On Second Thought

Then came the online dating years. Sure, sure, we all know the happy couple who met online, who exchanged fun, flirty emails and then finally met, and voilà! They were in love. Oh, the fun stories of the losers they’d endured before they found each other! Daniel the Hot Firefighter and Calista, who lived on the same Park Slope street I did, had met online, though they divorced after a few years so Calista could devote more time to her yoga. But there were others who’d met online, married, and were still very happy together. I was game. I gave it a shot.

It was a fail. Same for my closest friend, Paige. Like me, Paige was abruptly and completely unable to find a guy. Like me, she was a successful professional—a lawyer—attractive and interesting. Like me, she’d had a slew of nice and not-bad dates, never to hear from the guy again. We both bought a few dating books and followed the rules assiduously. We both wasted our money.

Dating in your thirties becomes a second job. Some of the books remind you to Have fun! If you’re not having fun, what’s the point? The point was to find a mate. There was no fun involved, thank you very much. The fun would come after, when we could wear Birkenstocks and give up Spanx.

Honestly, it was more work than my actual career. I knew what I was doing with photography. This, though... The writing of profiles, the witty exchange of emails, the blocking of perverts. The careful mental list of what to reveal, how to make yourself sound interesting without sounding dysfunctional—should I mention my terror of earthworms? Do I admit that my parents have married each other twice? What about the fact that I binge-watched five seasons of Game of Thrones in one weekend without showering or eating a single vegetable?

Sometimes, the men who seemed nice at first would reveal themselves to be not quite so balanced. After a really fun online exchange with Finn and a perfect first date that involved a tiny Colombian restaurant, much laughter and great chemistry, I got a text that was one giant paragraph without a single capital letter or punctuation mark.

kate you are really great i hate dating dont you we should definitely be exclusive because tonight showed me youre a good person i had a girlfriend who was such a slut she blew my brother in the gas station bathroom btw we were on the way to my grandmothers funeral then they wondered why i was mad seriously people can be such assholes but tonight your eyes told me you have compassion and are fun and wont judge me for things i maybe shouldnt have done

You get the idea. I printed it out for posterity. It was five pages long.

Even when I’d mastered the art of conversing politely yet genuinely and humorously yet seriously while making sure I listened carefully and attentively...well. All those adverbs were exhausting.

And even then, even if I liked a guy and the date went well, nothing came of it. In five years of online dating, I had two second dates. Zero third dates.

Paige and I would cheerfully obsess—Why hadn’t he called again? He said he would! We had a good time! We laughed! Hard! Two times!—and complain—His hair smelled like pot. A noodle got stuck in his beard, and then he got angry when I told him about it. He stormed out of the restaurant because they didn’t have local sheep cheese. We’d laugh and order another round, trying to protect ourselves from too much discouragement or hope.

The single guys we knew, like Daniel, the now-divorced and still-hot firefighter, dated twentysomethings—the False Alarms, Paige and I called them, since nothing serious ever developed after Daniel’s divorce. The False Alarms were all pretty much the same—shockingly beautiful, thigh-gapped, vapid. There was a new one every month or two.

Occasionally, we’d run into Daniel, his cloud of pheromones thick enough to make us choke. Paige called him Thor, God of Thunder, and yeah, he had that kind of effect. Once, Paige and I were sitting in at Porto’s Bar & Restaurant, and Daniel walked in at the very moment the jukebox started playing “Hot Stuff” by Donna Summer. Even the machinery knew.

He was friendly, sure, slinging an arm around my shoulders. “Hey, Kate!” he’d say, his eyes flickering from their usual good cheer. After all, I’d known him as half of a couple, back when he and Calista were newlyweds. I’d seen him sitting on their front steps, waiting for her to come home, unsure of where she was. I knew that he’d been heartbroken, and she had not. Calista moved to Sedona after the divorce, taught meditational movement and spiritual cleanses. I still got a Namaste card for winter solstice each year.

But Daniel and his ilk—the cheerful man-children of Brooklyn—didn’t give women like Paige and me a second glance. Marriage? Tried that, didn’t work. Those guys just kept buying lemon drop martinis for their just-graduated girlfriends, women a decade (or more!) younger than I was, who considered Britney Spears songs classics. They didn’t care about things like fatherhood potential, didn’t care about depth of character. They were simply smitten by the FDNY insignia on Daniel’s T-shirt and the bulging muscles that were showcased by it. (To be fair, I’d once seen Daniel shirtless, and I stopped caring, too.)

