The bird turned to look at us, its small, graceful head swiveling atop an elegant neck of beautiful blush pink feathers.
“That’s the male dove, and it’s his turn on duty,” my daughter Megan told me, pointing up to where the bird sat in a loose nest of twigs and grass.
It was 2021, and I’d returned to the Midwest for the summer where Megan’s home becomes my home base. It includes her husband Jay and my three grandkids (aka my merrymakers)—and now a couple of mourning doves tucked high and dry near the garage ceiling. Megan said she climbed a ladder a few days ago to peek in the nest when the parents took a rare break, and she saw two fat, white jelly-bean-sized eggs.
Just then the female, her dusty brown feathers no match for her partner’s, flew up and dad swooped down and out the garage door. “The kids and I googled it, and doveys mate for life,” Meg told me as we got into the car.
Co-parenting and monogamy at its best.
Curious myself about these new occupants, I read that they’re so devoted they will even watch over the body of a deceased mate. “Who knew birds sat shiva?” I thought, and then, “A mate for life? What a pipe dream.”
Here I was, a single woman who had failed at the mating game and couldn’t even say the word “date” for the first year and a half after I divorced my husband and moved from Kansas to California to start over.
But seven years single that summer, I can say with confidence that I no longer broke into a flop sweat before meeting a new guy like I did in the early days. And my friends, single and married, gay and straight, were all curious to hear the details after every hike, coffee date, romantic dinner and home-cooked meal that I went on.
So being the nuts and bolts gal that I am, I added more particulars about each date to The Audit, the numbered list of guys I’ve dated :
The men range in height from just a smidge shorter than me at five feet four and a half inches, to well over six-feet tall.
While I’ve had multiple dates with some, no “relationship” lasted more than six months, and one-third of them were single dates.
I screen guys with a phone call before meeting in person and should have trusted my gut on some of those—if I didn’t really feel the spark on the phone, it was usually extinguished in face-to-face conversation, particularly with guy who had trouble making eye contact but who described in great detail how and when all of the joints in his body were replaced.
Their physiques ranged from slim to dad boddish to hard-bodied and muscular and one who was an excellent “before” example for a Jenny Craig commercial. This guy was the best conversationalist I’ve ever had on a first date, but if I were to keep seeing him, I know I’d be shoveling down sea salt caramel ice cream with abandon, blood sugar be damned.
A couple had shaved heads, while several had enviable heads of hair ranging in color from rich brown (Clairol? Just For Men?) to salt and pepper to polar white.
Six are widowers, one of whom told me he needed help picking out new clothes to start his dating life. When he called for our date, I said I’d meet him at Nordy’s. It turned out to be the best two hours of shopping I’ve ever had with a man! He readily tried on slim jeans that I picked out and we added some collared shirts in muted colors that looked good with his complexion.
At coffee and dessert afterward, he said he was ready for a wife, and while I hope for a partner someday, wife is not a title I plan to wear again. But that delightful afternoon kept me in the hunt and showed me there were still a few nice guys left out in the wild.
The last I heard, my shopping buddy was off the market and happily dating a gal he met at pickleball who complimented him on his sharp clothes.
You’re welcome.
More than one guy, particularly the widowers, shared photos of their former wives. On several occasions, it was as if I was staring at a picture–of me. I found that these guys have a type, and they seek it out on repeat.
If I had a type, it would be a guy who cleans up well, can carry on a substantial conversation that goes beyond the weather and who drives at night.
Most of my dates were retired, a few were still working, and their careers ranged from mild-mannered accountant, to movie propmaster, to Chief of Police, to artist (yikes, that needy ego required full-time handholding) to high-end home builder to a man-splaining school superintendent, to a dentist with piercing blue eyes and a nice set of choppers…and so on.
I didn’t found THE ONE like our mourning doves in those early years of dating, but I found plenty of Mr. Right Nows. All were who they said they were, they were respectful in most cases, opened car doors and sometimes brought me flowers, and no one ever raised his voice or frightened me in any way.
Some were handholders, which gets them a gold star if there’s an attraction there on my part, and another tall drink of water pulled me up and out of my seat at a Temptations concert so he could put his arms around me to slow dance. The warmth of his houndstooth blazer pressed tightly against me as we swayed side to side felt like one of those weighted blankets…comforting.
But I have a lifestyle that most women would covet—a home in a town that’s bathed most days in sunshine, thousands of frequent flyer miles just waiting to be cashed in and an armload of gays and a handful of single gals to make my social life sing.
Would I ever trade any of that for something (or someone) I don’t feel deep in my gut would add to my joy?
Not on your life.