Mail Order Bride

When you're over 30 and unmarried...wait, let me clarify, have never been married, are reasonably attractive, have a good job, and have no obvious deal breakers (unfathomable debt, a wooden leg, a passel of illegitimate children, etc.) You start to make your friends nervous. They start casting maniacally around for someone-- anyone -- to set you up with so that you fit into their ideal picture of happiness and normalcy. I've noticed this trend especially in my married-with-kids friends. Case in point, the following email. Note my reply on my date with John-Ed this weekend.

Dear Harriet,

Hope you’re doing well these days. I had a random, semi-weird thought and question if you don’t mind. If so, press “DELETE” and read no further. If not, keep on. For Spanish, press “2,” Dutch, “3,” Swahili, “4,” Latin, “5,” Pig Latin, “6,” or Ebonics, “7.”

Still with me? OK. Thanks. My buddy here at the university who I work with was mentioning that he had been having a rough time meeting cool chicks. I hope you don’t mind being considered one, but I told him I’d go through my memory banks and think of folks who would be good to meet. As most of the folks I know these days are contemplating Kindergarten, I have lost some serious touch with who’s doing what, or who, or whatever. So, I thought I’d see if you had any interest if you were ever in the area of meeting Adam.
He’s actually my boss, but very cool, which is a statement I don’t make about many folks. Let alone those I report to. He got divorced a few years back and has two great kids who are about 7 and 9. Very sweet kids. He and his ex-wife, who also lives here, have a great existing relationship respective to the kids. Adam runs, lifts and attends all of his kids’ events. He will hopefully get promoted some day so I can take his job. I think they’ve got roots here, though his family is back in Michigan.

I can tell you more if you like, and was reluctant to see if this would even be of interest. It’s been a while since I’ve tried to work anything like this out, but I had check once his only criteria seemed to be a chick that was cool. You may be the last one standing…
I hope the rest of it is going well. Holler if you wanna chat further about it.

Christopher


Dear Christopher,

Shockingly, I get these emails quite a bit, because (as you so eloquently put it) I AM THE LAST SINGLE WOMAN IN THE WORLD. (echoing, echoing, echoing...)

I'm sure your boss is a wonderful man, but I live 200 miles away from you (and him).

Tell him to join eHarmony. I went on a date last night with a tasty morsel of a man who wore Erkle pants. Seriously, his light blue, high-waisted, high water jeans were awesome. He wore an eggplant colored polo tucked waaaaaay into said jeans and wore it all with gray socks and clunky brown shoes. Needless to say, I'll be off the market soon if our romance blossoms the way I think it will.

Don't think I don't appreciate you trying to turn me into a mail order bride, though. I really appreciate the shout out. And, in theory, I would love to be your boss's girlfriend because then I could probably think of creative ways to torture you for this:)

Seriously, though. Thanks for thinking of me and calling me a cool chick. Other than internet dating, the other way to do it is to have a party and invite all the single people you know then sit back and watch the magic. Surely your wife knows some single girls? My friend Cindy just moved up there close to you. She's single. She's like 5'10", so Adam would have to be tall. She's kind of hard to set up because of her height. That, and she's a half-Jewish atheist with strong Democratic ideals... Geez, this matchmaking stuff is hard.

I'll leave you with my closing message on eHarmony: "Good luck with your search!"

Harriet