OUT IT CAME

After going through a divorce and not wanting to date for a time (one just isn't quite ready for that right away), I would smile at my friend's comments about needing to date.  Usually I would respond, "Yes, someday I will date.  Just not right now."  I mean the first time I got asked out (by the creepy neighbor man who stalked me for a time) I proceeded to almost hyperventilate as panic rose at the speed of light in me.  Working outside all day he commented that he had watched me the entire day as I worked on my outside projects (totally inappropriate)!  And, why didn't I go in a take a shower and he would take me to dinner!   Like he was doing me some grand favor:)   I had absolutely no plans other than to blog, run and eat oatmeal in the bathtub once again, but I boldly said, "I'm sorry, but I have plans."  I proceeded to go inside the house where I cried for hours totally unprepared to know how to reject someone who asked me for a date or the feelings that were sweeping over me of having to start over, the overwhelming sense of never finding true soul love.  As the months went on in my single state, I got a bit bolder about the "thought" of maybe a date.  One day at a baby shower hosted by a colleague of mine (a male and the only male in attendance) for one of his staff, I decided to mess with his love of matchmaking.  He knew I had recently taken back my maiden name and suggested that he hook me up with this millionaire friend of his.   With a very serious and "Yentl" sort of look on his face, he asked me to be specific with him, "What are you looking for in a man, Lynn?"  I'm not totally sure what came over me at that moment - a crack in my filter, the hilarity of being 44 and having to be set up, a realness of life, the cloak of great sarcasm, but I blurted out, "There are two things I am looking for in a man." I watched, with a bit of humor that plays inside your head when someone doesn't have a clue you are playing them a bit.  A giddy almost I-am-the-messiah look swept across his face as he prepared to meet my wants through his matchmaking skills.  "I boiled it down to two things I want in a man; someone to rake my leaves (literally I have a couple of big trees and fall had been an exercise in raking constantly) and someone to have sex with.", I said with grand confidence.  He didn't know what to say or do at that moment.  I'm convinced that my brazen response caused him to temporarily short circuit.  What man doesn't want to hear that a woman wants sex:)  I thought about that in light of my recent whirlwind 30 days of dating and wedding.  Without even consciously meaning it literally, I did get someone to rake my leaves.  And well, the sex.  What can I say:)   Both of my demands have been met and surpassed.