The other single men I knew...well, the truth was, I knew only a few. Most of them were ex-cons, as I volunteered at the Re-Enter Center of Brooklyn, a place where parolees could take classes to help them adapt to life on the outside. I taught small business management with a little photography thrown in for fun. And while I was all for forgiveness, chances were quite small that I’d marry a guy with a teardrop tattooed under his eye.

Paige and I would assure each other that being single was great. Our lives were full and fun and we loved our careers. Look at other women! Just because they were in relationships didn’t make their lives meaningful! Paige had two sisters and seven nieces and nephews, and both sisters were wretched and exhausted. One was contemplating a mommy makeover to lift her boobs and shed her fat and get her husband to sleep with her again; the other, Paige was pretty sure, was about to come out of the closet.

My own sister...well, okay, Ainsley was happy, but kind of...how to put this? Naive. Retro in her worship of all things Eric, always putting herself second, despite the fact that she’d had a very impressive job. She took care of Eric in a way he never took care of her; he was the star in the couple, and she had a supporting role. It bugged me.

I was different. Paige, too. We were self-fulfilled. And what about that fabulous trip we’d taken last year to London, huh? We should plan another! Vienna this time? Or Provence?

Then a couple would walk by, a baby strapped to one parent, an adorable toddler wearing an ironic T-shirt holding hands with the other, and we’d falter. “Screw it,” Paige would say. “If only there were mail-order husbands.”

If only I had a gay male friend who’d pony up and coparent with me! Not only would we have a wonderful child, we could write a great screenplay about it. Alas, no—my gay friends, Jake and Josh, already had Jamison, so that was out.

I told myself it was okay. After all, I didn’t need a baby. The world was overpopulated, there were teenagers I could adopt, etc.

But then I’d visit my brother and watch him and Kiara with their kids. The rush of love and gratitude I’d always felt over the years when my niece or nephew would run to see me, or more recently, at least come out of their rooms to see me. Sadie still snuggled, at least. Granted, I wasn’t like my sister, who had to sniff the head of every baby we saw and chat up the mother for details on the birth, but I loved kids.

Brooklyn was full of babies. I wanted someone to cuddle, someone I could carry and stare at during naptimes—not in a creepy way, but in a loving, maternal glow. Someone who would call me Mommy and reach for my hand without thinking, the way Esther still did with Kiara, the way Sadie reached out for my brother. I found myself eyeing pregnant teenagers, wondering what they’d say if I casually asked if they’d consider giving me their unborn child.

It was always there, the primal call to procreate and protect. The maternal instinct is the strongest force in nature, they say. But I wanted the whole package, too. I wanted there to be a daddy. Aside from the maternal thing, there was that secret desire to be...well...adored.

It was not something that was cool to admit. With each passing year, the idea of being smitten with someone, having someone smitten with me, became more and more distant, even a little absurd, as if I still expected Santa to come on Christmas Eve.

Birthdays became a bit of a shock. Thirty-five, thirty-six...they were fine. They were great, even. I knew who I was, my reputation was growing, I was making a nice income, teaching classes, traveling.

But thirty-seven...and then thirty-eight...the very digits had a tint of desperation to them. Late thirties sounded so much older than midthirties. Checking the box “never married” made me feel as isolated as an Ebola patient. I found myself getting more and more obsessed, looking at every passing male as my potential mate—the guy at the dry cleaners, the guy who delivered my pizza, the guy who bumped into me in front of Whole Foods.

And then came thirty-nine, and something great happened.

I just...stopped.

My friends and siblings took me out for a surprise dinner—Paige; Ainsley and Eric; Jake and Josh; my occasional assistant, Max, and his wife; Sean and Kiara. They toasted me and gave me insulting cards. Paige gave me a box of Depends diapers, which was a little mean, I thought. She was only two months younger than I was. Jake and Josh gave me a full cadre of crazy-expensive skin care products specifically designed for aging skin. From Sean and Kiara, a day at a spa for a rejuvenation package. From Ainsley and Eric, same spa, same treatment.

“No embalming fluid?” I asked, getting a laugh.

“This is from the gentleman at the bar,” our server said, setting a fresh martini in front of me. I turned; there was Daniel the Hot Firefighter, who winked at me and resumed fondling the ass of his latest False Alarm. Sure. He’d buy me a drink. He’d never sleep with me. I’d aged out fifteen years ago.

I waved my thanks, looked back at my friends and family, smiled and simply gave up.

No more dating. I took down my online profiles, stopped scanning Prospect Park’s softball teams and forbid myself to watch anything on the Hallmark Channel.

I was surprised by what a relief it was.

