DatingAdviceAfterWidowhood

Dating After Widowhood, in the New Millenium - Yikes

The widows on the web-site were chatting about Anna, who was preparing for her first date, and asking us if we knew about grooming “down there”. She was eager to get a bikini wax, because she’d met a triathlete in a club in NY. He didn’t talk much, but he grabbed her and kissed her, told her she was attractive. To a widow, this can be a lot. Like a promise of food for the starving.

This is what I want, someone to find me attractive. (On one level. On another level I do care that the person is kind, wise, healthy on all levels, and many etceteras). The women were writing in saying they shave, and then put deodorant on down there to prevent bumps, or use lotion, and a woman said she used Mach III and another, men’s shaving shears, others wax, others didn’t write, feeling hairy--like me I suppose.

Reading on about hair dyes for “down there”, I felt like a “corpsicle” (someone cryogenically frozen) from the sixties, reborn into a flashy TV movie in the 2000’s. How was I going to fit this former-hippy, former hairy legged and under-armed widow into the new dating world? How was I going to fit in when I’d gained 15 pounds since my husband died 20 months ago and 98% of the dating ads want slim, fit, petite, athletic women who want to have fun outdoors (and indoors)? They want someone to go out on the water with, on a dive, or a ski, on a kayak or a yacht. If you had a water phobia you’d never meet anyone. I went to the fridge and got a chocolate Skinny Cow ice cream sandwich, then a handful of almonds, and sesame pepper crackers with a triangle of pepper-jack cheese to ponder this.(This was a mourning ritual, a prayer book in chapters of food over which to consider my odds).

I wanted a replacement for my sweet, dear husband, someone with that easy-going 6 foot 1, mustached perspective, someone who had lived in the hills and hollers of West Virginia as he had, to talk problems over with, to snuggle with at night, on his shoulder, even his shoulder after he was sick, to be met at the door with the Hi honey, to give foot massages to, and, oh, receive them, while watching Airport II. (I’ll just skip over some parenting disagreements, and other places we didn’t easily connect, to memories of talking with him like my best girl-friend at a sleep-over, but a “permanent” sleep-over, with that comfort of letting go as much as I could my heart and having someone holding me, no matter what my body, mind and emotions, had been through during the day – even if we had argued with each other.) Would I find another sweet Three Musketeers bar to pair up with at the end of each day?

My grief group counselor said, “Marriage is really two people who tolerate each other’s idiosyncrasies, who sometimes love and sometimes don’t like each other.” It is the like and love part I miss. I miss the eyes, the invisible presence. I miss being part of and with. And I miss all the other kind computer help, editing help, parenting genius and trees in fall in Naugatuck, West Virginia wisdom my husband shared.

So I filled out the eharmony fifty page questionnaires. I was surprised the first time they sent me someone from a country I’d never heard of before, but then the first year everyone they sent me was named Abdul and was from Egypt or from Dubai or Addis Ababa. I shook my head about this for a year, thinking my values were only attracting Muslims, until I finally phoned an eharmony representative, who told me that I had indicated a preference for men who did not drink, and that if I changed my preferences, I’d have a lot more men to choose from. So I changed my preferences to men who drank twice a week. (She mentioned the computer makes the matches, which is a little scary. I’d always thought I’d be able to put in a good word with a woman who stayed up late at night making matches at eharmony…)

Then the men’s profiles started pouring in, the nice ones like fresh motor engine oil to a sluggish car as I turned from one to another. After opening, closing, being closed, being open, but not that open, I finally met Mitch, who was six years younger than me, a tall psychology teacher, a coach, a Catholic, a father. We spoke, and got out of the way that I didn’t want to go all the way on the way to getting to know him. No bikini waxing needed here, in other words. We were to meet Wednesday evening by the Curry House on Artesia and I told everyone I talk to on the phone, and my widow friends on the Internet, and even him that I was going on my first date in 20 years. That afternoon I received an e-mail from Mitch, “I have to see my kids tonight. This is not typical of me. Can we re-schedule.” No apology? No phone call?

