... Or so my horoscope (horrorscope?!) would have me believe, Dear All.
Since romance didn't meet me halfway in spite of the high hopes fostered by said horoscope, a friend decided to take me in hand and drive me to her numerologist. But the thought of surrendering my name to molestation by numerology in the hope of 'snagging' a man seemed a step too far- I mean really, there was no way I would ever remember to add the two more S's and the five A's to my name! Or maybe I'm being too skeptical, after all it was again a week of many 'interests'. As an aside, do note how well I've been submerged in the jargon of matrimonial websites; 'interest'; 'accept/decline'; 'favourites'; and my all-time favourite- 'your e-matchmaker matches'!
To return to the question of interests they were mostly the usual mix of men seeking 'adjustable wives'- which always brings to mind, I don't know, adjustable bookends or something- and women who are the 'perfect blend of east and west', which always recalls the blend that's in the teapot! All to be rejected. At some point while rejecting these I did question my instinct and ask myself whether I ought to let a few through because maybe, just maybe, some people might not be great at expressing themselves in writing a good profile and I should cut them some slack. So, somewhat at random (I know, I know, what was I thinking!), I let a couple of them through my very strict 'accept' guidelines, and herein lies a story.
So there was this very short profile with no photograph, which in itself should have set off the alarm bells. The profile which did not say very much about the person was written without any glaring errors (okay, I admit I'm one of those nit-pickers who can't help noticing when people do not know the difference between 'then' and 'than'- I was born that way, with dysfunctional genes!) and otherwise seemed harmless. I couldn't come up with a reason to reject it so I accepted. I wrote back, as I always do, saying I would be happy to hear from him and here was my number. I got a text within half-an-hour, with his name- let's just call him 'Please Let It Not Be Him!' (PLINBH for short) and you will discover why soon enough, and requesting me to call whenever it was convenient for me. This was definitely an improvement from Mr.Fudge and I called him shortly thereafter when I felt the need for a post-prandial break from work. He was pleasant but right from the start it was obvious that he was quite seasoned at this.
So after the initial, oh-so-awkward pleasantries and long pauses with lots of 'umms' and 'hmms', exchanging names etc. he got right down to business; what did you like about my profile so that you accepted it? Since I could hardly say that I only accepted because there was no reason to reject I umm'd and well'd and just let it pass. The next question- how serious are you about getting married?- I answered this one best as I could given that this was starting to feel a bit like the Spanish Inquisition (was this a portent of life with an accountant?). But to my credit (!) he seemed pleased with my answers and went on to his tale of woe which went something like this: too many women tended to notice straight off that he was an accountant earning very well indeed (in their defense he had reeled off numbers on his profile) and he got the feeling that they were all after his money, which is as good a reason as any to marry I suppose?; some women were also apparently only after his body and not necessarily within the confines of marriage, which seemed an even better reason not to marry if you ask me! He seemed to have hit his stride by then and talked about (aaargh!) family values and how these women didn't understand what they were; I kept silent and omitted to mention that I too didn't quite know what they were.
But he seemed to have taken to me for some reason- I know, completely inexplicable isn't it?- and called me later that night. As I had anticipated even when I'd accepted his request it was difficult to find a mutually interesting topic of conversation and I was eager to steer the talk away from uncomfortable things like 'family values' which nonetheless seemed to crop up with alarming frequency. He didn't seem to realise that he could laugh at what I was saying and herein lay the first of my problems- a man who didn't know when (and how?) to laugh. I told myself to have patience and tried not to roll my eyes heavenward. The next evening he called again and in the course of conversation asked me whether I could cook and if I enjoyed it ('good wife' material?); when I replied that indeed I did enjoy cooking, he managed to drop, in response, somewhere in that conversation the words (here they come- drum roll) 'when we are married'. My heart stopped- surely I couldn't have heard right, was this normal second conversation stuff? I couldn't recall sending out any signals that said 'I-am-dying-to-marry-you'. I decided I'd ignore it and maybe he would too. I laughed uncomfortably but the rest of the conversation was short and slightly wobbly (from my end) and we agreed to talk again the next day. We eventually didn't talk but I did get a text saying 'I am thinking of you' and to which I replied in my usual dry manner 'umm, I see'- I mean really, what did he expect me to say? When we next spoke, which was soon thereafter, the conversation seemed to pick up from the previous one, which only means that it was, ahem, sparse and we graduated- or at least he did- from 'when we are married' to (yes, you guessed right) 'when we have children'! Yikes! Was this the point where I should tell him I'm infertile or that I had had a sex-change operation last year? Because I was pretty sure this was not third conversation stuff!
I had by now, in fact in our second conversation, agreed that it made sense to meet in order to see whether we had anything here worth pursuing and although I was beginning to have a strange (!) sense about this entire thing I didn't quite see how to get out of it. So meet we did- but that is a story for another day and another post.
Yours, in horror-scopy!
S
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