How to Tell if a Guy is a Loser Over the Internet and What Kind of Makeup to Wear

By Della, Wicked Witch of the Midwest

a woman somewhere in her fifties who doesn’t know anything about love

I have agreed to let the Google spider troll for the content of this blog and to put advertisements here that are presumed to appeal to anyone who bothers to read these pages. Before proceeding, please read the following disclaimers about this agreement.

Disclaimer 1: If you are not a witch you will not be able to decipher the magic potions which I have liberally sprinkled between the Chapters and along the sides of this column in order to provide full services to all of my clients. These may appear to you as simple advertisements for wrinkle cream, wart removal emollients, or depilatory systems, inserted by the google trawler. And if you click on them it is entirely possible you will be levitated out of here to some other websites which might actually help you in some useful way.

Disclaimer 2: However, do not necessarily assume you are not a witch, in which case you may be clicking at your own risk. If you are not quite certain whether you are a witch or not, and if you do not feel ready for your first introduction to quantum mechanics, the MAP kinase pathway of inflammatory cell signaling or spiritual enlightenment, it might be a good idea to avoid clicking any of those advertisement buttons. Not that it would hurt you.

How can you guess whether you are a witch or not? In general, if you have to ask and if you don’t have a PhD you are pretty safe. However, a lot of us are late bloomers. For example, has anybody ever used the B word on you? Don’t be embarrassed, be proud, it may not be exactly what you think.

For example at work: lets say that you are person of some power at work, anything from CEO down to that secretary who can’t take a day off or the entire organization might collapse. Have you ever wondered why someone suddenly exploded at you out of nowhere and called you a B---- when perhaps all you did was express some mild displeasure at their incompetent performance or scream a few scathing insults right before some critical company-wide deadline?

It is possible that this person was using the B word in vain, feeling a little vulnerable that day. On the other hand perhaps you should be aware that this may actually have been one of our sisters recognizing a soul mate, secretly initiating you into the tribe.

We often use the B word to welcome each other now that we have a privacy policy.

You may ask why we need a privacy policy, since witchcraft is no longer a crime. Ha ha. Neither is a chronic medical illness, but tell that to the insurance coverage police and those picketing Congress to avoid any reforms to the antiquated and discriminatory practices of our national institutions. Of course nobody has actually been burnt at the stake for the last 200 years, not even people with pre-existing diabetes. Yet.

Have you not noticed the turn of the tide? Even while the human race has progressed in its tolerance of all races, all religions, 24 hour news channels at all points along the political spectrum and even dating sites that cater to people over 50, an extraordinary backlash is incubating, and I fear there is a real risk of the pendulum swinging back. Hopefully, there is minimal risk of entering into another time of darkness worse than the one that brought us Salem Massachussetts , Enron and the collapse of the real estate market. But there is an angry mob out there, who know so little history that they imagine a tea party is a patriotic custom restricted for American citizens, (those were British citizens throwing tea into the Boston harbor, hello) yet claiming that our President is not a true citizen, because he, like all participants in the real Boston tea party had foreign ancestry. If even the President gains no immunity in the national press from an ignorant, predjudiced mob, we may all no longer be safe! Even witches. Hence our privacy policy.

But enough politics. I sound like some rabid liberal from MSNBC, and I don’t know about you, but when Keith Olberman comes on I flip the channel.…..uh….that is I flip it after salivating a little, first. Wow. Talk about eye candy for middle aged women! I love the way he throws those balled up wads of paper at me! Do you think he loves me?

HOW TO TELL IF A GUY OVER FIFTY IS A LOSER OVER THE INTERNET AND WHAT MAKEUP TO WEAR

That's the beauty of the Internet. You don't need to wear any makeup. So go wash your face and give your pores a rest for now, because the dating part of this course will be addressed in a later column. And if you are actually are following my advice, don't forget to turn off the webcam.

In order to tell if a guy is a loser, sometimes you need to be a little bit of a detective. All detectives these days start on the Internet. So first:

JUST GOOGLE HIM

Caveat: I am not going to use this particular column to go into advanced internet practice, since the purpose here is to cover basic introductory concepts, enabling you to weed out most of the men you meet before they break your heart. Next week I promise to do a column on HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM A BROKEN HEART BY INTERNET WITH 96% accuracy which will contain explicit directions for obtaining legal records, quantifying the settlement(s) his ex-wife (wives) got, and ruling out the possibility that he has any abandoned children, pregnant teenaged lovers, or abused pets. So even if I can’t help you find a boyfriend it is very likely you will leave this course fully equipped to open a private detective agency. Meanwhile, please stay on task, students.

Here is what you should consider:

1. WHEN YOU CAN’T FIND HIM ANYWHERE ON GOOGLE AFTER TRYING EVERY KEYWORD YOU CAN THINK OF

He is either an illegal alien, using an assumed name (and it would have to be an awfully creative name), or he does not own a computer. Or a telephone. In any of those cases, this one is easy….

