THE BIRTHDAY WISH

He squatted down next to my chair and got his face very close to mine. The intense eye contact was overkill, given that he was simply taking my order for a glass of pinot gris and pulled pork. It was my birthday, he bought me a piece of key lime pie with a candle in it, and took a bite of it using my fork. As we were leaving he handed me his number on the back of a waiter’s check. His name was Shawnee Cloud. He was raised by hippies somewhere in California. He was 27. He was my second 27 year old in a week to ask me out. My friend Lynda told me I was her hero. She had been out with me before and seen two very young guys hand over their digits, once at the hardware store, then later at dinner, and now this. So why am I so discouraged.

I just want a boy my age to play with. A cool middle-aged guy who still has some life in him. Who’s not weighed down with all the crap that’s happened to him, like an ex-wife, cardiovascular disease, or his inability to make successful art.

Where are the good middle-aged guys? Are they with all the 27 year old girls that the 27 year old guys aren’t dating? Are they all married? I know of couple of them in my neighborhood, the ones that never seem to date anyone. I never see them with new platinum bands on their left hand ring fingers, or women with unwashed hair on a Sunday morning at the diner, or even a half a smile on their face. Have they given up on love? Sex? Holding hands? Do they watch the Playboy channel, or order “Girls Gone Wild” on VHS? Or is the History Channel their porn?

I haven’t given up, Lord knows I should at least give it a rest. Most of my single friends have resigned themselves to the fact that men are, well, “difficult”. They don’t spend a lot of time focusing on them. Me, I like dating. I am enticed by all its inherent bumps in the road. I’ve dated commitment-phobes, sociopaths, fringe criminals, and psych ward detainees; they’ve all lost their luster. I know that “normal” doesn’t exist, we’re all somewhere on the curve of “crazy”. But are there some reasonably sane men out there that are actually trying to have sustainable intimate relationships with women? Would I know what to do with them? Is there a stable man that could keep my attention? Do middle-aged single people ever hook up and live happily ever after? I saw one couple in an Eharmony commercial. Where do the all meet? In church? At The Learning Center? At a BDSM mixer?

I went out for my birthday, wondering what this year would hold. Would I meet a guy who would capture my heart? My imagination? And also pull at my vagina strings? I blew out my candle on my Key Lime pie and made a wish. 15 minutes later I got the number from the 27 year old raised by hippies. It’s still sitting on my dresser, crumpled up, I took it out of my jeans pocket along with some loose change. I haven’t thrown it out yet, but I haven’t called. It actually says “text me”. A nice middle-aged guy would have said “call me.” More likely he would have said, “why bother” to himself, and gone home and watched The History Channel. All I need is one middle-aged man with the balls of a 27 year old. Big Pharma, are you listening?