My First Dress - the Mayor

My first post-marriage dating experience was actually a pretty good one. The way it happened really worked out to my advantage. The stars were aligned and I was about to try on my first dress in the world of single people. Again.  

We met at a networking event when I happened to notice what my mom would call “a good-looking fellow,” and I gave him the once-over … with positive results. This was big. It was the first time in years that I had noticed someone and could actually picture myself with him. For the presentation, we ended up sitting next to each other and had a pretty good chat. (To borrow from my pre-teen years in New Jersey), this was MAJOR. I was ok (sweating profusely, but ok) talking to an attractive man I’d never met before, and he seemed to be thinking I wasn’t too bad either.

When the presentation ended he casually turned to me and said, “are you hungry?” “I’m starved,” I said (because I really was. I can’t stand these networking events where they pour wine down your throat but won’t give you so much as a cracker to go with it. I’m a lightweight, people, and I need food to sustain myself for the actual networking portion of the evening).

We left and met at a restaurant downtown and it wasn’t long before he spilled the beans. This was actually a set-up. A mutual friend suggested he attend the event because I was going to be there and she thought we’d hit it off. I hadn’t a clue but it was fine with me. We were having a nice dinner and he was nice to look at. He seemed really genuine, too. Our mutual friend had told him about my situation so he told me his, which wasn’t much different. He seemed understanding and I felt completely comfortable talking about the big “D” on our foreheads. Dinner went on, me with another glass of wine (come on, I wasn’t that comfortable) – and he with a coke. I learned during dinner that he was the Mayor of a local city and the lead singer of a rock band. I felt a little awkward, maybe even a tad unworthy, but what the hell? He asked me out.

What I didn’t learn during that dinner but could have easily guessed was that he was a player as well. But honestly, even if I had known, I really don’t think I would have changed things. I was dating someone. Someone other than my useless ex-husband found me attractive. It was out with the old and in with the new. I was surviving and enjoying simultaneously.

I knew we didn’t have a long-term future together: he ate out three meals a day, drank ONLY coca-cola, turned the a/c off in his house when he wasn’t home (In south Florida!!!) and he jumped at a free meal like the best of the Boca Raton Red Hat Ladies. But possibly the most irksome quality about Mr. Mayor was that he communicated primarily through text messages. But I was dating! We did movies and dinner together. We had a weekend getaway in Naples. I watched him rock the crowd on Friday nights and he loved my dog.

When we had been dating for a couple of months, however, he decided to tell me a little more about his past, specifically about how he cheated on his last live-in girlfriend with one of the area’s newscasters and as a result, his city will never get any news coverage from her. Why he decided to share this information is still a mystery to me. But even more specifically, he explained how the two women involved found out about his charade and confronted him, together, in his house. I got a great chuckle and a minor bout of stomach cramps from this conversation but since he was being so forthcoming, somehow it ended with us deciding to date only each other.

Or at least that’s what I thought. A couple of days later – 3 to be exact – a good friend breaks the news to me that Mr. Mayor asked out one of her colleagues. Since she knew we were supposedly together, she emailed him and asked him if he was seeing anyone. He gave a very vague answer and went on to say how he really wanted to take her to this upcoming event. I was going to be out of town for the event so I guess he needed an escort.  

Ok. Fine. He didn’t want to be monogamous. I had noticed while we were together that he had a virtual checklist: a checklist of all the things he wanted in a wife and I knew he wasn’t going to stop until he got them. All. And I didn’t possess them, nor did I really want to. And the final straw was incredibly immature way he handled the situation.

After things blew over a bit, I called him to see if I could stop by. I wanted to end things quickly but painlessly. We were both adults, right? Not exactly. As he opened the front door, I got a really strange feeling. Maybe it was because he had rearranged the living room as if a therapy session was taking place with he as the therapist and me, of course, as the patient. I guess he knew that I wanted to end things, but he wasn’t going to let that to happen. HE wanted to end things. And that’s what he did.

He cut me off before I could say anything. He wanted me to commiserate with him that although we had a good time together, there really wasn’t any spark. What bothered him most was that he didn’t get butterflies in his stomach when he saw me. But he felt really bad for feeling this way.  He wanted me to know that I didn’t do anything wrong. He told me I was smart. And pretty. And asked me if I was ok – again, and again, and again. Yes, Mr. Mayor, although I will no longer be hanging out in a house with 2 liter Coke aplenty, I think I’ll be ok, especially because now I don’t have to watch the last movie in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.