Prime Time - Jane Fonda [104]
If there seems to be an interest on both your parts from the posting and emails, the next step is a phone call to see if the man’s voice and attitude seem right for you. If there’s no phone chemistry, you probably won’t want to extend it into a meeting. Whatever you do, do not give out your phone number. The guy may turn out to be a real pain, and you’d have to change your number to get rid of him.
The man Mary has spent the last two and a half years with never even posted a profile, but he read Mary’s and emailed her out of the blue. “It was interesting,” Mary said, smiling as she remembered. “He said, ‘Reading your profile is like sitting in a movie theater in Connecticut watching Bull Durham and being the only one laughing.’ And I am going, ‘This is the weirdest thing I’ve gotten.’ And I don’t know why I answered, but I did. We emailed back and forth for a while, and then we met for a glass of wine and eventually started dating. But I did all these things—like, I called my friends and said, ‘I am meeting this guy for a glass of wine.’ I called when I came back home; I said, ‘I am back home.’ And I think I did the same thing on the second date.”
I asked Mary what they had in common. “He is very cultured,” she replied. “He belongs to the High Museum, he goes to the opera, to the ballet. And, like I said, he’s very independent.”
“And are you planning on getting married?” I asked. Mary explained that he’s been married three times, so no. “But he wants me to live with him. He lives in a condo downtown that he has a mortgage on. I own this house. I love this house. He is not here half the time because he travels all over the world selling agricultural equipment. I keep saying to myself, ‘Why would I want to live in a place I don’t like when he’s not even here?’ I’ve grown to like having my own space.”
I have spoken with a number of women and men who feel it can be good to extend the emailing and phone calling for weeks, even months, so that you really get to know the person before moving to the dating phase. However long you wait, be sure that you feel there is a real potential for compatibility before arranging a meeting. Like Mary, when you do meet, do it in a safe, public place and tell someone what you’re doing and where you will be, and carry a cellphone with you. Don’t commit to spending more than thirty minutes or so the first time. If he’s a dud, you don’t want to get stuck. And, under those circumstances in particular, offer to split the tab with him.
Out of the seventeen men she exchanged emails and phone calls with, Mary met only four of them face-to-face. I asked her if it was clear to her right away that they weren’t right. “Oh yes,” she said. “There was one guy I met twice. He told me he was going to join the Peace Corps, and I thought, ‘Well, that’s got nothing to do with me!’ But he was the only one I met more than once. When I look back on it, I feel like it really wasn’t going to work out with any of those guys.”
“How long did you date the man you’re with before you had sex?”
“Probably about three weeks.”
“And was it hard? I mean, in terms of you having been single for—”
“No, it wasn’t,” Mary said with certainty. “We went to Friday night at the High, where the museum has martinis and a jazz band and you can look at art. Then we went to eat. It was just a very nice evening and … no, it was not hard.”
If and when the time comes that you want to have sex with your new friend, be sure to be prepared with condoms and lubrication. If he resists using a condom, he’s probably not for you.
It can be tough when you think the first date went well but he doesn’t call again. Keep in mind that older men, far more than most older women, are looking for a serious, long-term commitment. “A perfectly nice date may not result in a follow-up if they don’t sense that you are exactly what they are looking for,” cautions Dr. Pepper Schwartz. “A quick rejection doesn’t feel good—but it’s the style