Once Again, The Trials and Tribulations of Lance Lawrence-The Senior Set On-Line Dating Woes

...yeah, one night of sin is what I am praying for-Lance Lawrence 

By Seth Garth

Sam Lowell had to laugh about his old college roommate and lifelong friend Lance Lawrence as he walked home after another bout with Lance’s problem as described by him sitting at the bar at Joe Daley’s Grille in Cambridge. The problem: Lance Lawrence was running on empty in his latest quest to get a new female companion through this on-line dating service, Seniors Please, a service he had joined a few weeks after he had been issued his walking papers by his long-time companion, Minnie Murphy, who had to get out from under Lance’s jackboot and find herself, or whatever it was that had made them drift apart. Lance was never very reflective about why some women would even think of leaving him despite three, count them, three divorces and a million affairs (some of them during those marriages and grounds for divorce) and this latest serious boot from Minnie who persevered much longer than most, too long according to Sam who had always been at least half in love with her. Lance, whatever else his good qualities and they were plentiful as Sam always recognized had throughout his life always thought of himself as something on the order of god’s gift to women. Had the looks, charm, talk, and pure bullshit swagger to pull it off. More than once Sam had been jealous of those abilities, although not as much recently as Lance and he had gotten much closer after several years absence from each other’s lives.

Sam had to confess that the first time that Lance had mentioned his dilemma since Minnie had left for parts unknown one night a few weeks previously after another drinking bout at Joe’s that he was pretty non-plussed about it. Part of it was that Sam had been half in love with Minnie to no avail as he learned to his regret one drunken night when he had made his intentions clear and she had told him that she had feelings that way too but she was Lance’s woman. That was that. Part of it was that he figured it was just a momentary glitch in the legendary Lance’s prowess for charming and bedding women, a phenomenon that Sam had witnessed many times since the first time when they were assigned to be roommates freshman year and they had not gotten out of the Boston University Bookstore before Lance had some pretty freshman co-ed coaxed up into their Bay State Road dorm room “doing the do” as he called the act taking the term from the legendary bluesman Howlin’ Wolf that he had latched onto one night at a coffeehouse where the Wolf’s song was on the jukebox and the gal he was will got all horny when he repeated the words (by the way leaving Sam to wait around the bookstore killing time). 

The way Lance had figured his drought that night had been that this on-line dating business did not play to his up front and personal charm and chemistry when everything on-line depended on profiles and answers foolish non-descript questions that told nobody nothing. That night Lance had ended the evening giving Sam a blow by blow description of the odd-ball way these “mature” women that he might have the slightest interest in presented themselves on their profiles.

That was then though. Those were the days when Lance was just getting used to having to sweat to even get a response from the women on the site, at least any he would be interested in- others contacted him by the score. Now Lance was getting desperate since he not made one conquest, conquest meaning as it had been since he was probably about six getting into bed with some woman and having his way with her. Not from a lack of trying as the now seemingly defeated Lance told his tales of woe. Sam couldn’t decide whether he should, secretly, laugh or cry, laugh because the old bastard finally was getting his comeuppance after all the times he had left Sam in the lurch following the scent of some woman, cry because if the legendary Lance Lawrence was having trouble meeting women where would that leave the much shyer and less aggressive Sam (who had two divorces under his belt, one fairly recently, and was now “single” himself).     

Here is the litany as Lance played it out. The way this on-line dating game worked was that you put in your profile, photograph, answered some questions, inane or not, to give some unsuspecting woman a change to see if you were somebody she might be interested in. Additionally you put in your zip code, distance you would be willing to travel to see the lovely, and age range. Lance, now on the high side of 60 had made his range 50 to 65 although he tended to favor the younger side (his second and third wives were about ten years younger than him). Through all that “work” Lance first “connected” with a late 50s woman from Jamaica Plain, an up and coming neighborhood in Boston. Connected here meaning that he had sent her a message via the site that he was interested in “chatting” with her. And so they did almost constantly over a couple of days. Lance figured this was “pay-dirt,” the old guy still had it. That notion was further cemented in his head when she out of the blue invited him to go to Museum of Fine Arts with her since a new exhibit was opening up. Frankly Lance could have cared a rat’s ass about art (that expression Sam first heard Lance him use back in those freshman days, a carryover from his neighborhood days hanging out with the guys so you know what king of guys those guys were) but figured she was just looking for a neutral spot for them to meet.

So he went along, found the exhibit, and her, interesting and bought her dinner. A pleasant day in which he figured he would play it cool and not try his end-around play to get her in bed that day. They easily agreed to meet again soon. The second date wound up being at a bar where she wanted to watch a Patriot’s football game (he would find out later after many other searches that an amazing number of older women were interested in this sport and this team for god knows what reason). Fair enough although he had long ago given up watching sports on television, watch anything on television and could have given a rat’s ass about watching the game that day. That day also turned out to be pretty good once they got through the game. They agreed to stay in contact and plan for another date. He had asked her if she had wanted to go to his house for a drink but she deferred saying that they should go slow and easy not a good sign for the always impatient Lance. Slow and easy indeed since after that football date he did not hear from her again. Lance would not “lower himself,” his term, to call or e-mail her so that one went off into the sunset.              

Lance then spent a week or so busily sending messages to a scad of other women but nothing panned out mostly because the most interesting looking women had no qualms about leading their profiles with endless photographs of them with their grandchildren, pets, or projects. One had a lead photograph of her with her football player-sized son whose pose spoke of serious mayhem if anybody was unkind to his Mom. So no sale. A couple of weeks later he did go on another date with a fifty-something woman who had never been married and although she had her charms Lance had then vowed never to message any more never married women since they were never married probably because they were frigid or something, or at least beyond his charms. 

Of course in the “mature” searching for love racket everybody unlike the wistful and naïve young carries a ton of baggage, carries every possible quirk and idiosyncrasy and the next date proved that to be the case. Very seldom in his life had Lance when he saw the slightest chance of bedding some women whatever her looks, personality, or karma never missed an opportunity to play the game until the end. This next date though he threw in the towel after a quick hour in which he kept looking at his watch and trying to figure out how to escape once he realized this one was a bit crazed, had some social issues and would not, maybe could not stop blabbing about the signs of the Zodiac and how when she divined them for her and Lance all the stars were aligned or something like that. Jesus, Lance had looked at Sam with a stare like he was very glad to have escaped with his manhood intact. That was not the last of the goofs though, there would be one more, this one who claimed to be a spiritualist and some kind of Zen Buddhist freak who though everything that had happened, worse would happen in the future was perfect, was immutable. Yes, Lance said he would screen his “women” much more carefully as he expressed a longing for the good old days when there were in the flesh meetings and the glint in a woman’s eye would tell him to go forward or back off.

As Sam and Lance once again departed out the front door of Joe’s to go to their respective homes Lance, as he had on their first meeting over the august question of Lance’s current love life Lance yelled across the street, “I have to go home and check if Illy23 and Hotmama234 (on-line monikers likes Lance’s loveman345) had left a message for me.” Yeah, some things never change.