Suddenly, I was happier than I’d been in years. I’d lived in the same gorgeous apartment since college, bought with a hefty loan from my parents just before Brooklyn prices boomed. If I ever needed the money, I could sell it for nearly five times what I paid for it. My classes at the Re-Enter Center were always full. I had a small but tight circle of friends and a slightly dysfunctional but pretty good family.

I had a well-established career I loved, clients who were generally overjoyed with my work. There was nothing like showing a couple their wedding photos—proof of their love—or seeing a mom tear up over the photo of her laughing child, that one moment in time that tells her everything she hopes. I loved how my camera could capture a fleeting moment and all the emotions it held, how a good photo could stop time forever.

At night, I’d come home to the third floor of my brownstone, make myself some dinner or eat leftovers, sit on the steps in the nice weather, talking to the neighbors—the Kultarr family who lived on the first floor, Mrs. Wick from down the street and her poodle, Ishmael. In the winter, I’d plunk myself down in my gray velvet chair, open a book and drink a glass of not-bad wine. Movies, the occasional concert, walks in Prospect Park, drinks with friends.

For children, I had my nieces and nephew. Ainsley and Eric had been together for a thousand years, and I imagined they’d have kids pretty soon. I often babysat for Jake and Josh and got my baby fix from the adorable Jamison, who loved me because I never tired of giving him horsey rides, extra dessert, and would read story after story until he was sound asleep.

If this was all there was, it was plenty. Constantly scanning for more—the baby or the guy—had chipped away at my soul. Life was good. Single, Solitary Me was enough. Call me a Buddhist, but it worked.

Shortly after that birthday, I shot a wedding of a woman who reminded me of my earlier self. She was thirty-seven, quick to tell me she and her fiancé had been together for twelve years, lest I think she was alone until now. (I always wondered about those couples, my sister and Eric included. A decade is a long time to wonder if you should marry someone.)

The bride was grim in her victory. Huge fluffy dress, six bridesmaids, four flower girls, high Anglican mass at St. Thomas on Fifth Avenue. Her tiny, elderly parents walked her down the aisle to Wagner’s Bridal Chorus. The sense of I’ve earned this, goddamn it was as thick as fog in London.

As was often the case, I could see through the camera what wasn’t visible to my naked eye; the groom was itchy, his goofy antics masking his resentment. I guessed she’d given him an ultimatum about marriage; I imagined they’d fought bitterly about it until he caved.

The bride’s smile was tight at the corners, her eyes flat, her forehead Botoxed. Even the kiss at the altar had been quick and hard. Some of the guests rolled their eyes, and rather than the lightness that so often radiates from weddings, regardless of the age of the bride and groom, this one was dull and heavy.

Every wedding tradition was honored—the engraved program announcing the readings, the lifting of the veil, Handel’s Trumpet Voluntary blaring at the end. At the reception, which was held at the Peninsula Hotel, the bride and groom were introduced as Mr. and Mrs. Whitfield, the three hundred guests dutifully applauding, the bride snarling at her sister for not securing the train properly. There was the first dance, the father-daughter dance, mother-son dance, the cutting of the cake, the tossing of the bouquet.

As I held up the camera to photograph the bride getting ready to chuck her flowers, I could see through the viewer that, yep, she was rubbing it in, calling some of her reluctant friends by name to get on out there. I am no longer one of you, hags! And the world shall know that you are still single!

Those older (my age) friends muttered resentfully as they stood on the dance floor, third martinis in hand, not even pretending to try when the bouquet was tossed. The bride’s college-age niece caught it, still young enough to think it was fun.

Then the call went out for the single guys to catch the garter—another baffling tradition: Would you like to have my wife’s pointless underwear accessory as a memento? Maybe keep it under your pillow and sniff it from time to time? The men were the usual suspects—the teenage boys, the already drunken groomsmen, an elderly uncle, the guys whose dates were pretending not to watch but were shrewdly assessing how hard the men would try to make the catch.

Someone caught it; I didn’t see who, as he was in the middle of the pack. But then came the obligatory dance for him and the bouquet-catcher, so I dutifully took a few pictures, congratulating them both on their dexterity. The niece was quite beautiful, the guy good-looking without being too handsome, his reddish hair and blue eyes giving him the boy-next-door appeal. My money was on him taking the niece home.

Imagine my shock, then, when the garter-catcher left the niece at the end of the song and came right over to me. Asked about my camera. Listened as I described it, then admitted he took pictures only with his phone. Further admitted he was talking about cameras only to see if I was single and might want to have a drink with him.