Cybercourting

As a Valentine’s Day treat for you, dear readers, I’m posting a wonderful, sweet, funny story from the Feb. 10th New York Times Magazine about one woman’s experience with on-line dating (on eHarmony, it sounds like) at age 55. May it give hope to us all. Happy Valentine’s Day!

“Cybercourting”
by Laurie Kasparian
The New York Times Magazine, 2/10/08

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/10/magazine/10lives-t.html?scp=1&sq=Cybercourting&st=nyt

“O.K.,” I told my best friend, “there’s this guy online I think I have to go out with.” It wasn’t said with the enthusiasm of one who finds love at first sight over the Internet. It was with a sigh, more than a modicum of dread and the appropriate amount of resignation that I admitted this to her, my happily married friend who found it all too easy to urge me to “get out there” and date.

I was 55, 15 years divorced, and this Internet campaign took all the pluck I could possibly muster. But all the other avenues had dried up — blind dates, volunteer groups, classes, professional contacts (bars were never an option). The site I used would send me matches, and all I had to do was read about them and “start communication” or “close” them out. Mostly I closed — square-dancers, Fess Parker fans, TV-fishing-show hosts and fathers of three preteens. But once in a great while someone came along who had no zapworthy traits.

I was a year into the search when this particular guy came along: Steve. It wasn’t that he sounded like the love of my life; it was that I could find no valid reason to reject him. My friend kept me very honest about this. She was in favor of kissing every single frog, and I dutifully ran my matches past her for a second screening. Steve, she enthusiastically agreed, had potential, and I knew what I had to do — “start communication.”

Our initial online interchanges went well. Steve asked what I thought the three most important qualities of a lasting marriage were, and I waxed eloquent on two of them, then gave up trying to impress him and just blurted out the third, “a killer sex life.” He told me his sons were both voted “best hair” in high school. “I am so proud,” he quipped. “They have worked so hard.” Questions and answers flew across the ether. But our schedules prevented us from meeting, so instead we moved up to the phone. Nightly calls lengthened to three hours and more as we hungered for and found common experiences and intimacy and trust. This was heady. But we still hadn’t met. We had the online photos, and we quizzed each other on our looks, but I wasn’t sure I would be attracted to him in person.

On the day we finally had our first date, I was having a major case of the vapors. My anxiety would settle for a moment, and then the thought of our meeting would set it off again. He seemed just as nervous. We each had mentioned that we had sensitive stomachs, so when he said, “You know we won’t go out to eat,” it didn’t sound as if he was cheap or weird.

Our rendezvous was at a bookstore in Newport Beach. I was to find my favorite book, and he was to find me. Was this cheesy or romantic? More troublesome was what book to pick. I did not want to be pretentious, superficial or predictable. I finally went with my true choice, “The Sound and the Fury.” I love its tale of the disintegration of a family in the South, and I especially love one line in the appendix, in which Faulkner gives all manner of family history. When it comes to the black family servants, he merely says of them all, “They endured.” It always touched me.

I nervously stood, book in hand, awaiting Steve’s arrival. I finally sat down in the aisle, leaned against the books, read lazily. I would see his sneakers approaching first, I thought. Finally they did. I looked up, saw what I felt was an old friend, jumped up and gave him a little hug. “Are you nervous?” he asked. “Not anymore,” I replied. “Me, either,” he said. “Let’s see what you picked.” I showed him the book. He took it in his hand. “Good choice,” he said. “Isn’t this the book that ends with something like ‘they endured’?”

We took the ferry across Newport Harbor, walked along the strand, talking and stealing glances. He didn’t look much like the picture. He was clearly older, decidedly heavier. Different glasses. We finally did decide to eat, and shared pictures of our kids as we did. It was clear he loved his children heart and soul. I liked that. Still, he seemed rather shy and stiff. Our phone calls had become very intimate, yet he steered clear of any intimacy now. I could tell he liked me, even though he did not smile much. I felt uncertain.

On the way back across the ferry, we were silent for the first time that night. He hadn’t touched me at all. Sitting side by side, I impulsively leaned against him, shoulder to shoulder, and stayed there. It was comfortable, and I felt him relax. “How many people do you have to call tonight to tell about our date?” he casually asked. I counted up in my head: “Nine.” “Great,” he said, “the Supreme Court.” As we parted, he turned to me and said, “Thanks for the lean.” I smiled and realized bargains are made in an instant. For my part, I could see I had to start rearranging the old furniture in my head to make room for this strangely familiar stranger.

Three years later, we endure.
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Laurie Kasparian is a high-school English teacher in Irvine, Calif.