I have this friend who’s tall and attractive, but not the type who would make guys bump into walls turning to look at her. You know what I mean.
She’s middle-aged with young adult children. What this woman has is moxie. She was married once and then divorced. After that, she had a series of relationships with nice, attractive, age-appropriate guys until she found her current husband, maybe hiding behind a bush, because she seems to find men everywhere.
I haven’t had a date since dinosaurs ruled the earth, and I can’t say I miss it. Now that I’m as old as dirt, I figure maybe I never will, even though I would like to wave a magic wand and find a guy who wanted a crabby old lady who’s set in her ways, bossy, and, oh yeah, has cancer. With the scars to prove it.
He would have to be funny and smart and solvent and like to travel. I’m not thinking this will ever happen, but that’s OK because I’m quite fond of my life the way it is.
But that’s not okay with my friend, who I’ll call Becky, because I liked the Becky in “Tom Sawyer.”
Becky wants me to find a man. She’s tried repeatedly to teach me how to get one, and I respect this because she certainly knows how.
“Marla, you’ve got no game,” she’s told me repeatedly, and it’s true. The last time I flirted with anyone was probably at an Aerosmith concert in 1979.
I was thinking about the time a few years ago when Becky and I went to Puerto Vallarta together. We got off the plane, and I started chatting with a tall, distinguished-looking man as we both walked to the baggage claim.
He was telling me how he was going to visit a friend who was throwing a house party at his big house in the area. I told him that sounded fabulous. And then I went and got my luggage.
End of story, right? Well, no. As we were walking with our luggage out toward the taxi ranks, Becky started nudging me and insisting the guy was flirting with me and if I’d pushed it, we probably could have been invited to his house party. Honestly, I couldn’t see it. Anyway, it was funny and we were probably talking too loudly and laughing.
Naturally, I couldn’t help wondering if she could possibly have been right, as ludicrous as it seemed to me. Then, I turned around and realized the object of our discussion was walking right behind us and must have heard the entire sophomoric conversation.
My face turned beet red, especially when I noticed him speed up and sprint past us to get away. Cripes, I thought. This is what happens when you act like a teenager even though you’re old as dirt.
The next day, we were sitting at a beachfront bar drinking 2-for-1 margaritas. Or, in our case, it was more like 6-for-3. The world was definitely starting to whirl.
Becky insisted on continuing my romantic education. After three margaritas, I did not have the will to resist her immovable force.
“You need to learn how to talk to men,” she said. “We can practice right here.” Now, she didn’t actually mean talk to men, because I’ve talked to untold thousands of men in my career as a newspaper reporter. If necessary, I can talk to anyone about anything.
What she meant was talk to men as an opening gambit, to see where it would lead. This I did not know how to do. And I still don’t.
She pointed to a guy near us in a T-shirt that had a picture of a whale and the name of some restaurant on it.
“Say something to him,” she commanded me.
I like whales, so I thought, well, what the hell. Also, three margaritas. (See above.)
But I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I looked at his T-shirt with the whale and the restaurant logo, leaned over and said, “So. Do you like to eat whales?”
Seriously. I actually said that. In an actual attempt to flirt with a guy. You can’t make this stuff up, folks.
He took one look at me, picked up his beer and moved to the other side of the bar.
Well, that went well, I thought.
Becky stared at me, groaned and repeated. “Marla, you’ve got no game.“
And this was true back then. And it still is today.
But, hey, at least I don’t have to talk to people since Becky moved away.
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