THIS IS A LOSER

2. WHEN GOOGLE ONLY BRINGS UP HIS NAME AND ADDRESS

THIS IS NOT NECESSARILY A LOSER

…..unless you are a gold digger, that is, but if so what are you doing reading this column? Go get yourself a bottle of Clairol, squeeze into that gold lame dress (don’t forget plenty of underwiring, you are over fifty) and spend the rest of your rent money on an opera ticket. The man of your dreams is there.

Look for the guy snoring up in the center box, next to the grey haired wife.

And a hex on you!!!! (Ooops we don’t really do that anymore. Usually. So if you find a wart on your nose tomorrow morning please do not necessarily blame me).

Back to the guy with nothing but a name and address on google, understand that must be quite a maverick who can remain, for almost an entire decade, under the radar of the google spider.

OK, maybe he just doesn’t get out much.

So he may not have set the world on fire, but maybe he is a nice guy, and since you have at least found his name and address in the phone book, you know you have his real name and he is very likely NOT to be an illegal alien.

Caveat: not all illegal aliens are losers, especially if they might want to marry you and are willing to repair things around your house while going to night school. Unless they have another family in Mexico.

For example if you google my two ex-boyfriends, Frank and Will, all you will get for either one of them is a name and address. And they were both wonderful boyfriends. Until Frank dumped me three times (although it is not clear whether he knew about it the third time). Will only dumped me once (in between the first and second time that I was deeply in love with Frank) but he did it so badly I could not allow any do-overs in his case. A woman has to have some self respect, even when she doesn’t.

So this may be a situation where you might, thinking it over, not want to take my advice.
After all, if I had ditched all the men with only a name and address on google, I might have avoided all the love and pain that I wasted on Frank and Will. The risk being, of course, that if you eliminate this entire subcategory as being people you do not want to date, there might not be anybody left who wants to date you.

So I am advising you not to eliminate this category. Sue me.

3. WHEN GOOGLE HAS 350 HITS ABOUT HIM AND HIS WIFE…

….. who happens to be a 30 year old gorgeous blonde nurse with size D cups who takes care of AIDS patients and works part time in a soup kitchen. Many of these hits you are now obsessively reading about this fantastic couple which pierce your heart like daggars describe how generous they have been with their very large fortune, donating to the symphony and attending major charity social functions in your town, and, (most importantly for you to consider in case you are still wavering in your decision here), several of these citations are from the past month or two. Ouch.

LOSER

You, I mean. Not him, evidently.

If you are googling this guy because he flirted with you last week when you were buzzing him in for a meeting with your boss, the City Planning Commissioner, this does not necessarily make him a loser, just a victim of pants one size too small. If so, he probably dated me in the past.

But this is not my type, and I hope you don’t think he is your type, because he doesn’t.

4. WHEN GOOGLE ONLY HAS THREE OR FOUR HITS AND WHAT YOU MANAGE TO LEARN IS THAT THE GUY GAVE SOME INTRODUCORY REMARKS TO INTRODUCE HIS BOSS DURING HIS WIDGET COMPANY’S ANNUAL SALES CONVENTION AT THE EMBASSY SUITES IN LITTLE ROCK….

…..and by judicious employment of several other search records you find court records that prove he is definitely divorced, the kids are grown, and his wife is self supporting. Furthermore, you do not find any court records to suggest he was arrested in your town (or in Little Rock) for a three year old speeding ticket, a drunken brawl, or cavorting with a heroine addicted teenager.
NOT A LOSER

Caveat: Complete lack of speeding tickets of any kind is not required here. Not all speeding tickets make somebody a loser. For example all of my speeding tickets have been totally unfair.
So if you do see a few "paid up" tickets on his record, give him a chance to explain HOW IT HAPPENED. Even if indefensible, the story is bound to be amusing. If not, we will discuss at a later time “How to tell the difference between a shy guy and a terminally boring guy, and whether it matters.”

But the important question is whether he pays his speeding tickets. This is crucial. Especially if he has ignored a speeding ticket from Little Rock because he hasn’t been back there in three years and was driving a rental car. This suggests exactly how he might evaluate his relationship with a woman over fifty.

5. WHEN HE SUBSCRIBES TO MATCH.COM

Sorry, ladies, I have done this research the hard way. There is an 80% chance this guy is a

LOSER

On the other hand, if you think about those odds, they may be better than the likelihood of finding a decent man by going on the bar circuit, joining the Friends of the Ballet, or signing up for a graduate course in botany. Maybe even better than taking up golf, especially if your thighs are not your best asset and you can’t hit a ball.

I have done fairly well over the years hanging out at the Bass Pro Shop, but who wants to spend three hours staring at rubber waders and fishing tackle just to get a date with a guy who doesn’t know an overpriced hardware store when he sees one.

So, OK. Maybe you should try MATCH.COM. If you must, here are some proven tips.

MATCH.COM: THE BEST ODDS OF GETTING A DATE IF YOU ARE OVER FIFTY AND THEY ARE NOT GOOD

1. THIS IS NOT FREE

If you plan to do anything more than fantasize your social life, in other words if you actually would like to try to get a date, you need to accept that this process is not free. Of course if you think that you are getting something valuable by looking over the stilted mug shots they let you stalk over without joining, and reading the first half of the profiles of men in your town, OK.

