I Like You Because ….

I was in the beauty shop last week getting a haircut. It was on a Friday and the business was booming; every one of the half dozen chairs was occupied with customers and operators working as fast as they could to process as many clients as possible. I often enjoy looking at the costumes of beauty shop operators because I think that they think they must be in punker garb to be successful. Purple and orange hair. Rings in noses, earlobes, belly buttons. You get the picture.

My beautician is dressed normal. She is fifty years old and perhaps that makes a difference. I don’t know. During a lull in my conversation with her, I overheard a customer at the other end of the row of chairs speak to her beautician. I couldn’t see either one of them since my head was tilted down so that we could cut around my neckline, but I heard, “I met this guy and he’s great. He owns his own business and he’s a Republican.”

It made me laugh and I said to my own beautician, “Never mind that he’s divorced because he beat his wife and cheats on his taxes, but he’s a Republican!

Of course, I know many people who have different formulas for whom they like. For example, mothers who don’t want their daughters to go out with anyone other than Jewish men, Mormon men, Catholic men, Armenian men, Germans, Swedes, Poles, and, of course, Democrats or Republicans. Need I go on?

What has happened to the time when we decided to like someone who was kind to others, ambitious for their families, charitable, intelligent, hard-working, lovimg, open to new ideas, or just simply nice.?

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How’d They Meet?

I’m in Ojai this weekend. What a great place! Of course, having perfect wheather and all the plants in my garden bursting with spring bloom helps to make my mood soar. I don’t know know if all this effects everyone in the same way, but I think it does.

We (my husband and I) went to a neighborhood cocktail party last night and the conversation got around to talking about our kids. In my case, kids means adult midlife-aged “kids.” So naturally, since 50% of our population now can count on having at least one divorce under their belts, my kids are testimony to the fact that the statistic is correct. But, I do have good news. My daughter who has been divorced for about six years has finally met someone special and is planning to get married. Almost in unison, our little social group asked, “How’d they meet?”

“On Match .com,” I replied.

And then I started thinking about how much our culture has changed since I was hoping to meet M. Right. For me and my generation, we had to rely meeting someone at school or at work, or at church. And if all that didn’t work out, we hoped that some relative or friend would act as matchmaker and introduce us to someone they knew. One had to rely on having a whole bunch of good luck.

Fast forward in time to today’s people who are interested in meeting someone. Of course, all the old ways can still be productive but today you can add a really polular health club/gum with lots of single members, or an upscale New York or L.A. bar that the singles have chosen as their hangout, and then there is Match.com. How great is that? You can list yourself on their website and specify exactly what you are looking for. Isn’t that what the scientists are working on right now in terms of finding a way for parents to engineer exactly the color eyes and hair and even sex of the babies they plan to have. Brave New World, I say! And good luck to all of you out there looking.

And then I think back on how frustrated my poor brother was as a young man looking for a girl friend and then bride. Perhaps you read about it in Becoming Alice, A Memoir. No wonder he had four marriages. So, good luck to all of you who are out there looking. Any which way that works is good, I say.

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