The Manhattan Transfer

I was feeling really confident about getting a guy who is interested in me to be interested in someone else (of my choosing) instead. I mean, the men in this town have a bad case of "roving eye syndrome" to the point where it is at epidemic levels. At least, for once I was going out with a man who I was hoping and praying would look at anyone and everyone else, but me...and more specifically my friend, Ellen, in particular. It almost seemed too easy.

Here was the plan...Ellen spent a good part of her day getting a manicure, a blow out, eyebrow shaping, and shopping for the perfect dress to pair with a "va va voom" push up bra. We know men are visual creatures and there is really no point trying to pretend otherwise. I spent less than zero time getting ready and showed up in something that could have been pulled from my mother's closet - a khaki linen skirt that went to my ankles, a white button down shirt (buttoned all the way up, of course), and flat brown sandals. No makeup and a low ponytail. I was looking very "Karen Blixen"...efficient, un-sexy, and ready for a day on the African farm, circa 1935. I was respectably unattractive in the most schoolmarm of ways - just as planned.

To round out our table for dinner, we invited Will...a witty, brilliant, married banker and father of three. We had met him and his wife a year ago during a trip to the Miraval Spa in Arizona. His wife, Bridget, had generously loaned him out to us for the evening as we were in need of a "eunuch" and I suppose to a single woman in the 21st century - our choices were either a gay man or a married man. We went with the latter. The Muppet didn't need any direct competition and Will was the perfect table filler.

The restaurant of choice was Paola's on the Upper East Side (where the Muppet, Ellen, and Will all reside.) Paola's is charming with fantastic food - yet caters to an over-50 crowd, so the chances of Ellen getting upstaged by a gaggle of models at a nearby table were thankfully close to nil.

The stage was set - all players (except the Muppet) understood their roles....I was to be dreary and dull; Will was to be pleasant and unassuming; and Ellen would be glamorous and fetching....while the restaurant was nothing more than a backdrop with food to highlight Ellen's fabulousness!

The Muppet seemed thrown off slightly being in the company of two scoops of vanilla and one scoop of chocolate mint chip...and he reverted to being a scoop of vanilla himself....thus forcing Will and I to become more lively or risk making Ellen stand out like a lunatic. The Muppet was not heading down the clearly marked path as we had been hoping he would. He kept trying to steal glances of my cleavage in between the buttons on my shirt when I leaned forward (pervert!) He loved the fact that I didn't tower over him this time due to my flat sandals and he was acting as if Ellen and her fabulous cleavage was some sort of test. A test - he clearly thought he was passing as he remained unwavering in his devotion to me...which was obviously, beyond irritating.

Halfway though dinner, it was clear that the Muppet did not want to trade in his option on a 5'9", 34-year old in exchange for a 5'2", 40-year old - no matter how funny or well dressed the 40-year old was. He obviously found it to be a bad deal - although the fact was that he only really had one option at the table. It was Ellen or nothing because I wasn't interested. We all knew by the second bottle of wine, that the Muppet had no chance with me and Ellen had no chance with the Muppet. It was game over.

Determined not to have a bad evening even though it did not turn out to be the night I had hoped for...Will, Ellen, and I ended up having a blast. The Muppet grew more and more quiet until he was a virtual mute by the time the check arrived. It was a literal three-to-one. The three of us love our wine...while he nursed his mineral water (was he coming from an AA meeting?) The three of us had pasta...while he ordered a steak (who orders steak in an Italian restaurant?) The three of us almost got thrown out of each of our respective boarding schools (and had hysterical stories about it)...while he was a straight-A public school student from upstate New York (yawn.) The three of us travel all the time...and the Muppet doesn't like to travel (of course.) The worst part was when Will told the Muppet the best way to get over hating to travel is to fly private and watching the Muppet nod and stare at Will, wondering if that was a serious comment - and it was. Muppet Man had no response to that. Not even a laugh.

Finally, when we all ordered coffee...the Muppet had a chamomile tea. He just had zero personality (like everything he had to drink.) He really was just a dud. You don't have to be raised in a certain type of family or to be cultured to be interesting. I know some people who have been all over the world and have nothing to say while some people walk around the block and can tell me ten fascinating observations they had. He contributed nothing - literally - except for some mild disappointment on Ellen's side for not even offering a minor flirting session with her after all the effort she had put into getting ready.