I was a tad sensitive about this canceling matter because the day before, a Marlboro man from jDate who seemed a little testy (in response to my saying I wanted a man passionate about his work, he responded: What if I don’t work?) had written, “You say the word, and I’ll drive from Santa Barbara to San Pedro to meet you. I love to drive.” I got his number, like you’re supposed to do in case the man is an axe murderer, and nervously called. I mean nervous with every atom of my being that needed. I needed so much to fill up the empty cup my John left. This was curtain call nervous.

I called the number with the 805 area code. “Claudia, Claudia,” he said with humor. I didn’t laugh, and was too skittish to know how to respond, and then he didn’t get what I said, and then I couldn’t hear him, and the phone line started breaking up. He said he was in his car charging his phone because he’d lost his charger. Suddenly he wasn’t on the line. I’ve never heard from him since.

So this carried over into Mitch’s e-mail as if I had been food-poisoned the day before and someone offered me sushi for breakfast. I wasn’t going to take this. I closed the match with Mitch, reciting justifications in my head: he had said his ex-wife was very messy, and I was too, but trainable. It would probably be an issue. He had also said his wife liked going on expensive vacations with her family, when they couldn’t afford such nice vacations, and I realized I wanted to be with someone where we could go on vacations, even go to Tuscany if we wanted, especially after staying close to home and most of our vacations being hospital stays, for four and a half years.

Flipping through the computer screens post-Mitch, I googled: Wealthy Men. Sugardaddy.com came up on the screen. I am a former kundalini yoga teacher, thank you. A little too materialistic for my images of myself. Flipping around, I happened on date.com. There was no description, mission statement or claims. Just the bottomline: Photos, lots of them, with descriptions. And then I saw one beaming out at me. David. Full-bodied, a nose like mine, like me in the masculine, Jewish background (my father was a rabbi), present, radiating life. Mmmmm. I wrote a five paragraph essay to him, talking about hiking and the ocean and Birkenstocks and everything he mentioned in his profile, with the right measure of humor and toned down desperation.

I didn’t expect to hear back, but received the reply: Subject: “Purposeful life.” (He quoted two words from my profile). I’m impressed. Let’s talk.

The next morning, I heard the lowest of low voices, say, “Hi.” on my cell phone (think reverberations). This was a voice you would want to have sex with even if you were brahmacharya, like a lion with a low purr. I told him about my five cats and my favorite, Nobility, and he told me he has an outdoor feral cat he tamed, Miss Foxy and a dog. He told me about a puppy he once bought, who needed training, but the trainer said he couldn’t train him, he had juvenile ADD for puppies. So David thought that was ridiculous, so he took the dog to a second trainer who told him the same thing. David told me he realized he “bought a lemon” and over the course of two years “the dog trained me.” I laughed heartily, with all my hope in life again, and femininity blooming. I felt a confidence growing that he, a handsome man, would be interested in me.

H e suggested that we meet at a park in Santa Monica between where I lived and he lived. He said he was open to my suggestions too. I wondered if we maybe, maybe could do something useful so that if it didn’t work out between David and me we’d have done something productive. I was also thinking that service activities are a good way to get to know someone. So I told him that I didn’t suppose he would want to visit my friend in the hospital, who I hadn’t gotten around to seeing, or visit my mom who I hadn’t seen in a while, or perhaps we could do something he needed to do that he hadn’t done for a while. He said, “No, I want to be with you alone, and get a chance to talk to you. Wear blue jeans and no perfume.” And then, he added, “My favorite scent is a woman.” That morning I washed my hair and put the “Be Curly” in my hair even though it had a scent.

I saw him approaching from his cream sports vehicle as I got out of my dirty white Camry. He was…older. Not as cute. A different person almost. I was shocked. We made small talk. He walked ahead on the path, not looking back to see if I was coming along. I even thought of waiting for a few seconds and letting him see that he was down the block and that I was tiny in the distance. We passed by cacti and sculptures and large dogs playing on the path (we had to walk around them – David thought the owners were oblivious) and a couple holding hands (a bit awkward to see this on a first meeting). As it grew later, he invited me to sit in his car. I hoped he wouldn’t drive away with me.

