an interview with plan c about his dating life

I wanted to do a complete and detailed interview, but Plan C clams up at the thought that what he says will be published, however anonymously. So I’ll offer here the snippets of conversation I was able to record. He’s so much better off the page……….

And oh yes, please note:
1) I am entirely responsible for the questions. If you think they’re low and vulgar, blame me, not Plan C.
2) This is not an exact transcript; I didn’t number the pages. This is just the way I’m typing the conversation, such as it was.
3) He was aware that I was taking notes and would write up what he said and post it.
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MIMI
How many women did you date before you met me?
[NB this means between a time about 10 months after his wife's death, a time he said was really too early for him to have begun dating, till a time about 30 months after her death, when he met me]

PLAN C
(with embarrassment) 84.

MIMI
Did they have anything at all in common with one another, those 84 women?

PLAN C
They were mostly divorced.

MIMI
In looks?

PLAN C
They were mostly brunettes. And pretty. I like pretty.

MIMI
And their bodies?

PLAN C
Mostly slim and petite. I decided that’s what I wanted this time round. I had this fantasy of a woman on top of me, and that required petite.

MIMI
Didn’t you date some larger women?

PLAN C
Well, there was Angelica….the first time we had sex, I mean, the first time we were getting to a total state of undress, somewhere in the course of that she asked me if I liked big breasts. And I said no, I prefer smaller and medium-sized breasts. And she said, Why? and then she said, Mine are very big.

MIMI
Oh oh. What did you say?

PLAN C
I don’t remember.

MIMI
Weren’t you embarrassed?

PLAN C
As soon as I saw them, I knew I’d given the wrong answer.

MIMI
Do you have any happy memories of your dating?

PLAN C
I had a nice time with Angelica. She was exciting. At first it was exciting for me, with each new person I was dating, just to see what was next: maybe she would be The One.

MIMI
How long before it got tiresome? You went off jdate at some point…

PLAN C
It was going nowhere. It was like being on a merry-go-round. I stopped calling them ‘dates’ and called them ‘meetings.’ The first ‘meeting’ was always the same: you email; maybe you get to the telephone, the sooner the better. Eventually you suggest a date or meeting; it was always me who suggested that.

MIMI
Did you ever not?

PLAN C
Sometimes I could sense — this was not the right kind of person for me; she was dull and boring or had a real New York accent, which I couldn’t tolerate. Before I met you, I called this woman who was drop-dead gorgeous in her photo, but as soon as she opened her mouth, oh– she had a Very New Yawk voice.

MIMI
What kind of clothes did you like to see?

PLAN C
I liked to see a woman who likes to dress with style and grace and good taste.

MIMI
You mean, like my striped socks??

PLAN C
I never saw a shrug till I met you.

MIMI
So what do you really like?

PLAN C
It’s always nice to see a little decolletage….and to see that someone made an effort. There was a woman who showed up in a denim outfit, blue jeans and a denim jacket. No one over 30 should wear those; it didn’t strike me as putting her best foot forward. [pause, during which Plan C feels guilty]
She was a lovely person.

MIMI
Tell me about that woman who wanted a hug….

PLAN C

She lived in [an upscale suburban town]. She was very nice, about 62. I was the one who emailed her, then we talked on the phone. She was divorced. We met at a trendy restaurant for dinner. She was not intrinsically an attractive woman, neither pretty nor beautiful, but she paid attention to how she looked. She definitely had a nice figure, about 5′4″, 130 pounds..

MIMI
Hmmmm.

PLAN C
I think I was more important to her than she was to me, at first sight. Almost immediately I said to myself, ‘Umm? No.’ [pause] This is terrible to say. I don’t feel right.

MIMI [persevering with the story nevertheless]
How could you tell you were important to her?

PLAN C
She was very eager. Eager to please.

MIMI
And?

PLAN C
So we had dinner. And then it was time to go. I offered to walk her to her car — which I always did, which you should do — and then I said, Thank you, and she said, Thank you for dinner. And then I leaned over to give her a kiss on the cheek, which I always did. And she looked at me and said, A hug would be nice; could you give me a hug? I said, Sure, and so we had a hug, which was a close hug. She pressed into me, which confirmed for me that she had a nice figure.

MIMI
You’re very sympathetic there, and so is she. [pause] And so she’s another woman who wonders, why didn’t he call me?

PLAN C
If there was one thing that was always interesting about it [dating], it always surprised me that it seemed to be left to the man not only to initiate the first meeting but to indicate the second and third. Of course I got into trouble once because I actually said that to somebody, and she contacted me, and I realized I didn’t want to see her again.

MIMI
What happened?

PLAN C
About a week later she called and said, I had a nice time; maybe we could got out to a movie or something? And I said, Maybe we could. I was indeterminate and never called her.

MIMI
Why didn’t you?

PLAN C
Altogether, she was a lovely person and would have been a lovely companion, and I would have been a nice man in her life and would have treated her nicely. There was ultimately a gap — in terms of — I don’t want to sound like a snob — probably in education — no, in interests — and also, she was in reduced circumstances, so why should I be responsible for her? [pause] Is that cold?

MIMI
No, not at all.

PLAN C
I met one or two women who had a lot more money than me, and I still paid for dinner.
[pause]
I want to talk about — that I — until I did this I didn’t know many divorced people.

MIMI
You didn’t???

PLAN C
I lived in a couples world, people who got married and stayed married. I saw 84 women, and probably a handful had never married; half a dozen were widowed; and all the rest divorced. It was instructive about society. In most instances I felt like the women had had the rug pulled out from under them, and I heard a lot of divorce stories; never a good one. There was a lot of anger. I asked a lot of women, and they would tell me, Well, we never really loved each other. I’d ask, So why did you marry him? And often I would hear, I was 19, I was 20, and that’s what you did: you got married. And I would say, You weren’t in love? And they would say, It’s what you did…so we did.

MIMI
What about paying for meals?

PLAN C
The first time I did it, I figured out, it was like a date, generational I guess, it was expected of me: I’ll get this. After a while, I began to say to myself, Okay, this woman has less money than I do; she shouldn’t be picking up that dinner check. But when I was out with a woman with a professional job, I’d think, How about it? It wasn’t about the money…..I think there were about three occasions when the woman offered to pay her share; you were the third or fourth. If I mentioned this to younger people, like my sons, the feedback was that in their generation, a young woman wants to pay her way and doesn’t want you do to this.

MIMI
You have strong opinions about age….

PLAN C
I want the woman to be younger. Male ego, I guess, even if it’s just two years younger.

MIMI
And opinions about hair…

PLAN C
I was seeing a lot of middle- and upper-middle class women who did keep themselves well and went to hairdressers and had their hair styled. A good haircut can add so much. It was just amazing how many bad haircuts there are; and then you meet women with shoe-polish black hair.

MIMI
Of course men always tell women they’re pretty…

PLAN C [smiling]
Men will say anything to get laid.

* * *
I think I’ll leave the conversation there. As you can see, Plan C was reluctant to say much. He’d get involved in a story he was telling and then feel bad if there was anything negative about the woman.
That last comment was said with a smile… Plan C was not a great flatterer, and considering how very very many women he dated, he actually had very little sex. To be crudely quantitative: I had about the same amount with my 33 men as he did with his 84 women.

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End of story…

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