The IJL Chronicles - Chapter 1

Friends have asked me many times over the past 5+ years to share or even write down my dating experiences. The time has come. So I would like to introduce: The IJL Chronicles. This will be a series (Lord only knows how many!) of true life stories published when the mood strikes. You’re wondering about the title, aren’t you?

I thought it would be poetic justice to use a portion of my “settlement” money to join a dating service. With very little research other than reading a few magazine ads and their extremely positive and successful sounding website, I joined the dating service It’s Just Lunch. Their theory is that we’re all busy people leading busy lives with no time to invest in searching for the right partner. They will do it for you! It’s Just Lunch matches you up with a like-minded person and you invest no more than 45 minutes or so over a taco salad to determine if the two of you have that special spark.

Before I continue, let me say - universally - the only thing I had in common with any of my 12 matches was we were both upright and breathing. And apparently, we are all so, so busy that I never had lunch with anyone – drinks, yes; dinner, once.

My very first date went like this. I got the call from IJL describing my date: what he likes, what he does his interests. Our date was set and I was to meet him at Lidia’s. What to wear? What to say? I went classic with linen slacks and a flowered linen summer top. I was anxious about being early (which I was) so I had a book with me. So there I am – alone at a table with a book in a fancy restaurant – waiting for my first date since 1979. No, I am not kidding – 1979.

Disaster. This man was absolutely obsessed with two things: how much he worked (50 hours per week) and how much water he got in his basement. I listened, I nodded, and I offered various comments. Finally, I could no longer stand his complaining about his lack of time to do anything. I snapped. (Let me point out here, that at the time my three kids were living at home, I was working and I was going to college so I didn’t really have much empathy for a single guy living in an empty house who has no time to do anything.)

I did the math for him. You work 50 hours a week? Well, that’s only 10 hours a day. You commute? Oh, that’s included in the 50 hours? Let’s see. There are 168 hours in a week. You work 50. You sleep 56. That leaves 62 hours do to whatever you want. Hmm, what exactly is the problem?

That left only the water issue to discuss. I learned how often his basement flooded, how much it cost each time, what the damage was.  He told me, in great detail, how he attempted to resolve the issue – over and over – until my eyes glazed over.

Two days later, Hurricane Ivan struck his hometown here in Pittsburgh.