Tag Archives: Dating

‘Thank You for Shopping at the Man Store’

03 Monday Dec 2012

Posted by in Love, Midpoints, Relationships and Family Life, Remarriage, Transitions

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JOHN AND SANDY_TheMidlifeSecondWife

This is not “Steve.” To find out who this is, please read the entire post.

Let’s call him Steve. After all, that’s what he called himself on Match.com. And who’s to say if that was his real name?

Steve and I have never met, but he’s the reason I decided to step off the Match.com bus, and for that I owe him my gratitude. Why? Because in the world of online-dating algorithms, where any click, keyword, or action is fraught with significance, stumbling across his profile, which he had the cheek to title “Thank You For Shopping at the Man Store,” ricocheted me onto a fateful course.

It was time for me to renew my six-month subscription on Match.com. Or was it? Steve’s headline was a wake-up call of sorts: If what I was doing was “shopping at the man store,” well, in the words of the immortal Bard: “Yuck.”

Four years of on-again, off-again attempts to meet someone in cyber-land had taken their toll. This was clearly a stupid way to meet people, and I was done. Finished.

That weekend I sent Match my notification that I’d not be renewing, and went about my business.

I had taken a few vacation days from work, and the next day, a Monday, was beautiful and bright outside. I was about to go out for a walk. But the siren call of the inbox lured me from my intended rounds.

I still had a couple of days before my Match profile vanished from public view. Now, with the pressure off, it might be fun to log onto my email and see what new horrors awaited me.

Oh. This one sounds promising. “ArtsandSportsLvr” finds me, “1literary_lady,” interesting. At least that’s what the subject header of the Match email indicates: “You Sparked Someone’s Interest!”

Well what do you know? With just a couple of days left to go on Match, I get a nibble.

I click the link that takes me to the Match website, and click again to see what Match has to say about him.

“He’s a 55-year-old man living in Cleveland, OH.”

Okay, age is fine. Geography, manageable.

“You both fancy felines. Like you, he’s not a smoker. He has a graduate degree.”

An intelligent cat-lover who doesn’t have nicotine stains on his teeth. This just keeps getting better and better.

I click on the link to his profile.

Ah. He’s included a picture. That’s always a good sign. There’s nothing creepier than seeing a faded blue head in silhouette accompanied by a wink (or, sometimes, a leer).

Wait. This is a nice picture. Look at those bright, clear blue eyes! And gosh darn it all, he’s got a dog, too! That is, if he didn’t rent the pup for the picture. (Had I grown cynical? Yes, just a little, around the edges.)

I was aware of the cyber-clock ticking. In a couple of days, I’d be lost to ArtsandSportsLvr forever. I had a decision to make. I could let boy-and-his-dog into my life, or let them trot off into the sunset. And live out the rest of my days with my cats.

I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and send a reply:

SUBJECT: The artful, sporting life…
From:        customercare@match.com
Date:        Mon, June 8, 2009 10:06 am

Hello, and thank you for your interest.
I must say that from what I read in your profile, we seem to have much in common. You also have a great smile; it suggests a good, kind soul.

My subscription to Match ends this week, and I’m not renewing it.  If you would like to get to know me off-line, as it were, and wish to send me a note, here’s my e-mail address in the real world:

[excised]

Have a wonderful day!

—Marci

I go out for my walk, and when I return, there’s a message waiting for me:

Marci, thanks for sharing your e-mail address.  I would like to continue chatting until you get comfortable enough to plan a get-to-know-you meeting.  I was introduced to the Oberlin concerts at the gazebo last year and enjoyed two of them.  The theater there is a wonderful bargain as well.  I have been told that the art museum is worth the trip and is on my list of to-do’s this summer.

Now you have my e-mail address and feel free to use it.

John

“Go out and make a difference in the world and it will make a world of difference in you.” – JR

I’m intrigued. A guy who includes a quote from himself in his email signature. That could seem pretentious, but this doesn’t strike me that way. I like the philosophy here. Could this be a man who’s not full of himself? An actual nice guy?

After a few more emails, we agree to speak on the phone.

I like his voice.

