LITMIR.BIZ

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gamely and asked what he did for a living. He owned an employment agency, but business was bad. He asked what I do, and I told him I’m a writer.

      Roger leaned across the table. “Do you need a job?”

      I thought he was kidding, so I said, “Not at the moment, but I’ll let you know if that changes. Maybe you can help me.”

      He didn’t get the joke. “You shouldn’t wait until you’re between jobs to find something. You should look while the iron’s hot.”

      “Thanks,” I said, humoring him. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

      “Writers have it so easy,” he continued. “What do you do all day, hang out in your pajamas?”

      “Um, not really,” I said.

      “Oprah?”

      “Excuse me?” I asked.

      “Do you watch Oprah every day? All the writers I work with—they don’t do anything.”

      The bell dinged. Roger slipped me his card. “Really, I can help,” he said as he moved over to the next table.

      I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

       HIS DAUGHTER IS 34

      There was no Guy #5 this round because, due to the dismal male-female ratio, at any one time four of the women were seated alone. The event coordinator sat across from me to help pass the time. He was cute, thirtyish, and funny. I told him that this was my first speed dating event—wasn’t the age range supposed to be 40 to 50?

      “I know,” he said empathetically, “we use the honor system, but this happens every time. The guys in their forties won’t come to this event because, you know, they want to meet women in their thirties. We’ve thought about enforcing the age limit, but if we tell men in their forties that they can’t go to the younger event, we’ll lose all our clients.” The cute coordinator moved on to keep another partner-less fortyish woman company.

      I was alone for round six, too. I started talking to the woman next to me, who was also waiting this round out. She was a tall, blond dentist in a sexy suede dress. She was funny and smart and outgoing. Turned out that we jog at the same park and had just finished reading the same book. After chatting for five minutes, I could imagine becoming friends with her. For the first time all night, I was bummed when the ding sounded.

      Finally I got my Guy #5. His name was Kevin. He had a water filtration business. I happened to be in the market for water filters, so I asked if his system filters out fluoride.

      “The dentist over there asked me the same question!” he said, amazed by the coincidence. “How weird is that?”

      I didn’t think it was weird that a dentist would ask about fluoride and so would a woman with a young child, but he repeated this at least three times. After a series of how-weird-is-thats, he answered my question with, “I’m not sure. Is fluoride a compound?” I wondered how he could own a water filtration business and not know something so basic. Fluoridated water shouldn’t be an obscure topic to someone who filters water for a living. Most of the national water supply is fluoridated.

      Meanwhile, he learned that I’m a journalist and did the hard sell on pitching me an article about his company. I deflected several times—I told him I don’t write about business; I attempted to change the subject entirely by asking what he does for fun—but he didn’t take the hint and spent the remaining three minutes badgering me about writing an article about his company. Desperate, I was about to tell him that I’m not a journalist after all—I was kidding! Ha, ha!—actually, I’m an accountant. My job has nothing to do with writing or water or writing about water. … But I didn’t have a chance to say it, because, fortunately, I heard the ding.

      Guy #6 sat down. His name was Robert. He was a widower. He was smart. He was sweet. He was a lawyer. He probably was extremely handsome thirty years ago. He’d never been to a speed dating event before. He said—“in the interest of full disclosure”—that he’s actually sixty, but there are no speed dating events for people his age. I hadn’t thought about that—what do people do when they’re single past 50 or 55? What if I’m still single? How will I meet men then?

      Earlier, during my breaks, I’d looked around and noticed that the two older women—the ones who looked close to 50—were hanging on Robert’s every word. Robert wasn’t making a lot of eye contact with them. He seemed to be going through the motions. But these women were flirting. They were way into him. They were so … eager. And they didn’t have a shot. That could be me in ten years, I thought. Then I realized—that is me. I’m at the same event, meeting the same men as these women. This is my life now, too.

      In the few minutes that I chatted with Robert, I found him to be interesting and kind. He admitted that coming here tonight wasn’t his idea, but his daughter, who is 34, put him up to it. I thought: His daughter is 34! I asked if his daughter had ever tried a speed dating event. “No, she’s married,” he laughed. “In fact, I just became a grandfather again!”

      “Again?” I said, my voice cracking as I tried not to burst into tears at the table. “She has two kids?”

      “No, my son has one, too,” Robert replied. “He’s got a two-year-old.” I was speechless. This man’s kids were married with kids. My son was his grandson’s age. I stared at the table and Robert broke the silence with, “So, what about you? Have you ever been married?” No, I thought. And at this rate, I never will be. I recovered enough to say, “Not yet,” and then, in what seemed like an eternity later, the ding sounded.

      Since I’d already met all six men, I sat alone for the last two rounds and filled out my scorecard. I checked “no” by every box.

       THE POSTMORTEM

      That was it—the event was over. The cute event coordinator had us give ourselves a round of applause (Congratulations! You suffered through this night successfully!) and asked us to turn in our scorecards. As the younger women collected their purses, the coordinator noticed our shell-shocked expressions. “Try it again another time,” he said to us. “Maybe it will be different?” he added unconvincingly.

      On the way out, I passed the bar area of the restaurant. Stylish, smiling young men and women were talking and milling about. Nobody seemed to be over 30.

      Driving home, I added up the costs of the blown evening. Event tab: 25 bucks. Babysitter tab: 40 bucks. Parking: 8 bucks. Time spent showering, shaving legs, blow-drying hair, applying makeup, and coordinating outfit: 1.5 hours. Round-trip travel time in rush-hour traffic: 1 hour. Lost evening that could have been spent with my beloved son: priceless.

      I didn’t blame the event sponsor for the fiasco. Instead, I blamed myself. On some level, I realized that it was simply the consequence of my having made bad dating decisions when I was younger. I knew that people met through speed dating all the time. I even knew someone who went to a 25-to-35 event when she was 29 and met her husband, who was 32, there. She’d been to three events, and at each one, she told me, there were an equal number of men and women. Some of the guys were duds, but most were relatively enjoyable to talk to. They didn’t have a lot of baggage or sob stories. If they lived in crappy apartments, they had promising careers. They didn’t remind her of her friends’ fathers. Later, I asked a 40-year-old single friend about her speed dating experience. Was mine unusual?

      “Not at all,” she told me. “Sounds pretty typical for a forties to fifties event.” She said that when she was 38 and 39, she’d gone to a couple of 30-to-40 events, and while the guys were far more appealing—she’d marked “yes” next to several—they were only interested in the women in their early thirties.

      I’d always heard that dating gets harder the older you get, but I’d never really taken it seriously before. I didn’t consider that one decision—say, passing up a good guy because “something was missing”—could change the course of my life forever. Back in my twenties and early

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