At the close of the evening, we left the Muppet standing out the front of the restaurant and we all climbed into the back of Will's chauffeured car. He promptly gave us the responses we desired all evening - at long last - and assured me that I looked positively dreadful and matronly and he told Ellen that she was a total knockout. He felt that the Muppet was below either of our standards... and he had the courtesy to wait in his car to make sure that each of us got safely inside our apartments before he drove off.

Sadly, the dreamiest man I've met in a long time was someone else's husband. I will have to remember to thank his wife for the loan. If you had been reading "The Great Salt Lake City Manhunt", we might have offered to become Will's second and third wives at the end of this story...but thus far, polygamy hasn't quite taken off in the Big Apple, and so I have to get back out there with Ellen and all the rest of the singletons in the city looking for Mr. Not Yet Taken, and avoiding Muppet's at all costs.

Safety in Numbers

My business partner, Ellen, is a woman who terrifies me. She is a brilliant, petite blonde who is a total firecracker. She runs marathons; she has written articles for magazines; she has owned a boutique in the Village...and not to be a total name dropper, but she also dated Jon Stewart about ten seconds before he became famous. Ellen works out with a trainer three days a week at Equinox; she owns a spectacular apartment with panoramic city views; and her closet could easily be mistaken as an outpost of Bergdorf Goodman...filled with more Prada and Chloé than you could shake a stick at. She finishes the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle every weekend with nary a mistake. She has a wicked sense of humor and is universally adored by all of our clients and co-workers alike. Ellen comes from a wonderful family who gave her the best education money could buy - along with frequent trips around the globe...to hone her shopping, skiing, and scuba diving skills to boot. Did I mention that she is always perfectly plucked, groomed, and manicured at all times as well?

The problem, you wonder? She is 40-years old and single. She has never been married, never had a child, and hasn't even had a boyfriend in the past three years. Ellen goes home every night and watches television alone; she cooks a healthy dinner for one to eat at her dining table by herself; and at bed-time, she crawls solo into her Frette-laden bed wondering things like "Is it too late to freeze my eggs?" and "Why aren't Russian mail order grooms available?"

Ellen's three dating options are as follows: 1) Going to bars in a low cut top 2) Paying a match maker $10,000 to find her a husband 3) Putting her photo up on every online dating service known to the world wide web. She chose option three and is thus a active member of Match, J-Date, and e-Harmony. In the past three years, she has endured countless blind dates and over time her desired age range has gone from 35 to 45, to 30 to 50, and now I think she is somewhere between 24 and 67 years of age for her "ideal match." God help her...another couple years of singlehood and Ellen might end up as the only girl on a dating website willing to date any man between the ages of 18 to 99, of any race, any religion, any income...with the sole requirement of having a pulse.

However - back to me, for a moment. The Muppet called. I did not respond. He called again. I picked up the phone the second time and we had a pretty good conversation. The guy really is charming and told me about his ups and downs of hosting 11 house guests at his Hamptons estate last weekend. He is going to the U.S. Open tennis final this weekend and he is heading off to a big charity event tomorrow. I must admit, looks aside - he is definitely not a loser. I am still not attracted to him, but I do recognize his finer qualities....which got me thinking back to Ellen. She would love him. O.K. to be honest, she would love pretty much anyone at this point - but then I started to imagine it. They could host me at their Hamptons house next Summer! They could invite me to join their table at a fancy charity ball at the Waldorf. They could even give me their U.S. Open tickets if they aren't using them next year as a little "thank you" for setting them up. It was perfect, really....I would love his lifestyle, but just without having to date him...and Ellen could have a "happily ever after" so I don't have to look at her and wonder if that will be me at 40? Alone...and illuminated by the glow of Match.Com on my laptop screen as I slowly go infertile! Argh! Banish the thought!

The Muppet ended our phone call by asking me out on a second date and I managed to convince him that I am so crazy busy, that if he wants to get together at all next week it would have to be a "group thing" and to please agree to join me and a friend or two....or else it would be two or three weeks before I am available again. He bought it and we settled on Monday night.