We set up a meeting at the museum in the town where I live.

That date, our first, lasts seven hours.

Reader, I married him.

I know I had become cynical about online dating toward the end of my tenure, but with success and the passage of time, it’s clear to me that I really had to give the algorithms time to do their work. John and I would never have met without the nudge from our cyber Dolly Gallagher Levi.

I wrote about this experience, and the online dating phenomenon, for the Richmond Times-Dispatch in an article published September 4, 2011. My research included interviews with Amy Canaday of Match.com’s public relations office, and two experts— Mark Brooks, an online dating consultant, and Dr. Robert Epstein, a contributor to Scientific American Mind.

When I interviewed Canaday by email in 2011, she told me that in the previous five years, the fastest-growing demographic for Match.com was the 50-and-older age group.

Unattached boomers? Are you listening?

Readers, this post is part of a GenFab Blog Hop. To begin reading all of the posts on the subject of “How I Met My Significant Other,” please click here.

The ‘L’ Word

20 Saturday Oct 2012

Posted by in Love, Midpoints, Relationships and Family Life, Remarriage, Transitions

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morgueFile image/KConnors photograph

NOTE: KatieCouric.com published an edited version of this post as “Learning to Love Again” on Monday, Oct. 22, 2012.

As many magazine articles, advice columnists, and situation comedies will tell you, it’s tricky being the first person in a relationship to say, “I love you.” Remember George Costanza? George was left holding what Jerry Seinfeld called a “pretty big matzo ball” because he failed to receive the much coveted “I love you return.” But what’s funny on television is actually quite terrifying in real life. It takes a huge leap of faith and nerves of titanium to say the “L” word first.

Take that terror to the tenth power if you’re divorced.

I know whereof I speak. After 26 years of marriage, my first husband and I divorced. Fast-forward six years, and I meet him. You know, The One. But let’s digress a moment, because playing with these numbers has given me an epiphany.

When I met The One, I was one year shy of my seven-year cellular renewal cycle—you know, that “Aha! Moment” your body supposedly has when all of its cells slough away, leaving you with an almost brand-new self. In truth, as Nicholas Wade wrote in a New York Times science article seven years ago, some cells—“the neurons of the cerebral cortex, the inner lens cells of the eye and perhaps the muscle cells of the heart”— remain unchanged. Now that’s what I call something of great constancy. The cellular structures of the brain, the eye, and the heart—three essential components in registering romantic love, if you ask me—remain constant. The cells in the rest of our bodies hit the refresh key, as it were.

Interesting. But the brain, eye, and heart theory didn’t pass the constancy test in my first marriage, I’m sad to say.

Then again, you never know. I like the idea of considering, given multiples of seven, that perhaps anything is possible. Believe me, I have mapped this out. I was married at 21 and divorced at 47. (Okay, so I’m a year or two off.) But everything did seem possible when I met The One, skipping along as I was toward my next seven-year cycle of renewal. The One and I had a lot in common: we made each other laugh, we sang lyrics from the Great American Songbook while cleaning up the kitchen after cooking together, and the attraction we felt toward one another left us in awe.

And then, two-and-a-half months into the relationship, it happened.

I did it. I’m the one who said it. After a hesitant sigh, he replied, as gently as he could, “I’m sorry. I’m just not there yet.”

Talk about your matzo balls. I could have opened a deli.

“Forget it,” I countered hastily. “I shouldn’t have said it. I understand what you’re saying/feeling/thinking.” (I was trying to fill in as many blanks as I could to cover myself.) “It’s all right.”

I wanted to believe that his reaction stemmed from emotional baggage. Our arms were filled with it. His divorce, however, was more recent than mine. I had reached the point where my baggage, as Dr. Terri Orbuch (The Love Doctor) says, could fit in the overhead compartment. Him? Not so much. He needed a skycap.

Or maybe it was something else. Maybe (Heaven forefend!) it was a case of “he’s just not that into you.”

And so he left, leaving me to wonder if I’d blown it. How could I have misread the signals? Everything pointed to love. All of the signs were there: the caring, the fondness, the intimacy, the long, meaningful conversations, the seeming trust, the genuine enjoyment in just being together. If that’s not love, what is?

