Dont Mince Words

Andy and I never seemed to be able to connect. In the Fall, we met on Bumble then I guess we got distracted by the holidays. He resurfaced right after my birthday in January.

We hit it off on the phone and met for a drink. He seemed like a perfectly decent Mr. Right Now with growth potential. We were on date three or four when he asked me if I’d like to be exclusive. “I’m not interested in dating multiple people. It’s exhausting,” he admitted.

Great. Me either. So we had our dates. We talked about weekends away. We did couples shit.

Until. . .

Richmond is a small town. When you narrow it down to age-appropriate men, divorced, no kids in the house, educated, and tall, it’s a one-horse town. So, when I go out with someone, I always check in with my divorced girlfriend who also online dates to do an asshole check and to also ensure we don’t cross-pollinate. When I started dating Andy, I texted her with his online handle. She didn’t know him.

Imagine my surprise, a month into the relationship, when my girlfriend texted me to let me know TennisGuy423 was chatting her up. “What do you want me to do?” she asked. “Tell him Marna is home from CrossFit and he should call her.”

He immediately left the chat and, as you would imagine, I never heard from Andy again. I’m not sure what his operational definition of “exclusive” is. I’m just thankful I have good friends. The dating pool just got one man smaller, if you can call that a “man.”

I am the family crypt keeper so, ever so often, I go up to Arlington National Cemetery to ensure my father hasn’t kicked the door off after the recent arrival of my mother. Today, the screws were still tight, so I did some holiday decorating and then had a flashback to the 1970s.

It was December and I was 10 years old. My mom grabbed me and said, “come on, we have to go somewhere.” We were in the 2000 block of Powhatan Street, almost to the Arlington County line, when I asked, “where are we going?”

“We’re going to Toys ‘R Us. I’m sure you know there’s really no Santa Claus, so you are going to pick out the toys you know your brother wants.”

So that year, I was like the wiseman bringing gifts to the baby Jesus, except instead of myrrh, it was Evil Knievel. Today, I’m decorating my parents’ grave on what my brother and I call Barbara in the Box Day/Boxing Day. She always enjoyed the 25th, but the 26, it was back to business writing thank you notes and cleaning our rooms. What we did on that day was never a secret.

I made a hasty decision agreeing to meet John. We’d talked on the phone once and texted for a day, but he was eager and I was bored. I knew I was in trouble when, four hours before before meeting, he asked me how I felt about shorts. “I usually don’t make the switch until after the New Year,” he confessed. This is Virginia and we’ve already had 20-something degree days. While I wanted to tell him to put his big boy pants on, I told him to be comfortable.

An hour before meeting he texted me that he had just gotten home and was jumping in the shower. He had one clean, ironed shirt that he couldn’t wait to show me. At this point, I was in it for the cider and chanted an old New York girlfriend’s manta, “A girl’s gotta drink.”

He was standing in the cider tasting room and he was easy to spot because he was the only 50-something in shorts amongst the 20-something cool kids. “Tah-dah. What do you think? I got the shirt at Fan Thrift,” he boasted. He had on a bright green/chartruse-colored Ralph Lauren button down on with a blue horse on his nipple. Cargo shorts are never a good look on anyone, especially when the pockets are loaded. But the outfit was truly complete with old LLBean duck boats. This was a preppy flashback like I’d never seen. My response was unfiltered, “The 80’s called and they want it all back.” That made the bartender choke on whatever he was drinking.

We sat with our sampler platter and I feigned interest for an hour. After he confessed he had been separated since 2009 and couldn’t get divorced for “tax purposes,” he asked me if I’d like to go to a nude beach. I smiled and said no, naked middled aged people are not my thing. He then asked me to take him shopping. “I know I can do better,” he said. I declined that invitation and suggested he purchase a pair of jeans and up-to-date mock turtlenecks for the winter.  Better yet, maybe his wife can take him shopping.