How I Got My Date – Miller Mosaic LLC

I have been living here in Santa Monica, California, for over six months and I have yet to meet a guy who has asked me out on a date. I have tried online dating services, but it would appear that no one likes my profile enough to ask to meet me for a date of some sort.

Maybe it’s because I am not a blonde, or tall enough for the guy, or thin enough to please the guy’s ideal looks. So okay I am just 5 feet, four inches tall and my weight is about 135, but I look fit and trim in the full-length mirror in my bedroom. I exercise three times a week at the local fitness center, and I don’t smoke. I only have one glass of wine, no matter what the occasion, time, or place. I’m a Barnard College graduate with a marketing job here in Los Angeles at the CBS Television Studios.

So please tell me, what is wrong with me? I need and want to go out on a date with a guy and just maybe he will be the one who might eventually ask me to marry him. Then I could have children and be like the rest of my college roommates who by now at my age, which is 28, are mostly married with at least one child, and maybe be like Mollie who at age 28 has three children already and she is not even Catholic.

This is how I think to myself each evening, just as I am right now sitting outside at a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf in Santa Monica and sipping this cup of coffee. I have been sitting here alone for over 45 minutes and no one has asked to even use the empty chair that is across from me at my small table.

Maybe I should be more aggressive in trying to meet guys. That’s what my mother said I should do when I spoke to her last evening. Don’t miss any opportunity, no matter how slight the chances might be.

“Pardon me, Miss, may I take this chair that you are not using?”

I look up and see this handsome guy carrying a briefcase and holding a cup of coffee.

“A lawyer” is what flashes through my mind, and so I say “No.” He is as stunned as I am for the insane remark that I have just uttered, but I quickly recover and say to Jeff (that’s his name I find out later), “No, you may not, but I would love to have you join me.” He then grins at me and, “Okay, I will.”

Jeff sits down and I quickly extend my hand in greeting and say, “I’m Shelley Myers, a marketing manager at CBS Television Studios.”

He looks at me as if he had never met a woman with such an outpouring of personal information. But he extends his hand and replies, “I’m Jeff Myers, and I also work at CBS Television Studios as a company lawyer in charge of performers’ contracts.”

“No way,” I say to Jeff, “that your last name is the same as mine.”

“I am not fooling” was Jeff’s reply.

I blush, and taking my mother’s advice of last night, I look Jeff in the eye and blurt out, “Hey, I wouldn’t have to change my name if we got married.”

“Not so fast,” Jeff says as he looks around to see if he can escape from “my” table. “I didn’t know you until I sat down and now you are talking of marriage.”

I say, “Jeff, you are not wearing a wedding ring so I can dream, can’t I?”

“Yes, you can, but you frighten me, Shelley, with that kind of statement.”

“Listen, Jeff, I don’t bite and I’m good to my parents and when you get to know me better you will understand me a great deal more.”

“Shelley, I don’t think I can learn all about you at this coffee shop table in one sitting. What if I were to ask you out for a real date?”

“I accept.”

“Wait a second, I haven’t asked.”

“Then ask.”

“Okay, Shelley, will you go out with me this evening for dinner and later to an improvisation show? I am not one of those guys who meets a lovely woman like you, takes her telephone number with a promise to call, and never does. When I ask a woman out for a date I mean it.”

“Jeff, I accept again.”

***

“Mom, you’ll never guess what happened last night.”

Albert Zimbler is a 92-year-old author of six humor short story books on Amazon of which MORE DATING AND MATING SECRETS OF SENIORS AND OTHER HUMOR SHORT STORIES is the latest. He also teaches senior improv.