Cecily Cardew and me

from The Importance of Being Earnest, Act II

Algernon. I hope, Cecily, I shall not offend you if I state quite frankly and openly that you seem to me to be in every way the visible personification of absolute perfection.

Cecily. I think your frankness does you great credit, Ernest. If you will allow me, I will copy your remarks into my diary. [Goes over to table and begins writing in diary.]

Algernon. Do you really keep a diary? I’d give anything to look at it. May I?

Cecily. Oh no. [Puts her hand over it.] You see, it is simply a very young girl’s record of her own thoughts and impressions, and consequently meant for publication. When it appears in volume form I hope you will order a copy. But pray, Ernest, don’t stop. I delight in taking down from dictation. I have reached ‘absolute perfection’. You can go on. I am quite ready for more.

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That’s this post, a very middle-aged woman’s private record of compliments paid her, and consequently meant for publication.

Compliments I’ve received since October 2006 (more, I believe, than in the previous twenty years):
Rolly, meeting me over dinner at a MacDougal Street restaurant, our first date, said twice in a tone of surprise that I was ‘pretty,’ and ergo unlike his previous jdate dates. Well before the entree arrived, he proclaimed: ‘You’ll be married by spring.’

I made it clear that marriage was not what I was looking for, but I took seriously Rolly’s estimate of my marketability, especially because (I thought) his long bachelorhood (almost 30 years separated and divorced) gave him some expertise in that area.

Of course, I just wanted to be longtermrelationshipped by spring….

One week later: with Len, riding up the escalator at the Union Square Barnes and Noble to the coffee shop, standing face to face about 10 inches apart. You’re pretty! he exclaimed with surprise. And then: You don’t look like your picture. Confirmation again that I needed to have a professional photograph taken for my profile.

And then there was Bo, the handsome-hunk-psychotherapist, writing early last November to renew our connection, assuring me I was not (as I told him I thought I was) water under the bridge. He wrote, I really enjoyed our time together. A brilliant attractive woman is great company.

Dear Bo, I really liked him, but the poor man was withdrawn (his word) and in the course of three dates just stiffly shook hands goodnight with me.

But best of all, there was Yellow-tie, that’s Louis, a thrice-married attorney who referred to his previous spouses as W1, W2, and W3. It took me a moment to realize he wasn’t referring to his tax forms. He was wearing the ugliest yellow tie — a wide silk one — I’ve ever seen in my life, and an aggressively visible matching yellow silk pocket handkerchief. But his apparel is matter for another post.

We were in the bar at the Plaza Athenee, where an episode of Sex and the City was filmed. We had been together no more than ten minutes when he stared dreamily at me and said, You’re beautiful.

Your frankness does you credit, I should have said, but I was briefly speechless, privately attributing the compliment to the skin-tight sexy red Only Hearts / Helena Stuart camisole I was wearing, which showed a bit of cleavage (see http://www.hipundies.com/Only-Hearts) . I had never worn it before, nor had I worn anything so revealing on a date this time round. Clearly, it was working; but did I want it to?

I think I just said Thank you and gave him a look that was meant to signify, Oh, come on! that’s silly! But fifteen minutes later, there it was again: You’re beautiful, he said. I think I responded the same way the second time, feeling mildly irritated at the silly and excessively romantic look in his eyes. And then about an hour later, in the French restaurant, he said,You’re very pretty, a remark which interested me because it appeared to show a shift in judgment.

But best of all was his remark toward the end of dinner: You’re very good-looking. That’s a word, good-looking, that few people under the age of sixty-five would use (Louis was 69). My mother uses it sometimes of stylish, tailored-looking women with coiffed hair in suits. I don’t think anyone has ever called me good-looking before. I was beginning to wonder what I looked like at that point.

Later I reported to my older daughter this series of compliments — beautiful, beautiful, very pretty,good-looking –
and she said, You should have asked him why he demoted you.

But possibly he was just becoming more realistic.

* * * * *

So what am I to think, then, of Daniel’s compliment last night? I looked good but not my best, but good enough, I thought, to land a second date. Towards the end of the evening — dinner at my local Turkish restaurant, a 20-minute digesting walk during which we talked about movies and Jewish summer camps — as we stood at the curb of Madison Avenue and 35th, we were talking about friends. He had told me about his close (male) friends, and I said that I couldn’t have managed the last two years, being on my own, without the comfort and friendship of about seven or eight women I was very close to.

And are you all over that now? he asked, meaning the worst of the feeling of isolation that came from being unmarried.

Definitely, I answered.

Take my arm, he said.

I did, mumbling the question, is that a response to my response? but he didn’t hear, which is just as well.
And as we stood outside my building — well away from the lighted area near the awning; who wants the doorman to see the goodnight kiss? — he said,I’d like to cook dinner for you at my house. You’re funny and cute.* * * *

So that was last night’s compliment: less romantic than Rolly’s or Yellow-tie’s, but more accurate.

Daniel, your frankness does you credit. If you will allow me, I will copy your remarks into my blog.

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