As we talked, I found myself crying, telling him about how having a date meant a certain letting go of my husband. He said his father died, but he still feels his Spirit with him, and said, “You can take your husband with you into dating.”

As I squirmed internally, in the beige car seat, he asked, “Are you a passionate person?” Passionate. Passionate? After about six years with no… He told me in a George Forman voice, “You have to know someone sexually to find out if you connect on all levels.”

I stared at my new Clark tennis shoes, black with charcoal leather. The sky, as I looked up, was light orange, over parked cars down the street, and people in the distance strolling by large palm trees.

“When I’ve connected with someone on other levels” my voice told him, “I never had the problem of not connecting sexually.” (I didn’t tell him that I’d only found this out with my husband). I felt my descent into a double chin, and my 15 extra pounds, in insecurity and discomfort.

I asked him about never having been married. He told me that he’d just had a girlfriend for 12 years. They’d broken up because she wanted to get married and someone asked her. I told him, about one time for each five pounds extra I carry, “I am uncomfortable.” But I kept sitting there. This was all I had now. It could be a raw possibility.

Though I couldn’t put it into words, in my visceral memory was my seven hippie years living off of Highway 9 in Santa Cruz, the city whose theme song is: “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?” I noticed that his hair was dirty. I told him, “You will either ask me to leave or I will leave…” The only way out, I decided, was to ask him for a hug. I reached for a short, over-the-clutch hug and he said, “Ah, chemistry” as I stepped down out of the shiny beige metal, careful to walk away not looking back. Wondered if he was checking out my chemistry from behind.

That night, the next morning, the next night, the next morning, I felt so horny. It was like the universe had unzipped my sexuality and hooked me up to a DVD of the Kama Sutra. Every time I thought of him, staring at me, saying, “Are you passionate?” and later saying, “I am a passionate man,” I could feel that primal longing, as if a penis was coming to me through a telescope from Calabassas to San Pedro. Or was it me reaching for it? The deep voice reminded me: male. He wanted me. Well, not me. A sampler. He wanted the Sees candy box and to press his thumb nail in all the bottoms to see what was inside.

Afterwards, we e-mailed. He wrote: Are you giving me the silent treatment? I told him I liked his humor and smartness, but the different views about relationships and sexuality was too much work and fight. Later, he e-mailed me asking if we were going to meet in real-time. This was a real battle for me between my chakras, my lowers and my uppers. Even our cats’ names revealed the difference between us: His outdoor female cat named Miss Foxy, and my indoor male cat named, “Nobility.” Yet I loved the way David came towards me fearlessly, assertively, how he challenged me, how he was so different than my gentle, tactful husband. So…penetrating.

“Penetrating” my girlfriend Linda said, after I told her. “Did you hear what you said?”

“Passionate?” my girlfriend Lisa said. “As I get older I am more passionate about giving service to humanity and my religion, and less passionate about sex. It doesn’t mean you’re not passionate if you don’t want to have sex with him.”

With some regret, I wrote back, answering David about whether we were going to talk in real-time: No, if you want to have sex quickly. No, if you don’t want to have a marriage with somebody at some point.

He wrote back: You pursue sobering delineations.

And I felt a little sad. (And I wondered if he was stoned when he wrote this. (I later asked him; he said he didn’t remember).

This conflict between my chakras led me back to my computer. I decided to write on the dating site that has men of my religion, people who want to fly together for a while, and meet in the Spirit. Two Doves the site is called. (For each site you put on a different hat. For this Two Doves site, people put on their spiritual hats). And I e-mailed a bunch of people – if they were not that handsome, or were older than I usually wrote to, I wrote anyway.

