Please, no more computer people!
It was the summer of 1985. I had resumed the dating service and met several generally nice men. I say “generally” because a few were just “non-starters,” but certainly not harmful.
There was the divorced man who spent all of our supper date talking about his ex-wife. No, thank you.
And the one who kept calling me to arrange to meet, but could never quite figure out if he wanted to because he also wanted to go play paintball with his friends. After several rounds of this, I told him to go play paintball and stop calling.
But the absolute “best” of the non-starters was the computer engineer who worked in the same company my father had. We met for lunch at a burger place. I’d been running around all morning and skipped breakfast, so when we met up, I was ready for my burger and fries.
As we talked, or rather, I TRIED to start a conversation, I made short work of my lunch. He was rather …aloof? No matter what I asked, it was one or two-word answers. I mentioned that my father worked at the same company that he did.
No response. Oh, he did note that I had finished my lunch quickly and said, “Gee, you eat a lot.”
I looked at him, and decided to laugh off his comment. Instead, I said, “This is nothing! You should see me with a 2 1/4-pound baked stuffed lobster!
Again, no response.
The dating service told me that he was building his own house. I figured THAT at least might be something he’d be excited to talk about. One of the guys I worked with in the hospital lab was building a house. All you had to do was ask him how it was going, and you were guaranteed 30 minutes of updates. So I thought that might work with this guy.
“I hear you are building your own house.”
“Yes.”
“Well, what is it like?”
Silence. Then he said, “It’s 2200 square feet.”
I must have looked either surprised or disgusted, because then he added the absolute finishing touch:
“Do you understand the concept of square feet?”
So many responses flooded my brain all at once that I was speechless for a moment. The absolute condescension and mocking tone totally enraged me. Four years of college in advanced sciences and…dammit, yes, of COURSE I understood square feet!
Anyway, at that point, I had decided this date was a wash, and he was a jerk. So I delivered my response slowly and deliberately, lacing each word with sarcasm:
“Yes. I understand the concept of square feet…So. Is it 2200 square feet STRAIGHT UP AND DOWN, OR DID YOU SPREAD IT OUT AT ALL?!”
That knocked him back a bit, and he stumbled to answer, giving a little more description. But by that point, I didn’t care if it was a pig sty. I was done.
When I got home, I called the dating service and left them a message: “PLEASE DONT’ SEND ME ANY MORE COMPUTER PEOPLE.”
I had dated a few of them by that point, and to a person, they couldn’t hold a decent conversation. No…more…computer…people!
It Might Be You
My overall sense of well-being was getting stronger that summer. If there was anything I felt at that point, it was just a growing longing for a something a bit more involved. It was nice getting to meet different professional men and learn about them. But…I could feel things shifting in me.
It really hit me one day when I was driving and the song, “It Might Be You” by Stephen Bishop, came on the radio. It was the theme song from the movie “Tootsie,” with Dustin Hoffman. A comedy and love story. The song’s lyrics and yearning tones exuded all the emptiness I felt. If only there were someone to share all the love I had in my heart. If only…
The new “Introduction”
By that point, it was August of 1985…almost 22 months since I’d moved out of my parents’ home and into my condo. It had been a hell of a ride. So much chaos and pain. Destabilizing. Despair. Depression. Trial and error. It was a lot to absorb and process. But I was hanging in there and just kept going.
A couple of weeks after my call to the dating service, I received their familiar yellow note in the mail with a new “Introduction” for me to consider. Someone named Edward Bailey, who lived in West Hartford. That sounded interesting, so I called the dating service to learn more about him.
They shared his age, a bit younger than me, but not a lot. And then they said what almost killed things before he might have had a chance:
“He’s a computer software consultant for a Boston company.”
I gritted my teeth and sighed. Computer consultant. God help me.
The “family-style” restaurant
I don’t know why I even told them I would agree to hear from him, but I guess it was more like, Who knows. A miracle? But I wasn’t hopeful.
We had trouble connecting with each other at first because he was always on the road to troubleshoot software problems at different sites. And I worked second shift. So we played telephone tag for a bit, leaving messages on each other’s answering machines. Yes, that was the era of answering machines.
But one night I came home, and the message was a bit different. He had programmed his answering machine to talk to my answering machine. It was hysterical. I admit, I was intrigued. THIS computer guy was actually FUNNY.
We finally managed after a couple of weeks to connect on the phone, at which point we talked FOR ALMOST TWO HOURS! I was in awe. Shock, actually.
I remember that I kept asking, “So, you’re a COMPUTER PERSON??” He was so different than any of the others. I figured he had to be on the wrong career path.
And I will simply add, as an aside, I think that in his heart, he is not “totally” a computer person. I think he’s always been more of an artist type, a more emotional, and a sensitive man. But computers were where the jobs and money were, he was good at it, so he put aside his other interests and went into software consulting. I could relate. I wanted to be a writer, but my hospital job paid the bills. Both of us came from really modest backgrounds, and our particular jobs were our tickets to something better. You do what you have to do to survive and put your dreams aside.
In any event, after talking for a long time, we agreed it might be nice to get together. And then I said what almost killed things for him before we got started. I suggested this small cozy place in Farmington to meet at for supper. I loved the place because it was like a diner-tavern, intimate, relaxed…a comfortable place to sit, eat, talk, and not be rushed.
But in trying to convey it was not a fancy place, I described it as, “It’s a ‘family-style’ restaurant.” His impression, which he laughed about later when he told me, was that “family-style” meant it wasn’t going to be much of a fun date.
However, I guess we were both willing to put aside our doubts, roll the dice, and see what might happen. So we agreed to meet…
Soul Mosaic 