But then again, if all you want to do is look, why waste your time on those tired old mugs? Just grab last week's People Magazine out of your neighbors trash instead, and you can fantasize about Brad Pitt instead! Whatever they are writing about Brad in People is likely to be at least as accurate as the first half of your local guys profiles at Match.com. Come to think of it, I wish he would lose all that face hair he has been wearing to disguise himself from Angelina when he is sneaking out with Jen, but that’s another story….

So either go out and get the free magazine from your neighbor’s trash now…..or pay for a month’s subscription to Match.com, in which case keep reading because there are some very important things you need to know about….

EFFICIENT USE OF MATCH.COM

or….how to weed out 80% of the losers just by reading the profile.

Are you good at algebra? If not, you may have to trust me. If you can get rid of 80% of the losers just by reading the profiles, you will be left with 36% of the original line up of guys you considered as possibilities.

The actual number of profiles left in that lineup will depend on how large the roster was in the beginning, and so it is important how you formulate your roster in the first place, such as whether you want to cut off the age of your date candidates at five years younger than you, ten years younger than you or fifteen years younger than you.

If you use the cutoff of fifteen years younger than you, and you are not planning to pay for sex, you are dreaming. If you use five, that narrows the field dramatically. Maybe fatally. I recommend the ten year cutoff, since if you follow the makeup and hair advice I will give you in my next column, it is quite likely you can attract someone five years younger than you, which is exactly the age of most guys claiming to be ten years younger than you.

If we accomplish nothing else in this course, perhaps I can convince you that it is no good contemplating any kind of dating after fifty unless you brush up on your math. You can try subtle adjustments in your lipstick shade or the thickness of your SPANX, but the bottom line about dating over 50 is that it is a numbers game! The more candidates on your roster, the more likely something is going to click. Sooner or later. Be patient.

So if you are really smart, if you are really ready for dating, you have probably done the most important calculation of all without being told by me. Which is….

Once you have weeded down your candidates to 36% of the original line up (which means deleting the 64% who, in your estimation after a little coaching from me, are the most likely to be losers), you are still going to be left with an adulterated population in which 20% of that 36% (7.2% of the original population) are still losers!

Was that too complicated? All you really have to remember is that 1 out of 5 of the men you contact on Match.com, even after the most careful screening, will be a loser.

And the bad news is that 3 of the four that you have left are probably looking for a thirty year old blonde. Which leaves 20% of the men left after prescreening the profile (or 7.2% of the original roster) who might make an acceptable date for you.

But the really bad news is, that within that last 20% (7.2% of the original population) you have to factor in all the stuff that I can’t help you with such as morbid obesity, political incompatibility, annoying high pitched voice, and bad breath, his or yours. Now do you see what you are up against?

Keep your chin up, girls, you are looking for that gold nugget, the nice guy who is perfect for you, and he is in there somewhere among the small minority of candidates you have left. Oooops I almost forgot one more thing.

I almost forgot the bald faced liars. I mean the guys who may look good at the end of this rigorous process simply because they are really are NOT WHO THEY SAY THEY ARE.

Of course we only mean the truly bald faced liars, we are going to have to be reasonable and give exemptions for the little minor fibs about age, height and weight which, if you can’t accept a 10-20% leeway on those, you would be in danger of eliminating the entire roster of men over fifty.

It takes a little time to weed the bald faced liars out, in fact sometimes it may take two years of dating the guy (for more details see my column from yesterday about Will, the ex-boyfriend who will never get a do-over from me).

But now that I am even older and wiser than I was in my early fifties, I may be in a position to provide some tips about how to detect a bald faced liar before he seduces you. Look for a column entitled “Bald faced liars are even lying when they admit their real age which it isn’t.” I may have that one ready by next week. Or the week after. There is so much ground to cover. Such as:

HOW TO CREATE A ROSTER OF CANDIDATE BOYFRIENDS ON MATCH.COM IN THE FIRST PLACE

The rules are simple: Pick an age range (see recommendations above) and apply NO FILTERS.

Yes, I am telling you to consider all heights, sizes, income brackets, educational levels, ethnicities, political persuasions and religions. Remember you are over fifty and after eliminating 64% of the available population who are likely to be losers, and then rescreening your way down to be left with 7.2% of the original roster this may not leave you anyone to date if you are too picky about the small stuff.

Besides, take a hard look in mirror at yourself, girl. Now unsuck your tummy, take off the mascara, go out in a big wind and look again. You think he is getting such a prize? Just joking, if you have any sense he will NEVER BE ALLOWED to see you that way.

But seriously, these days people from our generation are very accepting of couples where the girl towers over the guy, one or both of you is morbidly obese, or you are of different educational or social background, different ethnicities or religions.

Would you rather be alone? I thought not.

HOW TO ELIMINATE 80% OF THE LOSERS FROM YOUR ROSTER JUST BY READING THE PROFILE

Here is who to eliminate from the candidate pool:

1. Recent widowers:

Trust me if he puts in his profile that he was recently widowed, he isn’t interested in dating. This is the case whether he ever had a wife or not.

Some of these guys really are recent widowers who will never find another woman who measures up until they stop defining themselves by the widower state. However, one “recent widower” with whom I had quite a nice correspondence for a while was actually a would be writer who wanted to experience Match.com to get material for a BLOG.

