“Do I Know You?”
If 40 is the new 30, then I’m a hot, young single girl! Unfortunately, when I place my ad online I can’t put 37. So I’m kicked into a more painfully honest category – that of being almost 50, and single. So, what’s a girl to do?
Recently I attended a Santa Clarita Singles function at the Valencia Hyatt. My actively single, divorced friend, Safiya, talked me into going with her. She goes to every one of these events. This was my first. Because there are so few of these singles’ offerings, my friend knew nearly everyone there, both male and female. She’s 55 but tells everyone she’s 49 and she’s absolutely beautiful! Of course, she was swarmed even before we got to the bar.
Someone immediately bought a glass of wine for her and she sat on her barstool, laughing and pulling her perfect blonde hair behind her ears while I, a little shy and embarrassed, tried to squirm through her admirers to flag down an overworked, somewhat irritated bartender. It took me almost 15 minutes to get my wine, which gave me a chance to check out the crowd.
Quite a few of Santa Clarita’s singles were there – well dressed, bright white smiles and an assortment of one-liners that would have made the bartender quit on the spot if she could hear them over the high-pitched laughter of unrestricted flirtation. When I realized that my friend had been swallowed up by her admirers, I took my well-fought-for wine and walked around. As I made my way from one end of the bar to the other, I passed a man, a gorgeous man, whom I could swear I’d seen before. Was he an actor? What was his name? I knew him from somewhere. Think, think, television or movies?
I took my wine out to the pool area and sat down with my confusion. Guess who walked up to say “hello”? Yup, Mr. Gorgeous.
“Do I know you?” I asked bravely. “I don’t think so,” he politely responded. That’s when I decided that it definitely wasn’t from television. But I kept staring. It obviously made him uncomfortable. “Tell me about yourself,” I commanded. He obliged. “Well, …” He began his list with his employment, hobbies, past cities of residence. “That’s it!” I said, a bit too enthusiastically. His eyes bugged out. I must have scared him. But he smiled and asked for the final verdict, how did I know him? “We used to date,” I answered.
To make a long story somewhat shorter, it turned out that I had dated this man several years ago for a very short time, probably only two or three dates. But here we were, just a short decade later, at a Santa Clarita Singles event, attracted to each other again. Did he ask me out again? Did we give it another try? Should we have? If we don’t learn from our mistakes, aren’t we bound to live our lives forever chasing our tails? And here in Santa Clarita, are there so few opportunities to meet other singles of relatively the same age that we exhaust the list and start back from the top?
No, my single friends (and friends with single friends), opportunities abound! The singles in Santa Clarita are coming out of the woodwork, we just have to learn to recognize them and then, when we do, we need to learn how to connect.
There are better ways to connect than others. Maybe we can learn them together.
Questions for Julie Bergher, ask her by emailing writelove@sbcglobal.net .