part of the census. People were asked how happy they were, on a scale of one to ten, with the town, its facilities, the police department. They even had feeling questions, such as whether people ask for advice, bond with fellow workers, or how the environment affects their mood.”
“Your point, Mr. Bethany?”
He stared ahead. “The little things in life are the true happy moments.”
“Like taking a beach walk before dinner or stir-frying chicken and vegetables in the wok,” I said. “Sam dropping by unannounced. Role playing with you. Little things.”
“Are you saying I’m one of the little things?”
I wanted to tell him he was endlessly entertaining and non-judgmental. Refreshing. Hooked by Alex in the brief time we’d worked together, ad-dict-dict-dicted to picking his brain. He broke through my reserve, loosened my joints, especially my funny bone joint, so I laughed more carelessly and eased up on the analyzing.
“You’re not one of the little things,” I said without a hint of a tease.
So why a book about a woman who starts over, moves from Paris, France to New Haven, CT, goes back to school, and online dates?
Well, I sort of did the same thing. I’d been living in Crete, Greece for eleven years and my marriage was failing.
What triggered my decision was a mundane exchange between me and my husband one evening over what was the plan for dinner. Takeout chicken or souvlaki? In the middle of that conversation I realized I no longer wanted to be married. A realization that had been coming for a long time.
I moved back to Connecticut to start over, went back to school and started dating.
While writing the book––and talking about my characters as if they were friends––my real friends asked questions. By this time, they were familiar with the book’s heroine, Sunny Chanel, who was online dating. Over happy hour appetizers and wine, they’d pepper me for answers. “How much is autobiographical?” “Was that a true story about the 300-pound man Sunny dated?” “Did you really go on six meets in one week?”
Sure, there’s a bit of me in Middle Ageish, because making fiction and turning experience into a belly laugh is much more fun than humans should have. And I’m having the time of my life, pumping my checkered past for “copy” as Nora Ephron (or was it her mother?) called everything that was story material.
Starting over is a real thing. It resonates with happily married women because they have no idea about how tough online dating can be. And they’re fascinated and glad they aren’d dating. Divorced women, on the other hand, are intimated by the pitfalls and stories they’ve heard.
Lucky for them I’ve got a website chock full of tips and suggestions for anyone started over. There are articles for men, too, such as how to entice a woman to email him back, written with Peter, a friend of mine who’s been around the dating block a few times. These days he’s distance dating, so I’m planning on interviewing him now that the world of online dating has shifted.
Thinking about venturing out there? When it comes to online dating, remember that nothing counts until you meet. Emailing and zooming aren’t dating, but they’re a good start.
You’re never too old to start new.
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