So there I was, 27 years and two kids into a reasonably un-tumultuous marriage, when a hot new Harley Softail Classic whizzed by with my girlfriend on the front—and my husband on the back.
Make that ex-husband. Make that ex-girlfriend.
Divorce is no fun. Or should I say “conscious uncoupling,” like Gwyneth Paltrow and what’s his name? There is a key difference. To get divorced, you need a lawyer. To get uncoupled, you probably call a plumber.
Whatever you call it, recovery has several phases. First you cry, scream, punch walls and pray someone will pull the spear out of your gut. But guess what? That’s the easy part.
The hard part comes later, when helpful friends decide it’s time to get your profile on Plenty of Fish.
“My daughter’s on that. It’s a dating site,” I said. “What would I do there?”
My friends did a group eye roll and grabbed my computer. “You’re going on a date,” they assured me. Something I haven’t done in four decades.
“It hasn’t changed much. Now you’ll be talking about prostates instead of proms. That’s all,” said Katie, who met the last three loves of her life online.
I started wishing the spear-in-the-gut phase had lasted a little longer. Before I could protest, my friends were picking victims.
“These guys all look like my dad,” I said.
“That’s OK,” Jeanne said happily. “You look like your mom.”
We started browsing through available men, when I realized how the site got its name. In eight out of 10 profile photos, the men were proudly displaying large fish.
“Do they want a girlfriend or a trout?” I asked my experts, who continued to ignore me.
“Look! Here’s someone. Financially secure, likes to cuddle and loves dogs,” Katie said. “You’re meeting him at the community pool, and he’ll bring the wine.”
Wait … what?
The next afternoon, I was looking for that pool when a man wearing three days’ worth of stubble and a paint-spattered tank top flagged me down. It was my date. And the pool was in his backyard.
“Are you Jan?” he asked.
I hadn’t been this frightened since my neighbor’s kid brought his tarantula over to meet me. Taking a deep breath, I weighed my options.
* Disavow all knowledge of English: “Me no Jan. Que pasa,et vous? Aloha.”
* Floor it. My Honda could have me in another state in 20 minutes.
* Relax. Assume that people are inherently good, but keep a firm grip on the pepper spray in my pocket.
The guy seemed harmless enough, so I followed him out back to sit by the pool. He poured me a glass of wine. This wasn’t so bad. I could do this.
Then he shared some highlights of his last colonoscopy. I was about to dive into the wine when my date changed the subject.
“I swim naked. That’s cool, right?”
His words reached my brain at the exact moment my lips reached the glass.
When I looked up, his tank top was gone—along with his swim trunks.
One glance at my naked date and wine started spluttering out my nose. I was hysterical, crying, choking, doubled over and gasping for breath. No matter how I tried, the laughter kept coming.
Post escape, I called my dating experts to thank them. No big deal, they said. One nudist doesn’t represent all dating-kind. They were ready to find me another date, but I knew what to say.
“Me no Jan. Que pasa, et vous? Aloha.”
Jan Igoe is a newly single writer who didn’t find out she was an adrenaline junkie until she started dating again. She’s decided to take up hang gliding instead. Write her here.