On Valentine’s Day, couples parade merrily into restaurants where they sip fine champagne and devour chocolate delights, which is all well and good. But what about the singles stuck at home because they can’t find the perfect mate?
Although it’s been decades since I was out there in the dating world, I remember it vividly. The ache of the first date when you suspect your every word is being scrutinized and every gesture studied.
Did you laugh too loud or eat your pasta too quickly? Did you talk too much about yourself?
This was before the days of texting, so I waited by the phone to discover if I’d passed Dinner Date 101. Today people probably know the outcome within minutes based on whether their text gets a response — or dies a lonely death in cyberspace.
When I turned 30, I became panicky about getting married perhaps because my mom had wed near that age —and this seemed like an ominous line in the sand.
The man I ended up marrying seemed a nice enough chap — until I discovered he spent too much time drinking brews in the evenings and not enough looking for a job.
After the relationship crumbled, I found a teaching job at Georgia Tech and an apartment in a big house on Ridgecrest Road where I lived with a gray-and-white tomcat named Funky.
Truth be told, I dreaded rebooting the dating game but also feared flying solo the rest of my life. And so, before I stepped reluctantly back into the dating minefield, I had a heart to heart with God — which I realize sounds strange coming from someone who at the time was an avowed atheist, but old habits die hard.
I confided desperately that if I didn’t meet someone kind, trustworthy and bright, I might give up altogether.
Not long after, I met the man I’ve been married to for 32 years. Still, many women would have crossed him off the list immediately —- because, you see, he was a younger man.
When I discovered this distressing fact, I considered calling it quits because “younger” didn’t meet my criteria for Mr. Wonderful. However, this guy made me decadently delicious chocolate chip cookies, stopped by my office with ginger snaps and cheered me up when I had the blues.
He even took Funky to his apartment on the day I had to explode a flea bomb in my own domicile. Really, if that wasn’t love, what was?
One day I realized the Big Guy upstairs had sent me this fellow—and it was time to overlook his one flaw.
Today when I hear single folks say “Oh I would never date…” and here you can fill in the blanks — someone younger, someone of a different race, someone with less education, someone who isn’t rich — I’m tempted to remind them to stop looking for the perfect person.
So if you’re sitting home alone on Valentine’s Day, take another look at people you’ve crossed off the list. It could also be time to have a heart to heart with God, and pray for his help in finding a mate. He is, after all, the ultimate matchmaker.
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