I was sitting at my computer and noticed my dog watching the news coverage of McCain’s fundraising events. A staunch libertarian, he didn’t notice it when I slipped on his much hated 2008 Donkey bandanna.
Is summer over yet? I don’t know if I can take another month of this boredom.
Being unemployed and procrastinating on writing, I ‘ve been watching WAY too much TV. During the year, I really don’t have any great desire to sit and watch Oprah or Rachel Ray. However, with lots o’ time on my hands, the reruns reminded me of an experience from my past.
A few years back I caught wind of Patti Novak and her “matchmaking” service. Being the constant experimenter, I called and made an appointment to meet with her. I was a little creeped out by the location, which was an unmarked building on a major street. I made my friend, who thought the entire thing was a scam, go with me. During the ride there, I tried my best to convince my friend that this was not only a great idea, but also that she should consider joining the services too. She didn’t budge on her disdain of the whole dating process and was NOT convinced that Patti was the answer to our dating woes. Being a hopeless optimist, I ignored her disapproval and ponied up to this new experience.
We walked into the building and within seconds my friend was commenting that the place smelled like a cigarette. And it did. We walked into the waiting room and was kindly greeted by the now infamous matchmaker. She encouraged us to flip through her company’s scrapbook, while she attended to something else. By the time I was asked to join her, it was clear that her cigs were what kept her from meeting me on time.
Despite my excitement and fantasies of Patti hooking me up with the man of my dreams, her sales pitch immediately missed the mark. I was first asked how I went about meeting men. Feeling a great desire for approval from some random stranger, I explained that a guy gave me his number at the dog park the week prior, which to me indicated that the happy hour the dog park MUST be a great place to meet eligible bachelors. She then asked if I ever called him and if I did why was I sitting in her office. Well, no I never called him, since he was a little sketchy and didn’t actually have a DOG at the dog park. She laughed at my comments and asked me to be real and tell her how I was truly meeting men. At the time, I was still in the school of thought that fervently believed that only total losers used the internet to find a date. So I told her, yes, I used match, eharmony, craigslist, and a few other obscure venues. An “aha” look came over her face. She called me a serial dater, and asked if I had ever actually had a longterm relationship. Suddenly I found myself spilling my life story and being a kindred soul, Patti noted, “You like narcissists. They treat you like shit and part of you likes that.” Considering I’ve taken enough psychology courses to float a battleship, this wasn’t news to me.
After analyzing my tactics in dating, she asked what I was really looking for and what was important to me. I emphasized that education was paramount and I really couldn’t see myself dating someone who thought NPR was boring. From the look on her face, I couldn’t quite tell if she knew what NPR was, so I decided to go on with my preferences. I mentioned that every woman claims to want a funny guy, but I was serious about this criteria. Really serious. I mentioned that I was kind of getting sick of going on dates with unfunny men and spending the majority of the date laughing at my own jokes. I included that I would kind of prefer dating another recovering Catholic, someone in my age range, ya know, the yang to my yin. This is when she took the initiative and dove in to seal the deal. She explained that her male clientel was an affluent bunch, educated, rich, ambitious, rich, and the real pick of the litter. This caused me to pause, thinking, did I mention anything about money in during my little interview?
She rambled on for a while before handing me a contract. She said that I was funny, spunky, and cute, but in order for her to take ME on as a client, I would have one month to lose weight. After that month, we would meet again, I would pay the nearly $1000 matchmaking fee, and be on a road to relationship success. The sticker shock was probably on my face, when she mentioned that she would be willing to offer me a payment plan, if I returned in a month with significant weight loss. I thanked her for her time, told her that I needed to go home and think about it, and took off with my annoyed friend, knowing that I would never be willing to pay a grand to meet ANYONE.
A few years down the road, I was utterly amazed that Patti had landed her own show on A&E and decided that maybe I was totally wrong in passing up her matchmaking skills. Maybe, just maybe, I really did need to disregard my desire of a lasting relationship with a Conan O’Brian wannabe, mixed with a dash of Tom Green. Maybe vying for a guy who really did think Ira Glass was cool was all wrong. Maybe I really did need to adjust my scope and pursue the gold digging whore route. So instead of calling Patti, I decided that I would google the Better Business Bureau. Good choice.
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