I could chalk it up to the difficulty older Jewish men have
when they try to navigate technology. Or, I can just admit I'm a loser on JDate.
My evidence: although I've "Favorited" 16 matches, zero have returned
the compliment.
"I thought you weren't interested in meeting men."
It was my deceased mother elbowing herself past Tommy into my subconscious.
Her arrival was hardly a surprise. After all, rather than my
late husband being invested in finding me a date, it was more likely to be my
mother, Min, a beauty who died at the age of 67.
"Mom," I said to the apparition pulling up a chair
next to me, " I don't want anyone moving in, but I think I'd enjoy dinner
or a play with a nice guy my age."
"Well, I can tell you what your problem is," she
said, "Your profile isn't sexy enough."
"Sexy isn't me. I'm trying to be honest."
"Honest, hah!" she said. "I see you've put
your age at 70. Remember I was present at your birth and you're off by 5
years."
"No one admits their real age in online dating," I
said. "I recall you telling me more than once you never wanted to get
old."
In my mind's eye I could see my mother hesitate before
responding. She would be using her right hand to sweep her hairdo upwards and a
mirror to be certain her eye shadow, mascara, and red lipstick were in place.
"Well, if I would've known what good shape a woman
could be in her '70s I might have stuck around. I have to admit you've kept your
weight down."
A compliment from my mother! I preened in my office chair
and brushed aside childhood memories of her fixated on my chubbiness rather
than my brain.
"I see two matches answered your emails," she went
on. "It's a shame you had to make the first move."
Ah, here's the familiar motherly dig. "That's not a
problem for me, Mom, being aggressive. That's how I landed Tommy. I asked him
out for our first date."
There was silence on the other end of our celestial chat.
Although she died before Tommy and I met and married, I knew Mom would have had
mixed feelings about my second husband. It wasn't the fact that he wasn't
Jewish, but that he wasn't rich.
"Don't blame your mother for wanting an easier life for
her daughter," she said, evidently overhearing my thoughts. "But I
did appreciate how much he loved you."
I didn't want to keep Tommy in this scenario, so I quickly
returned to my failure on JDate. "Did you notice, Mom, that no matter
their age, all of my matches wanted someone between 50 and 65? "
"So," she said, stretching out the vowel,
"you couldn't have dropped 10 years?"
I sighed. "Mom, that's just not me. I've come a long
way and I'm proud of the woman I've become. I'm not that desperate to make
myself over for some dude."
Now, a sigh from Min. "So, try it your way. Be honest.
Don't say you're passionate, fun, adventurous in the bedroom."
I laughed. "So you've been reading my competition."
"Of course, it can get boring up here. It's a change of
pace to read fantasies about ideal matches. My girlfriends and I had a good
laugh."
"Were you laughing when one of the guys answered my email
with the news he had already fallen in love with the second woman he met on
JDate?" I said.
"See, you didn't move fast enough. You have to jump in
as soon as you find someone interesting."
"I don't know, Mom. Did you also read that he was now
spending all of his time with his new romance?"
"So, what's the problem?"
"I gagged when I saw that. I don't want anyone spending
all of his time with me; it's suffocating. Like I said, dinner out, a movie, a
play, that's all I'm thinking about, not him taking over my life."
"So, have it your way," she said. "I assume,
with your record of zero and sixteen you're bowing out. No more online
dating?"
"Not completely," I said. "It is kind of a
fun game and my ego is strong enough to take the rejections. So next month, I'm
going to the other side."
"Women!" she said. "Don't tell me you're
going to become a lesbian."
"No, Mom, match dot com. I'm going to check out the Gentiles.
Maybe they'll be more open to an adorable grey-haired woman in her
mid-seventies."
"Try sixty-five and you may have a shot," she
said.