mimi goes to the matchmaker

I wasn’t picturing a woman in long, dark-flowered scarves and a paisley shawl (this was a man, anyway), seated on a stool at a little table in a little room with little lamps, the smell of herbs scenting the air, as s/he spoke to me in a heavily accented eastern-European voice, a combination of fortune-teller and ‘love’ specialist.

No, I was picturing a modern office, glass doors with the business name painted on them, an attractive but not beautiful receptionist, high tech stuff everywhere, singlesy-type magazines on a low table, and a nice clean ladies room for which one needed a key. And maybe, as at my divorce lawyer’s, a bowl of hard candy.

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Neither of the above was the case: no little European lady in flowing garments, and no high tech mod business ofc.

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This was a home office on a top floor of a very nice building at a very nice address, and Max the matchmaker was the only person there.

The main room, his living room, was large and crowded, full of non-descript furniture (including a little BedBath&Beyond folding table he was writing on — I have the same one, as I told him [fascinating?]) and uninteresting ‘art’ (as he called his pictures — sorry, I’m being a snob, can’t help it), with a fantastic view of Manhattan. There were several other crowded, unbeautiful rooms off this one, and a little balcony that was not for the acrophobic. On a coffee table were pictures of Max and his parents; there was a general impression of clutter, no doubt enhanced by the huge pile of dirty laundry in one corner, Max’s summer clothes, I think, that he was getting cleaned before his summer weekends in the Hamptons began again.

‘Sit down and make yourself comfortable,’ he said, gesturing to one end of a sofa on which I knew I could not ‘make myself comfortable.’ For a first meeting or interview, I’d prefer to be on a straight-back chair, but there was no such chair visible in the room. The sofa was low and very soft, and to make eye-contact with Max (not his name, of course, but the perfect name for him, more perfect than his real name) I had to turn my body sharply to the left, while still making bottom-contact with the sofa’s cushion.

Max asked me very little about myself: if that’s ’screening,’ I sure hope he screens the men better! The only significant exploratory questions were 1) did I have any outstanding legal issues (no, I responded, fully divorced, divorce all over, not currently involved in any lawsuits) and 2) did I have any ‘hidden problems’? If by that you mean health, I answered, no, I don’t have any problems, I’m very healthy.

And that was that: he took my word for it, with no request for documentation (but anyway, how could you document a negative? signed letters from a lawyer and a doctor?). Maybe he thought, as people generally do, that I have ‘an honest face.’

!!

From then on it was conversation about the kind of men I wanted to meet. His next appointment that day, he told me later, a man arriving at 12:30, was a wealthy 57-year-old who wanted a woman in her mid-forties to early fifties. ‘Piece of cake,’ said Max. But me, a sexagenarian who wanted a professional man in his 60s, smart, witty, and politically on the left — ‘difficult,’ he announced. But he had them, he said, reaching for a black folder full of what looked like spread sheets. He shuffled the pages a bit, I guess to make them seem full of hopeful possibilities, but for all I knew they were all women in their 30s….

We talked about my specs, and he persuaded me that although Manhattan and Brooklyn might contain most of the good options for me, I shouldn’t exclude the closer towns in New Jersey or Westchester. He had a ‘dermatologist in Westchester,’ he said, who had an office in Manhattan and might be right for me. Maybe, I said, thinking that with all my skin problems, a dermatologist close at hand might not be a bad idea (I have the kind of extremely pale skin that has to be protected from the sun).

Ah, but our main discussion was about politics. Remembering the polite disagreement with Nathan the previous day about Guantanamo Bay, I emphasized the importance of liberal-to-left politics for me.

Max: I don’t ask them about their politics.

Mimi: I can understand that. But I wanted to mention that it’s important to me.

Max: I can’t ask them about every little thing –

Mimi: I know you can’t. And anyway, most of the men I’ve dated, most of the men who fit those specs would be against the war anyway, so it’s probably not necessary. But –

Max: Yes?