I thought that was a great idea. Obviously.

He still hasn’t agreed to actually go out with me, though, and I am beginning to suspect that his wife is not dead.

Win some, lose some.

2. Never married:

If you see this in somebody's profile, run like hell. Unless you want another adolescent son.

3. Anyone who refers to recent rejection in his pen name or in the first sentence of his profile

Actually I know a darling man who belongs in this category. I met him on Match.com years ago and remain in sporadic contact to this day, but I was smart enough not to hope to actually ever meet him in person, regardless of what I so dearly wished I was dumb enough to hope for.

If your goal is to find someone to date, lose this profile.

4. Separated

Men who describe themselves as separated on Match.com are usually either the walking wounded who are not ready to date or else pathological liars (aka his wife does not know they are separated. Because they aren't.) You are probably better off eliminating all of these profiles, but, if you have a very strong ego, you might find someone nice in this category, somebody, say, who had a tepid marriage anyway and was actually relieved when his wife got a job in another city and moved away. Sort of like my husband. (I don’t have time to explain that now, don't worry about it).

Anyway, finding this mentally healthy and non liar version of the separated man (or woman, in other words me,) entails a whole lot of weeding through a long line of losers, and sometimes it even takes a few dates before you can separate a keeper from a loser. This is because there is no one nicer and more gentlemanly than a cheat. I will address this in the future in a column entitled “If he brings you flowers on the first date he is a married cheater.”

And I will also point out that it is unlikely his wife has gotten any flowers in the past twenty years. I am just saying…..

5. Men who do not drink.

I once got all the way through the weeding out process against my better judgment (because of a really cute picture) and actually set up a first date with a man who put it out prominently in his profile that he does not drink. He wanted to meet me in a local bar, and I agreed, forgetting what he had said in his profile. I can be excused for this because I was juggling emails from five potential suitors at the same time. But if you are impressed by that, none of them worked out. OK?

So we got to this bar, and he was really cute, just like his picture, and he asked me what I might want and I said a beer. And then he ordered coffee.

And so I wondered, what were we doing there? Starbucks was right next door.

But the real giveaway was that there was alcohol on his breath and he had just been fired by his boss, who was, he carefully explained in an over articulated manner, a paranoid asshole. And a few more introductory remarks just as appealing. For example, he had decided that afternoon not to look for another job because he was planning to start his own day-trader business on the internet, and his friend who was doing that kind of thing part time, was making 6 big ones a year.
Men who say they do not drink on Match.com are virtually always alcoholics. Exemptions for Baptist Ministers, of course, so just check the occupation section before deleting the guy.

Caveat: It should be pointed out that not all alcoholics are losers, but if they want to put a profile on Match.com they should identify themselves as truck drivers, bank managers, or a guy who loves to play the guitar, not as a person who does not drink. Most women over fifty who are serious about finding a nice guy could not care less whether you actually drink or not, and at our age we can get plenty of buzz from sharing a coffee with you. But unfortunately, since the vast majority of men on Match.com who “do not drink” are men who drink too much, those people with a medical problem in reasonable control need to find a way to separate themselves out or, regrettably I cannot advise any smart woman to keep them in the roster.

6. What about gay men?

Match.com is not a “friend service.” And it is anonymous. There is no incentive for anyone to pretend this is anything but a middle aged hookup. So rest assured, you are unlikely to meet a gay man there if you are “a woman looking for a man,” whether he is in or out of the closet in real life.

The exception, in theory, might be some confused gay guy who is not sure who he is. But at our age how likely is that?

Unless there is a computer glitch or something. Still, if you happen to get an accidental date with a gay man who thought he was meeting Joe, not Jo, relax, order some dinner, and enjoy yourself. He will.

7. Incurable Romantics

There are quite a few incurable romantics on Match.com, so many in fact that they have to put long series of numbers after their title in order to get a unique profile. Perhaps this approach might temp a few extremely lonely women who recently overdosed on bodice ripping airplane novels, but even so, if you are over fifty you must know better. Here is a classic example:

“Watch out, ladies, I am in incurable romantic. I will wine you. I will dine you. I will kiss you goodbye every time I leave the room. I will be loyal to you forever. I will take care of you always. Do you hate receiving jewelry on your birthday, at Christmas, and on each monthly anniversary of our first date? Then don’t contact me!”

Trust me, don’t. This guy obviously hasn’t gotten any in twenty years and there is probably a good reason for that.

7. Men who can’t spell.

You are discouraged from using educational level as a filter, there are some wonderful diamonds in the rough out there who will go to museums and concerts, read books, and make intelligent conversation just as well as any Harvard graduate. And they often have a motorcycle, if you like that. I do.

But do yourself a favor and do not go to 1st base with a guy who is so mentally sloppy that he never learned to spell. The chances that he is inarticulate, insensitive, clueless, and wearing dirty underwear are high. We are not worrying about the occasional typo, but beware of men who write that they are censure, or that they love to tock, hold you closed, treat you like a laddie, or travail to Parass. You think I made any of that up? Read a few of the profiles at Match.com.

