The Waiting Game….With Lost Loves In Mind 

By Bart Webber

Dan Hawkins was not the waiting kind. Not the kind of guy who suffered to hang around moping, pining away (or to suffer fools, his term, who did as any number of his companions and colleagues could attest to). Not the kind if anybody was taking a survey, or looking for a character point on a profile to suffer waiting for anything. It had not always been that way, quite the contrary, he had had a history of waiting until hell froze over for some damsel who no showed him, which in turn made him a no show guy later when he was chasing some dames at the same time and had agreed to meet them severally at the same time,       but over the past few years he had gotten better about being on time, about showing up. Had been better that is until that night Moira left him, left him one night packing her bags and fleeing in the night. (It wasn’t exactly that dramatic but in the six plus month since she had left Dan had made whole thing as was his wont when left alone with his imagination to make the departure some epic Greek tragedy, something Shakespeare or one of those guys would have made a big deal story about.) No Dan had not been the waiting kind, not even with Moira who drove him crazy when she said she would be ready say at ten and then finally came down all beautiful about a half hour later. He had tried an end around with her so when he said to be ready say by ten in his mind he was thinking ten thirty and had made the profound mistake of giving his thought pattern away to her. Thereafter she would say show herself, all beautiful, at eleven. What the hell.   

This whole waiting business had been triggered of late while Dan figured out what he wanted to do with his life, his love life, his search for another relationship. See Dan previously had not waited around for some young woman when they split up, half the time he had somebody already waiting in the wings, some honey he had eyed and moved in on as he knew that last flame had flickered out in whatever current relationship he was in. Until Moira. And until Moira left him high and dry with some very harsh words about his needing to get at peace with himself, needed to do as she was doing trying to find herself and what she was about in the world –without him. Needing as he finally came to call it one night when he was listening to a Patty Griffin song, You Are Not Alone, and he grabbed onto the phrase “put out the fore in your head.”

Yes, that exactly stated the case. So he had moped around, pined away for six months before he realized that not only was Moira not coming back (he had no idea where she was although she said she was heading West, probably to California and that she would call him, not him her once she settled some place), but that he was lonesome for a woman’s company. Lonesome after he had spent the better part of those six months really trying to figure out a way to put out that fire in his head, to get some freaking peace from the bubble that was in his head. Tried to figure out what had gone wrong so the next time out he might not make a lot of the same mistakes. So no more waiting around.        

Dan had just turned thirty when Moira left him (and she just behind him in turning to that age which he thought might have contributed to why she had left when she saw that what they had was turning into ashes and would blow away with the first breeze, which it had once she determined what her course had to be). That age turning for some reason made him think that he if he was looking for somebody to share his life with then he could no longer go the “meat market” bar-hopping route which is how he had met most of his women friends, had met Moira one barstool night after having just taken his bar examination and was “celebrating” surviving that ordeal (he was nevertheless confidant that he would pass as he did). Moreover the high stakes Boston law firm he had been recruited to (and which caused many problems between he and Moira when he got sucked into the whirling dervish pace of trying to get ahead in that very competitive atmosphere with its manic and long hours) did not have many women that he would be attracted to (or women in the profession in general that he had run into) so he had been kind of stuck with how to meet somebody new. Then a fellow lawyer at the firm told him about on-line dating (actually he had overheard the guy making a “meet-up” first date and the guy knowing that Dan was single suggested he try it). Which he did although he had had balked at first, at his first effort when he “no showed” for the first time in a long time and that busted try had contributed to the waiting game-that forlorn hope beyond all reason that Moira would come back-or at least call to let him know she was safe wherever she was- something she was constantly badgering him about when he was working-where was he and what time would he be home).

Dan had not been sure exactly how to approach the whole on-line dating situation once he decided one lonely night that he needed female companionship (sex too remember he is only thirty and still  a serious sexual being). All of his previous experience had worked the other way. First he had met the woman in person (as was mentioned before usually at a bar or a party the way a lot of the young meet), they would chat face to face and then if there was an attraction some kind of exchange of telephone or cellphone numbers. This on-line idea was the reverse. You “chatted” on-line in vast black-hole cyberspace then maybe agreed to meet face to face. But who knew what to expect, whether the person on the other end was perhaps a goof or a psycho, a stalker who knows (and in return what did they know about you, perhaps also had thought about meeting a mass murderer or something).            

In any case Dan had been perplexed by what he would and would not put on what the site he chose “profile page.” Other than the obvious “looking for a soulmate” kind of thing-and naturally a rare and delicate beauty with a mind to match. He knew almost instinctively that he had to put a photo up on his profile. That was no problem as he could see that the site advice to do so made sense otherwise why would a complete stranger respond solely to whatever bullshit was thrown on the page only limited by the profiler’s imagination. But what to say that was meaningful. How to tell a story that made sense that that beautiful gal with a mind to match would respond to.

Dan was good at writing legal briefs, his profession after all, but to bear his soul a bit was disconcerting-especially about the soul-searching, about trying to be at peace with himself and trying to put out the fire in his head. The likes and dislikes, what he liked to do-run for exercise, go to art museums (a big thing with Moira), watch old time movies, go to a nice dinner were easy but some questions like whether he was looking for marriage (he was not), kids (same as marriage), religion (“other” did not express his agnostic views very well), and politics (another stumbling block) caused him some anguish.

