Love Sick (13 page)

I’ve taken the time to explore the hoo-ha of soul mates that is sold by the marriage-minded dating sites, because it is so widespread. While I believe the statistic is imprecise and self-serving, 2003 polls found that 80 percent of American daters believe they have one person out there for them but wouldn’t recognize him or her if they met. “My other half” is a concept that is absurd and, worse, insulting. If I buy into the idea that a boyfriend or lover is “the one person who can always make [me] smile, who shares [my] hopes and dreams, who makes [me] whole,”
*
then my report card at the pearly gates will be full of Incompletes. No one can induce me to smile all the time. My sanity depends on the evolution of my hopes and dreams. The men who could finish my sentences have left and I’ve changed a lot of my sentences.

Any intelligent man has to consider that the hoops the marriage-material sites ask him to jump through, the restrictions he is given in looking for date material and the amount of money he has to pay is the measure of his naïveté, desperation and, perversely, his laziness.

And if you can’t give up your innocence and lack of wholeness, you can always follow up on one of eHarmony’s advertisers and cough up
another
hundred-plus bucks and get books, DVDs or CDs instructing you on how to make “any guy” addicted to you.

• • •

And then there’s chemistry, that ineffable and yet somewhat measurable “it” that can get us into a world of trouble.

Chemistry is quantifiable in that there are a number of odorless pheromones secreted by the male and female body. Male androstadienone, found in sweat, is one among other biological yanks to the endocrine system that pumps out the hormones that make us women randy but choosy, fertile and experiencing PMS simultaneously.

But it is also ineffable in that chemicals are part of the mysterious stuff that has made the human race multiply and thrive. Typically, this means that men look—often unconsciously—for younger, healthy women with symmetrical features and a low hip-to-shoulder ratio,
*
while women tend to look for older men. Darwin would understand. That ideal woman is most likely to give birth to healthy, attractive children who will go on to propagate the species and the graying man probably has more resources to protect his progeny.

And this is why American women spend more annually on improving our looks than we do on education.
*

All of that, however, applies to meeting someone in person. In cyberspace, you can find love at first sight according to whatever way you want—or need—to twist a person’s words and looks to suit your own.

Which is how I met Patrick.

• • •

“I didn’t date when I was fat,” Bette said. “As soon as I outgrew my size ten jeans, I quit.”

It is one of women’s hundred-year-old questions: Do we have the right to be romantic when we are fat? For forty years I assumed I did not. In my few years of dating in a normal-size body I learned three important things: 1) men wanted or didn’t want to sleep with me for all the other stuff behind the size ten Ralph Laurens, 2) there are schmucks to fit any sized woman, and 3) no matter how thin I got, I was still embarrassed by the wreckage of my past obesity.

“You should talk to Pam,” Bette advised.

It was a brilliant call. Pam is intrepid. At over 300 pounds, she has at least two boyfriends in addition to her estranged husband, one of them culled from the Internet.

“There are a thousand sites for curvy people,” Pam said in her heavy Brooklyn accent. “I met Hal on BBWCupid.” She pronounced his name “Hail.” I always listen carefully to Pam for overlooked nuances.

“Here’s the deal, though,” I said. “I’ve lost about twenty pounds and I want very much to keep on going. How do I say that?”

“Just . . . I dunno,” she floundered. “Don’t say that dieting is the most important thing in your life.” Dating code for weight-watching is embedded in the phrase “exercise daily,” but it’s still de rigueur to say that you love to cook and eat out, even if it’s a lettuce leaf and a glass of club soda. Not even income is as coy in doublespeak as what men and women do for their calories. “I guess play it cool. Don’t mention it.”

Like my smoking. I answer yes on the questionnaires if my choices are simply yes or no, but am relieved when one of the options is “trying to quit,” and I never smoke on a first date unless he does, too.

“Keep me posted! This is exciting!”

Pam was wrong about the thousand sites for corpulent humans. There were about twenty when I Googled fat/chubby/large dating. I chose the two links that came up most often and went to work on my profile.

I called Pam back. “So what do you think of this? ‘The words “Let’s pretend” still transport you immediately.’”

“That’s a
goood
one,” she cooed.

