In Dating Game, Fate Either Takes a Hand or Needs a Hand
I t’s every single’s dream: Meet cute with a guy or gal who becomes a lifelong friend or spouse.
We have visions of bumping into him or her over the Maui onion display at the local market, the Maalox collection at the pharmacy, the popcorn stand at a baseball game.
But, where, really, do we have the best chances of meeting a person we would want to weave into the fabric of our lives?
SHE: Truth is, I know a young woman who met her husband at a baseball game. Talk about meeting cute. They just happened to sit next to each other--she was with a girlfriend, he a guy friend--and hit it off. He heard her say something witty, he countered with something clever, and two years later they laughed their way down the aisle.
But there are more practical ways to meet the mate of your dreams, and one of them, says Letitia Baldrige in her “Complete Guide to a Great Social Life” (a great book) is to “not expend all your energy on events for singles only.”
“Some of the best friends you will ever make are your married friends,” she says, “and they will probably serve as the main source of finding other singles of the opposite sex for you to meet.”
HE: That’s good advice, but if you’re a guy, you’ve got to keep one eye cocked. Yes, your married friends will usually be happy to set you up if they think they’ve run across someone suitable. They already know you pretty well, after all. But the female half of the married team will almost always be the more enthusiastic and insistent party to the fix-up. She wants you to be married, and if her pick turns out to have the face of Meg Ryan and the temperament of Godzilla, so what? Love will find a way, she thinks.
She feels the same way about single guys as nature does about a vacuum. So you always check with the husband. If he smiles and agrees with his wife, but he’s got that haunted house look in his eyes, you run like the wind.
On the other hand, if the husband, out of sight of his wife, nods vigorously and pantomimes a heart attack, you can take it as an endorsement.
Having said all that, I should probably mention that set-ups, even those engineered by good friends, make me crazy. You feel huge pressure to be at your absolute best, and you always end up babbling like an idiot. I’m still naive enough to believe in serendipity, although it seems to be in pretty short supply in 1993.
SHE: I’m all for the chance encounter turning into the love relationship of a lifetime, but I think people who completely leave their love lives to serendipity are afraid of failure. They can blame fate if they don’t marry. Bottom line: If you don’t take responsibility for your love life, you probably won’t have one.
In her book, Baldrige makes a list of action categories that contain lists of where one might meet a new friend. Among her ideas: Art interests (museum lectures, gallery tours, painting or sculpture classes); dog walking (“dog lovers are instinctively attracted to each other,” she says); film festivals; flying; foreign affairs discussion groups; gourmet societies; historic district walks and shopping.
HE: Sounds like a glorified personal ad.
Sure, mutual interests are fine, but an impersonal society has made them into an end in themselves. Gosh, the desperate single thinks, he likes the music I like, enjoys Mexican food and walks on the beach, and he’s got a cute butt. Voila! A soul mate! Alert the minister!
My history probably isn’t too typical but, with only one exception, the women I’ve become involved with started out as friends. We knew each other well and genuinely liked each other before things became more intimate. And then, it was like some terrific bonus, or an unexpected present we’d each unwrapped.
By all means, if you’re an aviation fanatic, go to air shows and chat up anybody you like. Make a date. Have fun. But don’t expect to base an entire relationship on a mutual ability to recognize the silhouette of a P-51.
SHE: I met my husband in a serendipitous way.
HE: See? See???
SHE: I had plans to attend a Thanksgiving celebration (held a few days before the actual holiday) in a friend’s home. I was his date. The day of the party, he called and said he had a pal from Chicago who wanted to attend the party. Did I know someone he could invite? Sure. I fixed him up with one of my girlfriends. Her boyfriend was out of town.
Well, my date spent the entire evening chasing a live turkey around his fog-shrouded back yard (he had guests taking chances on it--what an entrepreneur!) so this Bob guy--my future husband--asked me to dance. We were married two years later.
A super book about “meeting cute” is “How They Met” by Nancy Cobb. She lists 30 encounters--tells the unique, coming-together tales of everyone from Jay and Mavis Leno to Agnes de Mille and Walter Prude.
HE: Prude, huh? Bet that was a real Roman candle of a marriage.
You’ve talked about meeting cute. What about meeting down and dirty? By that I mean someplace like your dentist’s office. She’s in the waiting room reading Forbes, and you emerge with red eyes and a jaw full of Novocain. You look like hell. Ask her out at once. If she’s smart, she’ll know you can only improve with time.
Or how about making a dinner date while waiting to be ushered in for an IRS audit? Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die. Irresistible. The rest of your life together will seem like a beer commercial.