A master of non-information information when he wanted be Dan left the questions of marriage and kids open since some really beautiful-looking thirty-ish women maybe worried about their biological clocks or just far  enough along in their careers to breath  and take some social time to see what they wanted checked those items off. On religion he did a dipsy-doodle answering “spiritual but not religious” since he was leery of “born-agains” one of whom that fellow lawyer had mentioned he had had to confront on a date where he had to listen to—“Jesus Saves,” all fucking night, his colleague’s term, a very short date. Funny Dan thought as he cyber-clicked on his choice one of Moira’s big complains after she had turned to the Universalist-Unitarian Church and Buddha at the same time was that he was not on the same spiritual road that she was on-and didn’t appear to be heading that way. As for politics, despite that colleague’s advice to the contrary, he put down “middle of the road” when he once again saw that some very good-looking women who must have grown up in rural or suburban areas had put down “conservative”. He thought he could just click the delete button if they came on too strong about how Obama had sold out the country and how they wanted their country back which was what his co-worker had warned him about. The only item that he seemed to be able to write about without reverting to some fallen angel-go to confession sinner-and liar was that he liked to run for exercise, liked to keep as fit as work made possible, liked to run along the ocean or a river since the sounds of the water exhibiting their natures soothed him-was his spiritual side as he constantly tried to tell Moira (she didn’t buy that argument since they could not do it together like meditation or yoga).

So Dan patched together some stuff as best he could, paid his fee (here is the gimmick on these sites which his fellow lawyer had told him about. You can join for “free” but that didn’t mean anything because to “connect” with anybody, to get a personal site e-mail response you needed to be a paid-up member), checked out and “flirted” with several prospects and waited to see what would happen. He did not have to wait long on that score (that is not what “the waiting game” of the title is about) since several women responded that day-all from places far away from Boston. Places like Austin, Texas or Norman, Oklahoma. What the hell did the think he would go on a “blind” date that would require air travel? Jesus. He was shaken that he might have been being hustled but that was just a “come on” to show that there really were women out there. He tried several more profiles, local profiles, that night. And got to his relief a couple of good responses                

After a process of elimination or rather running the rack first Dan “met” a woman who seemed interesting. Maybe that “running the rack” should be explained first since then the process of elimination makes more sense. One of the features of the site is that you could limit your search to a certain radius from your own location and age range so Dan clicked on the “fifty mile” choice and an age range of twenty-five to thirty-five-relative contemporaries. He then put together a kind of generic reply that he would use for any “prospects” who looked interesting and then proceeded to scroll all of the possible choices in that fifty mile radius and age range. Eliminating out of hand anyone who did not have a photograph up. The idea there being that if he wound up with some mass murderess he would at least be able to give a detailed description to the cops when she tried anything funny. (He would find out later that even such a seemingly straight forward proposition like that got twisted around when some of the women put photographs that had been taken in, well let’s put it this way, sunnier days). Eliminate anybody who had five children or so because he did not want that entanglement. (He later found out that women would lie about that, not about the five children part since he did not pursue anybody in that category but about having not children at all when they did-strange). Eliminate only “graduated from high school”- types for obvious reasons. And certainly eliminate anyone who was shown in a photograph with some ex-husband or ex-flame since that told him they were not over that relationship. (Funny that he made that exception since he was torn up about Moira to be placed in that same category by any women looking over his profile with the same concern. Dan never always had a good reason for what he did, or did not, do). With those factors crossed out it turned out that he had a daunting thirty odd profiles to respond to, to see if there was any reason to go further. One night when he had some time (and was feeling particularly lonesome for female companionship) Dan “ran the rack” mentioned above, went down the whole list with his generic comment to see what was what.                

Maybe a dozen women, maybe a couple less, responded to the initial bullshit line that Dan had probably used since he was about six with women.  A few in their responses kind of fell by the wayside and so in the end Dan had about half a dozen to seriously pursue. Ultimately after a whole series of comments and replies he started chatting with some of them on-line and some by phone, a tricky proposition requiring a certain leap of faith that they were not the “stalkers” whom the site and office conversation had warned him against. He did meet a few of them in person but at that stage it was like in the old days you either clicked or didn’t and that was that. Well that was that except that is when he learned about the fake photographs (or rather “sunnier days” photographs) and the kids’ stuff. Nothing worked out in that batch, nothing at all but Dan sensed that this was going to be quite a lot more work that he expected to take away that phantom loneliness that was eating away at him.  

Then Sarah, Sarah who made a point saying she was on time something Dan valued highly (and which was not true or has not been true so far but she has other virtues) contacted him out of the blue. They exchanged site e-mails frantically especially after each confessed to a love of art museums and then proceeded to talk on the phone. Arranged to meet at the Museum of Fine Arts which Sarah had agreed to without hesitation when Dan suggested the idea. Dan suspected that here was a women he could deal with on a fair basis. (It turned out that Dan who prided himself on his knowledge about art who way behind her in that regard since she had been and art major at one point in her college career.) So far they are proceeding along cautiously, Sarah has been divorced for a while after a horrible two-timing husband marriage complete with physical abuse, but things look pretty good. Yeah, Dan said to himself after their first art museum date (and dinner downtown after) he was not the waiting kind…