Mimi: Well, I dated a man yesterday who thought Guantanamo Bay was a good idea, the right thing to do with people, and I really don’t want to date someone who feels like that. But I understand you can’t quiz everybody.

Max: Look at me: I’m 60, and I’m liberal. But I think, we’re at war! this is a war situation! And –

Mimi: And you think that’s what you have to do in wartime?

Max: Yes!

Mimi: Well, I wouldn’t want to date someone who felt that way. I don’t think that’s ‘liberal.’ Most Democrats wouldn’t agree with that.

Max: I’m a registered Democrat.

Mimi: That’s good. But anyway, maybe this kind of thing would come up in conversation before we actually met.

Max: You can’t go through a whole list of opinions with them.

Mimi: I know. I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t ask, you know, what do you think of welfare rights, the environment, immigration,
and so forth. But Guantanamo Bay is different.

Max (with genuine curiosity): How’s it different?

Mimi: It’s a matter of rights guaranteed by the Constitution, rights for everyone. This isn’t just a ‘political opinion.’ This is a deep conviction for me.

Max (beginning to understand): Okay…

Mimi: Anyway, I just wanted you to know that, because you say you give five ‘appropriate’ dates, and if I discovered beforehand that a man felt Guantanamo Bay was a good idea, I wouldn’t want to go out with him.

Max: Okay, okay. It’s not going to be easy…

Mimi: I know. The demographics are against me. There aren’t very many of them.

Max: I have plenty of them. But I have to go through my files and find them.

*****

Are you getting the picture of what a Manhattan matchmaker, or this one at least, is like? Professionally jolly, extroverted, talkative; I hesitate to use the phrase ‘insurance salesman,’ especially when the only one I know is the hilarious one in Woody Allen’s wonderful early film Take the Money and Run Woody is being given extra heavy-duty punishment for having attempted to escape from a chain-gang, and that punishment is to be sent to an underground hole with an insurance salesman. As Woody is sadly climbing down, the insurance salesman, in suit with fedora & briefcase, is climbing down behind him, cheerfully saying, ‘And have I told you about the dental?!’

Well, Max wasn’t that naive; he was slick, I guess, if seeming spontaneity and directness can also be slick. I didn’t dislike him. I only hoped that the people he had available in his database of daters were not people like himself, or not all of them, at least. Of course I couldn’t say that directly. Max had said he was 60, and he was not wearing a wedding ring; nor was there anything even faintly resembling ‘a woman’s touch’ in his ghastly, cluttered apartment. Without a doubt I was not the type of woman he dated (he could choose la creme de la creme of the 40s women for himself, probably). And I must have made it clear that he was not my type. He didn’t come on to me in any way, not in the slightest, nor did he say anything about the way I looked or dressed. Not sure what that meant; it would have been unprofessional, I guess, and anyway, this is his business — sort of like a male gynecologist, maybe, but then, I only go to female gynecologists.

******

As Hamlet says to Horatio, ‘Something too much of this.’

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At one point in our conversation, I was trying to explain to Max — probably going into more detail than he could make use of — that the men I’ve liked best tend to be eccentric and unconventional. I mentioned Rolly and his fear of elevators, and the fact that we had climbed twenty-three flights together. That was probably the most romantic time of the past year — past five years — past fifteen years, to be truthful — for me. But Max was astonished and a bit horrified.

‘I live on the fortieth floor!’ he cried. ‘I couldn’t date a woman who wouldn’t use an elevator!’

I have a feeling that a woman who cares so much about Guantanamo Bay she wouldn’t date a man who approves of it, and yet happily walked up twenty-three flights for a man she was dating — such a woman is a complete mystery for Max, and a challenging client, to say the least.

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After this week is over, a busy week for Max, he’s going to get down to my case. I’m curious, very curious, to see what his offerings are like. Although I’m not super optimistic, he’s almost the only game in town for me at the moment. I wrote him a check, so someone’s going to call one of these days.

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And then we’ll see what kind of man goes to a matchmaker.

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