Timothy: (back story, move forward in book?)
My dinners with Judy and her husband, Ed, were becoming tedious. Judy had decided that I needed a wife and was determined to find me one. I wasn’t against that idea, in fact, I would be delighted to find the right woman to share my life, but so far, she’d introduced me to gold diggers and simpletons.
I know how that makes me sound. I’m not a conceited jerk. I do appreciate that women have their own interests and might not come across exactly as I desired on their first meeting, but so far, I hadn’t met even one that I wanted to have a second date with. I hated insipid, dead eyes, women who constantly checked a mirror, and those who dropped names of the rich and famous as if that should impress me. Those who wanted to marry me for a meal ticket and a swimming pool were automatically out.
Judy insisted that none of the ladies she’d introduced me to fit that pattern. They worked for Ed at the legal firm, which means that they were educated and highly intelligent females on the financial ladder of success. Good for them, but none of them fit.
As to looks, I was less inclined to choose the thin as a clothes hangar type. I preferred softer, more fragile women. Whether they did or did not lift heavy weights at the gym was nothing I cared about. I wanted well-read, slightly old-fashioned in a modesty sense (No boobs hanging out or enticements that offered me everything the moment I met her,) and . . . well, someone who was just right.
I’d know. Instantly. At least that was my genetic pattern. In my family, we chose mates for life and knew exactly who that was in the first five minutes of meeting our fated.
“This is the one,” Judy had said, inviting me in, although I doubted her words. How could she know which one would click when I didn’t?
I had no premonition, although sometimes that was something common in my family. In fact, I was in general, absolutely negative about the whole evening. This was the last dinner for me. I’d told that to Judy. I was only in attendance because I’d promised her earlier. One more time, and then Fini.
I didn’t even look at the young lady they tried to introduce me to. I was frankly rude, put off by this whole mandatory staged stranger date. Knowing it was my final and last disappointing dinner, I was as interested in meeting Judy’s choice as in falling off a cliff.
And as I walked into the living room and did glance over at her, I saw another breathtaking model type. Disappointment immediately raised its head, saying, “What did you expect?”
Angry at any carefully suppressed expectations I might have held, I demanded to know the woman’s name. I addressed my reaction to Ed, not wanting to openly berate his wife for another failure. She’d hear about my immediate rejection later, but, truthfully, this would give me the perfect excuse to close the door on all further match-making opportunities Judy wanted to shovel in my face. I’d officially crossed the border of no return.