Caveat: There are probably some nice guys with good jobs who might be great dates and really have some kind of disability with spelling. All I can say is that if they really want to make the kind of effort required to treat you like a lady, they should get some help from a friend in preparing their profile online.

HOMEWORK:

The homework is optional in this course. But if you follow the guidelines I have outlined above and you create your roster of potential dates and then eliminate at least most of those who fit the criteria above (even if you cheat a little for the guys with the cutest photographs) you will see that you are down to at least 64% of the original roster with a standard deviation of less than 10%. Try it and you will see. Or don't try it. It never got me the love of my life.

Tomorrow we can discuss HOW TO ELIMINATE THE CANDIDATES WHO ARE GOING TO ELIMINATE YOU. Now here is an area where I am a worldclass scholar. You might want to pay some attention to that one.

Have a good night.

Della

Wicked Witch of the Midwest

2. Take Charge When Your Man Dumps You

by Della, a woman in her late fifties who knows nothing about love

As explained in Chapter One (yesterday) the purpose of this column is to advise you about love with examples from my own imagination….er….life. And given that I am currently in my late fifties and living with two cats, it is recommended that you consider doing the the opposite of everything I say.

However, I will try to flag certain elements of my advice which I think you could follow as opposed to those which it might not be wise to follow. Of course, it may occur to you that it would be best to follow the advice that I tell you not to listen to, and run screaming away from anything I tell you to believe, which may interject an unweildy level of complexity into our work together. On the other hand, it is possible that I am not always wrong about love since, according to my best friend Diva, it is better to live with cats than to keep dating losers.

Tomorrow I will address the subject of how to tell if a guy is loser and under what conditions it might be OK to fall in love with him anyway.

However, today we must begin with STEP ONE in the art of love. And that would be: THE BREAKUP.

After all, why get yourself entangled in something you don’t know how to get out of gracefully? Pay attention, students!

Part One: The best way to dump someone who loves you.

This part will be short. I don’t know anything about it. I am not sure I ever tried it.

Part Two: The Art of being dumped.

This is actually my main area of expertise and I have been very successful here. I think you might consider emulating me in this situation, as long as you have no hope of ever getting the guy back. Which is usually the case.

Really, I have impeccable credentials for this discussion. The first time I was personally dumped was almost 50 years ago, although I suspect there were several impersonal dumps even prior to that. Moreover, I have been, for several years, planning how it might be possible to spend the next decade of my life completing a five volume academic text book with 30 pages of references and more than 3,000 footnotes entitled: Sociology of the Dumped in the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s and in the first decade of the 21st Century.

But for you, today, I provide the Cliff Notes.

Object Lesson: Your overriding goal while being dumped should be to trick the SOB who is dumping you into saying your lines while you say his lines. In this way, even though he is dumping you, you get all the good lines.

To illustrate this concept, let us go back to happier times. Five years ago I was steadily seeing a farmer named Will. Although he was dirt poor, he had a graduate degree from Oklahoma State University, had once worked in Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty, and was a consummate intellectual, with a membership to Art museums and a library card that he used regularly to read 20 pound books on history, psychology, and environmental husbandry that were too technical even for moi. In addition, he had longterm financial resources, since he owned 1600 acres of land near Altus, Oklahoma. Of course in 2004 all that land was worth nothing, but I had counseled him to hang on to it until the world gets more crowded. Although this may not happen in Altus, Oklahoma for some time, his real mission, the way we both saw it, was to leave the fortune he never had to his great grandchildren.

His wife had dumped him a decade earlier, to run off with a guy who had a working credit card. There were three grown daughters who had all graduated from the best state schools in the nation and a son at West Point. He only, therefore, had to support himself by renting out his magnificent fields to factory farms, and running a few angus every other year or so, his needs were simple. There were always a couple of leftover cows and a couple of horses at his rundown ancestral farm home, and some canvasses and oils for his painting. He was a very talented painter, something only women appreciate. Which, needless to say, I am.

He was also very macho, for a guy in his sixties. Women (including me) sometimes like that a whole lot too. He would go out in the middle of the night in February in subzero temperatures to rescue the early calves being born to his heifers, and he would disappear for a few weeks in late summer every year to bring in a little hay for silage (I was never sure exactly what "bringing in hay for silage" entailed, but it seemed very macho from the way he preened himself when dropping references to it) and, what I found most impressive, he mended his own fences. I discovered this when the gate to my backyard swimming pool broke off in a big wind and he showed up with all his fence mending equipment to set things straight in about ten minutes.

Every Saturday night he drove his rattle-trap pickup several hours along the back roads to the superhighway in order to arrive exactly on time at my comfortable, middle class digs in Oklahoma City, and I suspected that this represented a haven of comfort for him. There was a computer that could reliably access the internet, there was fresh ground coffee, and, of course, there was me.

I suspected that I was the perfect woman for him, being financially and emotionally independent, and just enough of a wicked witch to keep him on his toes. I was able to provide him with a free date almost every week, including plenty of gruyere and crackers, a couple bottles of wine, and a trip upstairs to the front bedroom that had a huge king bed suitable for expressing our trust and affection for each other while facing in any direction we wanted. During the week, he called me almost every night so that our relationship became more and more intimate and more and more secure. We never fought about anything. And I was sympathetic with his baggage.