Ellen is totally up for trying the old "switcheroo game" and hopefully the Muppet will be easily volleyed into her court. We are going to try to find a second guy...a eunuch preferably, who can also join in on the game plan and can convince Muppet that I would be the mistake of a lifetime and that Ellen is the real catch of the two of us? Hmmmmm!

Would this, could this work? We all know the benefits of recycling cans, paper, and plastic - but men? Certainly worth a shot.

The Muppet Show

I am trying to figure out how much the personal taste of a match maker actually goes into deciding who to set one up with - as opposed to the match maker being able to truly decide what a great match is based on another individual's preferences.

My Chicago match maker is a gorgeous, young, totally put together brunette. She looks somewhat akin to Jaclyn Smith in her "Charlie's Angels" heyday. On the other hand, the New York match maker is a sassy, older, cosmetically enhanced woman with a serious Brooklyn twang to her accent. Imagine Fran Drescher, in her 50s, with straight hair and a year-round tan - and there you have her.
So, basically it seems that I have a Charlie's Angel and the Nanny both scouring the United States for my ideal man at the moment.

Incidentally, both are single themselves - which is good and bad. Good, because they are not tied down in a relationship and can be out there day and night searching for eligible bachelors and bad because maybe they are keeping the good ones for themselves? Who knows? In any case, thus far Jaclyn Smith has set me up with one gorgeous, smart, successful jerk and Fran Drescher has set me up with a successful, boring, mutant with an overly botoxed face.

The Nanny has two more men up her sleeve for me...one I went out with last night (and I will get to him in a minute) and the second is a Jewish gynecologist who lives on the Upper West Side. I do like the sound of a doctor, but a gynecologist is definitely an idea that I would have to get used to if we ever got past second base. God knows how looking at va-jay-jays every day can affect a man?

So, my date last night was interesting. Not a failure or a success. All I knew about this guy was that he is an entrepreneur, Jewish (again!), never married, and that he wants to settle down. That pretty much sounds like all of Fran Drescher's clients, but I suppose that is what we are all lining up for....to meet people who want to settle down. I just wish she hadn't say that up front. It just sounds weird - and desperate. Especially the concept of a man who is dying to settle down. I mean, what does a guy like that do in his spare time? Look wistfully at a copy of "Modern Bride" at a news stand and then blush and quickly look away? Does he browse for engagement rings on his own....just because? Does he see children in a playground and hear some sort of biological clock ticking inside of him? Ugh- I certainly hope not!

In any case, the entrepreneur showed up at the restaurant perfectly on time (one point.) He had a reservation (another point) and he offered me the seat with the view (he is on a roll.) I must admit, that I was perfectly under-whelmed by his appearance. He had a slight build, he wasn't really tall, his nose was huge, and his eyes were large and bulging out of his skull. He was also clearly at the back of the line when God was handing out "shoulders" because he certainly didn't seem to have any. In fact, this man looked almost like a human Muppet. He was sweet and cute like a Muppet - but there was certainly nothing sexy or overtly alluring about him physically.

The dilemma was this....he was really nice. He was courteous, well natured, and thoughtful. He was bright and has clearly made himself a small fortune. He has a house in the Hamptons with a pool and tennis court; he just finished renovating his large apartment on the Upper East Side - and best of all, he has done well enough to essentially retire - but he has a few more businesses that he would like to start up - just for fun...at least until he has a family. The Muppet was truly a respectable set-up. However, he didn't make me laugh really hard, I didn't feel any physical chemistry with him, and he reminds me of a stuffed animal when I look at him.

The Muppet made me question if I was really shallow because I could honestly care less if he calls me for a second date based mostly on his looks (or lack thereof.) However, looks should count for something? I suppose the answer is how much and when (if ever) can you get past wanting a super hunk and start finding guys like the Muppet attractive.

Oh - I just wish I could like this guy. He seems great...but I am just not feeling it. He said he would call after the Labor Day weekend, so we will see? Maybe he wasn't feeling it either and I am off the hook?