“Thanks,” I said. “It ends, ‘This doesn’t have to be difficult. Only impossible.’”

I heard the intake of Pam’s cigarette. “It sounds beautiful,” she said. Doubt dripped from her voice. “Definitely . . . arty.”

“I’m arty,” I said. “Maybe my standards are that guys understand or intuit what I’m saying here.”

“M’m.” I could see the smoke ring hovering in the thick air of a July afternoon in Park Slope. “Lemme know as soon as you hear from someone.”

She was no longer speaking in exclamation points.

But I am arty,
I argued to myself.
I do want a guy to get what I’m saying out of sympathy rather than a dictionary.

I clicked “post.”

• • •

“
Great
hair” was the subject line of the email from “PatrickBigHeart” on Venus Diva Dating (“for Curvy Romance”). “Do you still wear it in a bob?” I flashed back to the shoe freak and wannabe slave of craigslist, but then he added, “I could get lost in a smile like that and I’m a huge fan of John LeCarry, too.”

I sat back and folded my arms. Aside from his misspelling of the best espionage writer ever (was he spelling it phonetically or am I the only one addicted to Google and inserting accents in my prose?), I’d described my ideal man as being a combination of a pirate and George Smiley. This could be interesting.

His profile described him as fifty-five, two inches taller than I, and divorced with a couple of kids living on their own. His picture showed he was in possession of a full head of gray hair, with smile lines grooving parentheses from his eyes to his chin.

Beyond flattering me, his email added that he lived in Bay Ridge and was in public relations at one of the big magazine consortiums.

I could have purred.

• • •

“Why is someone as cute as you on Big Fat Divas?” I asked when he called after an exchange of emails. Neither of us believed in long written correspondence.

He laughed. “I like women with some curves.”

I’ve never gotten that. Fat women have some protrusions but are as devoid of curves as Kate Moss.

“Curves like Mitzi Gaynor?”

“Nooo. Curves like yours. So, Frances, you like to play pretend. What do you pretend?”

It was after nine. I was done teaching for the week, had no papers to mark and was freshly showered and wearing my favorite nightie. Daisy was sleeping with her head on my foot. Patrick liked big women. Life was good.

“Well,” I drawled, “right now I’m pretending we’re past all the awkward stuff and wondering what we do on a Saturday night when the heat is this ghastly.”

He sighed the New York sigh of so-many-things-to-do/so-little-I-really-want-to-do. New Yorkers become blasé at some point in midlife. Only the culture vultures with subscriptions and favorite prima ballerinas are not put off by late-night subways after the age of fifty. “I’d take you to my favorite restaurant and I’d make sure the air conditioner was on full blast,” Patrick said. “Do you like Southern cooking?”

• • •

The air of Ninth Avenue was thick with exhaust fumes and the smell of garlic and seafood as I waited for Patrick in the green and violet dusk. Except for the heat creating pockets of discomfort along my back and thighs, I would have felt quite fetching in my new favorite dress, which would best be described as Lucy Ricardo stuck at Petticoat Junction with the Honeymooners. After the walk from Times Square, the scratchy crinoline was starting to feel limp.

How, I wondered, does Pam stay fresh and unmussed for her BigFatFolksDotCom dates?
*
Had Bette been smart to withdraw from the Dating Wars when she crossed the threshold of sweat pooling in back fat? Maybe she was right. As soon as she gave up, Johnny, the owner of a local pizzeria who’d always stopped everything to exchange raunchy remarks with her, hounded her into a date and, three months and another sixty pounds later, marriage. They argue over everything from their mothers to the Cyclones’ batting averages, and have his-and-hers fish tanks: blue angels for Johnny, a lone piranha for Bette.

Between jealousy of cars and fish, I wondered why I hadn’t chosen a pocketbook that would have held a book.

By the time I reminded myself that at least I’d worn comfortable flats and hadn’t put on mascara on this 85-degree night, a man in jeans and a pink polo shirt, carrying a book bag with—oh, my—dragons on it sauntered up and kissed me on the cheek.

“Sorry I’m late. I wanted to pick something up for you. Let’s go in.”

I don’t believe I’ve ever been to a restaurant that has a roll of paper towels on each table, and I’ve had barbecue in dive spots in the Georgia Appalachians and Louisiana bayou country.