His main baggage was about his ex-wife. It had been her idea for him to move in the early 80’s from his good job at the university to the farm his parents had left him. Having four kids, one after the other had also been her idea. Dutiful wifelihood, slaving cheerfully from dawn to dusk in a rundown house had also been her idea, but apparently they had joked frequently about her eventual surprise and wonder when they finally made their fortune on that land, built a fine manor home, and began a modern farming dynasty. So obviously that was her real idea. But something happened to the price of hay or soybeans or something, so that never happened.
She never complained. She continued to be dutiful, sweet, and loving. Until one morning he came down to breakfast and found a plate of cold eggs congealing on the kitchen table. She had taken all four kids and most of the egg money and moved back to Norman in the middle of the night to the arms of that man with the working credit card. What Will could not get over or forgive was that she had never given him any warning that anything was wrong in their marriage before she left. In his opinion, “this was the most selfish and cruel possible way that you could dump someone.”

“But,” I would try to reason with him. “What would you have done if she had given you a warning?”

“I would have asked her how I could change!” he would cry. “I would have moved back to the city with her and gotten a better paying job if that’s what she wanted! I would even have gone to marriage counseling! I would have done anything to keep her!”

“And that,” I would try to explain, “is exactly why, when she was finally ready to leave, she did not give you any warning.”

He never seemed to understand what I was trying to explain. That was how hurt he still was all these years later. We raked over this old ground frequently, he seemed to need to do that, and I made sure that he knew I would never dump him without warning, he was safe with me.

But I would never allow him to wallow in that emotional quicksand for long, men don’t stick around very long if you act like their mother or their psychiatrist, so I would steer our conversation to more pleasant things each Saturday night. He was so very smart and funny, that it was both a lively entertainment and an intellectual outing for both of us to talk about any topic, his farm, my work at the clinic, interesting people, new books, local news, national news or anything. And, while we were talking and impressing each other and amusing each other over our second glass of wine, our romantic slow dance would get started.

First I would catch him eying me a little sideways, so I would make some flirtatious double entendre, he might inject a dirty quotation from some obscure Irish poem with barely a break in the intelligent repartee, and then he would lift my foot up into his lap and stroke it absent-mindedly on the inside of my ankle, which I loved.

And we would continue to sit that way for another hour or so, discussing politics, fine art and literature with literally one foot in and one foot out of erotic desire. We never discussed commitment or marriage but that would have seemed superfluous. We were that close and that secure. Somewhere in the night, hardly knowing when the transition was made, we would find ourselves tearing each others clothes off with happy abandon on the way up the stairs.

Sometimes he stayed all night. Sometimes he drove back to Altus just before dawn.
This went on for two years, and I was sure that he knew for a certainty that he had a great hearted woman who loved him and respected him without reservations or qualifiers, and who would never dump him without warning.

One summer evening, he arrived at my house fifteen minutes late. “Sorry,” he said, giving me a quick, perfunctory hug, seeming a little upset, “my truck was giving me some trouble and I had to stop and pour some water into the engine.

“That’s OK,” I said, “shall we take our wine and cheese out by the pool? It’s a beautiful night.”

“No!” he yelped.

“Why not?” I asked.

“Oh never mind, OK.” He said. And gave me his adorable grin.

My pool has a waterfall, and on a cool summer night with a touch of an Oklahoma breeze it is the most charming spot on earth. He helped me carry the wine and the snacks out to the table by the deep end, and he opened the umbrella because he knew I like the way the wind ruffles the edges of it.

He immediately put my foot in his lap, took off my shoe, and began rubbing my toes. It felt familiar and good. One of the cats jumped in my lap and started to purr. I took a sip of wine, enjoying the sound of falling water and the play of the ripples coming out of the pool return, they were sparkling like fireworks in the spotlight from the pergola. I could feel the stress of the week at work melting away and I wiggled my foot happily in his warm hand.

“By the way,” he said. “There is something that I need to talk to you about.”

“Sure” I smiled. “Talk.”

He looked uncomfortable. “Uh.” He said.

“Uh yourself.” I quipped.

“Uh….do you remember how you told me that you had lunch with your ex-boyfriend sometimes?”

“Sure.” I said, thinking maybe he was jealous or something.

But how could he be jealous? To me it was obvious how much I adored him and only him. Would that not be equally obvious to him? He was looking down at his hands while stroking my foot. His touch was very soft, I could feel the love and reassurance flowing from his fingers. I thought about what a sweet man he was. We were silent together, and I was comfortable with that.

“Remember how you said that you don’t see the point to being angry with someone just because it didn’t work out and there must be some reason why you got together in the first place, and there is no reason to negate that?”

“Absolutely,” I said, starting to feel a little queasy. "Of course."

He looked up at me. His eyes were full of portents. Suddenly my psychological sirens were going off. “Is there some reason why I should start to get upset now?” I asked him.

“Oh no, not at all.” He said, softly massaging my toes, giving me his most reassuring (and lovable) smile.

“Then what’s going on?”