I decided I wasn’t going to let this get to me. I was happy, he was happy. (He was, wasn’t he?) We had a date for the following evening; in fact, we had several events lined up into the next month. I wasn’t about to bring it up again.

Until one day I did.

“I blank you.”

“What?”

“I said ‘I blank you.’”

“What does that mean?”

“It can mean whatever you’d like it to mean. Fill in the blank. For my part, I know what it means but I’m not telling you. More cake?”

He laughed, and that was that. We were back on an even keel. “I blank you” became a running joke between us. He even started saying it to me.

The weeks flew by. Before I knew it, October was here, the month containing the second most dreaded Hallmark holiday (after Valentine’s Day) for single people: Sweetest Day.

I remember the scene as though it were yesterday. I had cooked dinner, something from my collection of Barefoot Contessa cookbooks. I bought him a maroon hooded Oberlin sweatshirt, not because he went to Oberlin, but because I did. I still lived in that quaint college town, and he loved its cultural vibe as much as I did. I wrapped the gift and bought a card. I presented both to him with a flourish. Here’s the card:

© Marian Heath. Used with permission and slightly altered, as it was the day I gave it to The One. Where would we be without Post-It Notes?

After he finished laughing, he became quiet. He looked at me across the table and said, “Marci, I’m not saying this because it’s Sweetest Day. I don’t “blank” you anymore. That’s silly. I love you.”

There it was. Four months after meeting him on Match.com, he told me he loved me. The matzo ball dissolved.

Four years after that first sweetest day together, we’re still celebrating. We’ve been married for two years. At the risk of tempting fate, by our seventh wedding anniversary, I fully expect the constancy theory to hold—my heart, my head, and my eyes will see what I’m seeing right now: He’s The One.

© Marian Heath. Used with permission.

RELATED:

‘When they Fall, they Fly’

“Outliers of Outloving”

“Secrets Of A Successful Marriage: Marlo Thomas And Phil Donahue”

“Secrets to a Happy Relationship”

 

On This Day in History …

14 Thursday Jun 2012

Posted by in Relationships and Family Life

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On this day in history, three years ago, Marci Janas met John Rich. Fourteen months later, to the day, they were married. And so began the journey of The Midlife Second Wife.

Three years is a long time in midlife. It often seems, as with dogs, that there’s a seven-to-one ratio at play; aging progresses more quickly. Time certainly passes more quickly. The pages of the calendar don’t turn, they blow past—as though caught in a hurricane. And, as the wind blows, we’re more keenly aware than ever of our mortality, and of how precious each day really is.

I’m waxing philosophical with this anniversary because it is amazing to me that I’ve now known John for three whole years. Readers familiar with our story know we met on Match.com. Our first date—our first meeting—was at the Allen Art Museum on the campus of Oberlin College. We met outside the beautiful Cass Gilbert-designed jewel box of a building, and paused to get acquainted on the arbor bench under the tree at the top of the screen. We call it our “Laughing Tree.” If you don’t know that story, then by all means go and read it. Then come back. There’s something else I want to tell you.

And that is this—a wonderful thing that has made us smile each June 14th for the last two years. There are no “pages” to a calendar any longer, not really. (Some metaphors are difficult to abandon.) Like most everyone, John and I use the calendar on our iPhones or laptops. So when John and I were planning our first meeting, he entered this into the calendar on his phone: “June 14. Meet Marci at art gallery.” By some error of fateful import, however, he also clicked “Repeat this event.” Now, every June 14, this entry shows up on his calendar:

“Meet Marci at art gallery.”

Now that’s one way to ensure you never forget an anniversary.

Happy third-year-of-knowing-you, John. Here’s to many more.

Online Dating Across the Pond

05 Monday Sep 2011

Posted by in Relationships and Family Life

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Blimey. A writer for ForcesPenPals.co.uk, the self-professed “top military dating, penpals and social networking website for the UK armed forces” wrote about my Richmond Times-Dispatch online-dating article. Please support the troops—check it out!