What I want.

I may or may not have said this already, but this is my most recent definition of the perfect mate:

• She will be able to drink me under the table. Granted, this isn’t hard to do, as my alcohol tolerance dropped off significantly when I left college, and then again when I turned 30.
• She won’t feel that her life is a waste if she doesn’t reproduce.
• She will know how to make lasagna. It doesn’t have to be good lasagna, either, as all lasagna is inherently good.
• She will know that Sunday mornings are good for one thing and one thing only – sleeping in.
• Also, she will know that “sleeping in” means sex.
• And, most importantly, she will make me want to be the best version of myself I can possibly be. And not for her, but for myself.

Having said all that, I canceled my eHarmony account today. Honestly, I stopped looking at the matches. They were all the same. Twenty-something, blonde, LOVES CARDINAL BASEBALL (TEE HEE), wants kids, is Christian, and has a million best friends who she’s known since first grade.

Please note that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with being that person. It’s just that they are a dime a dozen in St. Louis, and they’re all on eHarmony. And none of them are interested in me, which is fine, because really, I’m not too interested in them, either.

Oh, and they’re always teachers, accountants, or — no, that’s it. They’re teachers or accountants. Apparently those are the only two professions single women between the ages of 25 and 32 have in this region.

So, where do I go from here? Obviously I haven’t been going on a lot of dates lately, for various reasons. Mostly work-related. Because, really, I’m a busy guy.

I am not giving up my search, nor am I giving up this blog. I still do have some stories to tell. I just haven’t had a chance to do any hands-on research in the field lately.

I do have one story for you right now, though…

A few weeks back, some friends of mine from college threw their annual mid-winter bash. It’s a good reason to hang out, eat good food, and get drunk in the middle of the shittiest time of the year. As I was standing there mingling, a group of three people walked in.

One of those people looked very familiar.

MICHELLE.

I freaked out. I turned my back to her and looked for a way out. The back door was in the kitchen. I was in the dining room. And about 25 people were between me and freedom. And I certainly couldn’t go out the front door, since SHE was right there.

I shuffled around a bit, not knowing what to do. The person I was talking to at the time — my friend Angela — noticed my sudden discomfort.

“Sam, hello?” said Angela, trying to regain my attention. “What’s your deal?”

“Sorry Angela,” I said, “but I think I need to leave.”

“You just got here, jerk!” she said. “Why do you need to leave?”

By the way, I should point out that Angela has no concept of an inside voice.

“Someone just walked in,” I said, my back still facing Michelle, “and I’m 99% sure I dated her for a while and things did not end well. Not at all.”

The very last thing I wanted to do at that moment — or at any moment in the years since I unceremoniously dumped Michelle — was face her. Especially if she was with her friends. Her friends loved her, and I’m pretty sure would kill for her. Actually, no, I know they would kill for her. I think they may have already. I didn’t want to find out first-hand, though.

I had lived those years with a sense of relative safety since I bought a house and moved not too long after the breakup, and she never did have the address. And she never did know my real name, either. I mean, she knew my name, but not my full legal name, under which all the legal stuff was filed… But that’s another story entirely.

“OH MY GOD!” exclaimed Angela, drawing attention to us before I could shush her. Naturally, this drew everyone’s attention to Angela — and the guy she was talking to, who was, for some strange reason, not willing to turn his body toward the front door.

Then the host went up to the group and began introducing them to some other guests.

“This is Sarah, Katie, and Jessica — we all went to high school together,” said the host.

“Wait a minute,” I said to Angela, “that’s not her.”

“What?” she said. “What the fuck, Sam?”

I explained the situation to her. She called me chicken shit. And then she called me a couple other things because, for some reason, I decided to tell her the details of the breakup. I think she also slapped me. I can’t be entirely sure. I was drinking.

And then Not Michelle, a.k.a., Katie, came up to me.

“Hey, not sure if you remember me or not,” she said. My heart raced and my stomach began knotting itself up. “Last year you were afraid to talk to me because you said I looked like your ex-girlfriend or something.”

“Oh yeah?” I said, suddenly remembering that at the previous year’s party, I had done the exact same thing. I saw her enter, panicked, found out she wasn’t actually Michelle, and then told the story to her and a couple other people. Or at least I’m guessing that’s what happened, as I was completely blitzed and can’t really say for sure.

“Yeah,” she said, “How have you been?”

And then we conversed like normal adults.

Also, Angela made fun of me until I went home. And again in a series of text messages over the course of the next week.