“Well, nothing much,” he said, “but one of my former girlfriends contacted me and asked me to meet her, and we are getting back together, but I hope you will still be willing to have lunch with me sometimes.”

I could still see the waterfall, but my cat had disappeared. Cats don't like it when witches are upset. That sonofabitch was tickling the ball of my foot and my stomach lurched in revulsion. I fought to remain calm.

“Can I please have my foot back now?” I asked quietly. He let go of it. I felt the absence of his touch as a deep sadness.

Straightening myself in my chair, I almost knocked over my wine, but I caught it in time, without any kind of flailing motion or anything that might have caused some kind of hex or curse, since we don't do that anymore. Usually.

Of course I knew what I should do next. I had been rehearsing this moment for years, how I could handle myself while being dumped when I grew up, and I knew I was at the zenith of my maturity, able to capitalize, finally, on the hard lessons of awkward breakup after awkward breakup, where you think back and wish....."if only I had said..."

“OK, well I guess you had better go now,” I said.

I got up from my chair and started to pile up our little cheese plates. My little cheese plates, that is.

“Can’t we talk about this?” he asked.

Ha. All my life I wanted to see if I could get a guy to switch lines while he was dumping me, and it was possible it was about to happen now. I felt all the stars in alignment, unerring knowledge that it was time to pounce on his manliness and tear it to shreds. Only I didn't really want to bother.

I suppose during all those years when I would be planning my lines for the dump switch "who's on top" conversation, I was already in the 6th stage of grief. It was not as exciting to conceive of this maneuver in the throes of the initial shock phase, not so much fun to playgames while actually being dumped.

I really did not feel like manipulating him into saying my lines anyway. I really did not feel like having any breakup scene at all. I just wanted him to leave so I could cry. Witches do not cry in public.

"Sit down, let's talk about this, OK?" He patted my chair, full of self assurance. Cocky.

“What is there to talk about?” I snapped. “You are dumping me, I get it, so you can go home now.”

“Well if you could just calm down for a minute….”

“Excuse me” I said graciously, ending all further intercourse with him forever. I took the plates into the house and threw them in the sink.

Fortunately he did not follow me and could not observe the part where I accidently knocked my best wedge of cheese into the garbage disposal. Or the next part where I burst into wracking, belly busting sobs.

After blubbering for fifteen minutes in my kitchen, and feeding the cats, I figured he was probably gone, and decided to go back out and get the rest of the stuff. I told myself that I didn't want to wait any longer because I was very tired and I wanted to go to bed and cry myself to sleep. But maybe I was hoping he would give me the courtesy of waiting out there for fifteen minutes after such callous behavior. Fortunately I had the presence of mind to wash my face before going back in the yard, because, as I had not wanted to be hoping, he was still there.

“Please, Della. Can't we just talk for a little while?” he said.

I sighed dramatically. “I really don’t see the point. It wont accomplish anything.”

I hung back from the table where my stuff was, and where he was, not wanting to get close enough for him to see I had cried all my mascara off. This was not a propitious time, in my opinion, for his first view of my eyes without makeup. Or for this last view of my eyes being without makeup.

“But I want to explain.” he said

“There is nothing you need to explain.” I said.

“But there is, there is,” he insisted, looking very unhappy. “You see….I just…." he was groping for words, beginning to understand that he was not in control of the situation, and guess what the poor dumb jerk managed to come up with....are you ready for this?

Are you sure you are ready for this?

"I cannot love anyone as much as I am able,” he said.

“That’s stupid.” I explained. “And it doesn’t mean anything. But thanks for trying. Why don’t you go now?”

“Please, let me….”

The light on the pergola went out. I am supposed to be a witch, but I was not sure if I did that or not. It was almost uniformly dark out there, except for some heavier shadows moving across the yard, cast by the sadly swaying branches in the trees. I could hear the waterfall but I could no longer see it. I went over to the table and starting picking up the rest of my things. I was confident, because in the dark is where my beauty is at its height.

If you don't believe me, get to be my age.

He was still there, but his image was darkening into the background. I hoped that I was making him disappear.

“Please, its not exactly what you think,” he tried again.

“Here is what I think,” I said. “You are dumping me. You are taking up with another woman. If there is nothing incorrect in that description of events, then it seems unlikely to me that there is anything you can say to make it any less painful or any less incomprehensible to me.”

“Its just that I can’t….just walk away….and leave you….like this. It seems so unfeeling.”

“Ahhh,” I said, “you mean the way your wife, that heartless creature, left you without any warning, giving you no way to see it coming and try to avert it. You mean like that?“

I could feel him wince.

“Fortunately for you,” I continued, “ I am the dumpee this time. You are the dumper this time. And since you believe so profoundly that the dumpee should have some choice, I am choosing the option where you don’t waste my time.”

He got up from his chair and stood there uncertainly. And here is where it got really good. A classic.

“Can I call you tomorrow?” he bleated. (The dumper).

“No, I don’t think that would be a great idea, not right away.” I said. (The dumpee).

“When can I call you?” the dumper pleaded.

“Gosh,” mused the dumpee, “I’m not sure. But right now, its probably better if we don’t contact each other for a little while so we can both get on with our lives.”