And one wrote back! Tim. A musician. He is not overly handsome, or overly witty. Or overly anything. There was no lower chakra energy in his post. When I said, let me know if you want to hear about my husband and daughter, he replied, “Tell me about your husband and daughter.” My heart jumped. Someone wanted to hear! (A little goes a long way with a widow…). We wrote about the ups and downs of our faith in our lives.

As I think of Mitch, Marlboro man, David, and my new friend Tim, I realize that as a society, IMHO, the whole dating scene is backwards. Anyone can have sex (well, practically anyone, even a moose, and they are probably plenty passionate, David). What is hard is being caring when it is inconvenient, what takes every bit-let of your self, and challenges every neurosis and communication skill, is being a parent. Parenting takes the keyboard of your skills, weakness, and genetic predispositions from your ancestors until your present age, and plays them from morning until night, forcing you to develop some beautiful tunes or suffer hearing discordant, moaning music (and everything in between). All those rigors of parenting are the type of rigors a relationship takes.

So I told my 13 year old daughter that I think men should try to find out how invested a mom is with her kid, (and visa-versa) and what she does for and with her child, how much she cares and is involved. That would be the best indicator for a really conscious, good partner. She, of course, answered, “Someone who is so into their kid might not have time to be into their partner.”

What do you think? Isn't it backwards? We put on the horse and pony show and glitz, and later we find out all the subtle sub-nuances of the person's ability to care and love, be honest. Instead of parading the scuba diving, sailing, jet skiing, fit, toned body, liking theater, liking Pad Thai and pastrami sandwiches with mustard etc… we should be telling how we are as parents, how involved we get, how much we listen, how we respond in hard times, when we are up against the wall, so to speak.

To really get to know people, there should be a Jungian dating sight. It would be called Shadow.com. People could advertise that they are not only a few extra pounds but 25 extra pounds, they like sports when other people do them, and don't know much about communicating in relationships if their last relationships were any indication. The more shadows you revealed, the more individuated you would be, hence the more attractive. Psychotherapist and author Miriam Greenspan describes the darker emotions (such a site would reveal) as "rich, fertile,dark soil from which something unexpected can bloom."

I shared some of these thoughts with the widows on the Internet who were preparing for the dating scene. They said that the best way to know who a man really is is to look at his behavior, not what he says about himself. I took mental notes of some of their comments:

"My mom always said to take note of how a person treated their mother as an indicator of how they treat women in general. I don't know if it's true but I know both of my brothers love my mom and are very protective of her and of their partners.”

“I have learned to really watch how a person relates to those around them. Especially to his own kids or my kids.”

“And if they have pets, watch closely...If they take them for granted...beware. How someone treats their pets will give you some idea how they will treat you. And pets, especially dogs, KNOW when someone is a nogoodnik or not.”

“See if animals want to go near him. Animals and children are great barometers of human behavior.”

“Not everyone has a pet. Maybe you can check out his houseplants.”

“Lousy tippers and people who do not treat others as equals suck. There's that old test of watching how someone treats your friendly neighborhood waitress too. Nothing is nastier than a guy who is all chuckles and chummy with a group of friends in a restaurant and then proceeds to flag down the waiter by snapping his fingers...and then leaves a cheap-ass tip.”

“You have to watch how he treats EVERYONE around. Does he say 'thank you' to the waiter/ress when you go to dinner? Is he polite to people who he will probably never see again?”

And, finally, one widow said that we should interview their ex-wives.

As I write, my spiritual guide, I mean the Jdate message billboard sings to me that I have a post. I am uplifted. The photo shows Marcel, a beautiful smile, dark hair, eyebrows. He wants to grow with someone. (That might be able to be arranged). He volunteers with children with cancer. He owns a bookstore. In response to my essay to him, he writes his phone number, and “Would you like to come over?”

Though it might be some time before I trust him enough to check out his houseplants, I think I will follow the widows advice and observe his behaviors. I will visit his book-store dressed up like a long-time homeless person, panting and asking for water. I will see if he, like Rebecca at the well in the Bible, leads my camel and I to drink at his bookstore café, or leaves us to find water in some other spring in the dating desert.