But it was nearly cold inside, and the varnished wood of the booth felt glorious against my sticky back.

Patrick flashed the waitress that grin I’d fallen for on Venus Diva and ordered something I didn’t catch. I hoped it was cold and wet.

He pulled a purple foil bag out and put it reverently on the table. Godiva dark chocolate truffles. “I’ve been thinking about you eating these,” he said, and smiled again. “’Course, you might want to wait until . . . later.”

Was that creepy? I thanked him and wished I’d thought to bring an offering.

The waitress came back and set down big glasses of iced tea. Sugary iced tea. I wasn’t doing sugar at the time. I set it down as the waitress’s perfect ass disappeared toward the kitchen and pulled my water glass closer. Patrick had disappeared in the menu, which was so big that when I opened mine, we could have camped out in them.

“If we get the combo we’ll get a little of everything. The sweet potato fries are great.”

“Wow,” I said, looking at the promise of more meat than Ted Turner’s ranch. I craned over the side of my menu to see what other people had. The answer seemed to be, a lot.

“The pulled chicken is also great,” Patrick’s voice flumed up from the bowels of the menu. “You really can’t go wrong here.”

Our waitress was back with plates of fried things. “Have you decided what you’d like for dinner?” she asked.

I began to open my mouth but Patrick flirted up at her. “What do you recommend?”

“If you’re new here, it’s a good idea to go for the Over the Top,” she said. He nodded, still studying the entrées. “Okay, let’s do that. Aaaannnd let’s do the mac-and-cheese, too. With bacon.”

What’s four months of weighing and measuring your food and abstaining from sugar and flour when you have a plate of fried green tomatoes in front of you and the promise of onion rings on the way? I butted in as he debated sides and asked for collard greens. It was probably the healthiest thing on the menu if you couldn’t manage to request a salad.

“Try these,” Patrick said, and put an egg roll on my plate. I cut it open and cheese and chopped beef spilled out. Philly cheesesteak in pastry.

“Wow,” I said again.

• • •

“Have you dated a lot on Big Fat Divas?” I asked as I salted a tomato.

“As often as I’ve found a woman of real substance,” he said. “There aren’t that many from New York and not that many who are smart and funny on top.”

Yes, that’s about right,
I thought.
I’m all on top, smart, funny, nice smile and hair: the dateable head.

“What are the women like?”

“Warm-hearted, enjoy family time and good conversation.”

“Just like the men, then.”

“Probably.”

“Do you glaze over when you read profiles?” I asked. “I do. I end up looking at the middle of the paragraph and if there’s something there, then I might back up.”

“That’s why I wrote you as soon as I saw your ad. I was impressed you had a full-body photo. And you made me laugh. My only hesitation was your choice of dining and the fact that you’re on a diet.”

“Yeah, well, I could stand to lose . . . a lot.”

“The women on that site are pretty much okay with their bodies.”

“I wanted to be honest.”

“But you look great.”

Our waitress was back with an enormous tray of cholesterol. I sat back and listened to Patrick
ooh
over each platter she set down. I hoped they had doggie bags. Daisy was going to love Patrick.

I helped myself to a piece of chicken and a couple of sweet potato fries as Patrick sliced off a couple of ribs.

“Thank you for the compliment,” I said.

“No, thank you for coming,” he said, and toasted me with his iced tea and one foot nudging mine under the table. “It’s really amazing, seeing you . . . like this.”

I looked at the heaps of food between us. Neither of us had touched the coleslaw or the macaroni and cheese in its nifty skillet. I looked down at my chest and dabbed my mouth, then allowed a few syllables of laughter.

“What? At night? In public? Eating without getting barbecue sauce in my hair?”

“No, no. But that could be kind of . . . sexy.”

• • •

We divided the meat up between us to take home and left the rest, which included carnage from the deep-fried Twinkies with strawberries that we’d shared. Getting to the subway shouldn’t have been a problem. I could just roll there.

Patrick offered to drop me home by cab.

• • •

I was angry with myself. The piers of Twelfth Avenue fell behind us and we sped through the swank romance of the Meatpacking District. Good route home, I thought. I am definitely packed.