“But you will have lunch with me later? When can I call you?” The dumper begged.

“Well now,” the dumpee tried to reason with him. “I don’t think its a great idea to be making a lunch date right now. It will be very important for me, in particular, to try to move on now.”

“But you will call me?”

“Oh, sure,” I said. “Sooner or later. Sure. "

"Really?"

"Sure. Maybe."

“Could you email me tomorrow just to tell me you’re OK?”

“No, that’s not the best idea. I imagine we both are hoping that I will try to get on with my life now. Imagine how unpleasent it would be for both of us if I can't manage to move on.”

“Can I email you?”

“Please don’t. " I said. "We don't want me to be watching for emails instead of getting on with my own life."

Then the dumpee piled up the rest of her things, whistled to the cat and went back in her house.

“I do hope you will call me soon!” he called after me as the door was shutting on him.

Ha, ha. I never did.

NOTES TO READER:

1. If you read yesterdays blog, entitled “Happy Thanksgiving Act” you may have noticed that there was a different ex boyfriend who had been allowed to dump me twice. Or actually, from my point of view, I let him dump me three times, even though it remained unclear whether he knew about the third time. This may make you wonder whether my behavior has been entirely consistent. But it is important to appreciate the great difference in the way these two men operated, and to allow for the fact that we are all creatures who respond, at least to some extent, to external conditioning. In the case of Frank, who has been allowed to dump me two (or three) times, that is just a typical commitment phobe who likes to move on without any breakup scene at all, which, painful as getting dumped might be internally, allows the dumpee to save face and pretend to the world that no dump occurred. Anyone who manages not to embarrass me while dumping me gets my vote. Will, on the other hand, humiliated me because a.) I thought he loved me. And b.) he knew it.

2. Here is my advice: In any situation with the potential to become humiliating, try to switch the script so that you are saying the other person’s line and inducing them to say yours.
3. Now that you know how to get dumped, (or fired, or rejected by anyone in any situation) it is possible that you are ready to hear TOMORROWS ADVICE ABOUT LOVE. The subject will be “how to tell if a guy is loser and under what conditions it might be OK to fall in love with him anyway.”

Della

Wicked Witch of the MidWest

1. Happy Thanksgiving Act

by Della: a woman way over fifty who knows nothing about love

Frank’s two sons were not available this year, so he called earlier this week and invited me at the last minute to have Thanksgiving with him. I looked forward to it for several days. I have always found it therapeutic to spend time with him. He and I retain a little frisson of attraction, even though I have had no interest in starting up any romance with him again (how many times can an old girl allow an old guy to dump her?).

I told him last summer that we were never going in that direction again, but lately he had been calling me pretty frequently, and I was proud of myself because I was not spelling out my schedule each time he phoned, and he kept calling me right before I would be flying out of town, unable to see him. I was not playing a game. I was unavailable. Of course, if it were a game, it would have served to make him more interested. Which it did.

Being unavailable repeatedly in a heavy travel month without playing any games gave me a fine feeling of empowerment. I was looking forward to a little tete a tete over Thanksgiving dinner and a little sit down together on his couch with the occasional light touch on the hand while sipping our favorite wine and slowly developing the familiar and very much missed little glow between us….but nothing more than that. Certainly not. Dump me twice, shame on me. Which he did already.

On Thanksgiving day, when I showed up at his house carrying two bottles of our favorite wine, there was a hearty smell of turkey and stuffing and pumpkin pie, the warm crackle of a fire in the grate, and a new girlfriend in Frank’s kitchen, acting like she owned the place, reaching confidently for his silverware, his serving dishes, his napkins, without having to ask where anything was. She seemed to be calling him “hon.”

She extended her hand, and said she had been wanting to meet me for some time. Without a hitch, I pretended to know that she existed prior to entering the house, and took up the part of casual friend to Frank, which is of course what I have been telling him we are, so it may not be his fault if he is too stupid to know I was not telling the entire truth. Soon, I was fully immersed in my part of this complex drawing room drama which I was unsure was apparent to anyone but me. I gratefully accepted a glass of wine to help my act along, and gradually developed some confidence as my role took on life and…..I was doing fine, being very nice.

But as a few minutes passed, drinking deeply of our before-dinner wine, I realized that Frank’s new girlfriend is boring. As in unable to come up with even one clever, funny, or offbeat comment. I think most women say amusing things to each other if they are comfortable and inclined to like each other. I was doing it (faking it or not) and she wasn’t responding in kind. She was the one who had the guy, so why was I doing all the work? I figured that either she did not like me, was really boring, or….to give the benefit of the doubt…. maybe just a little insecure. I was not sure which.

I hoped for Frank’s sake (I still love him, you know) that she is a kind, generous person, happy to entertain a woman of uncertain provenance in her boyfriend’s house, and maybe just a touch insecure, but wishing us all well just as much as I wished that I did.

And who wouldn’t be intimidated by me? I can imagine that my act of “entertaining good company” could put anyone off their mettle, especially when I am hurting and miserable. Also, by this time I was half drunk. Wicked witches are fully capable of talking drug companies into funding half a million dollars for their research program while drinking, but there is no magic capable of masking sadness without full sobriety, at least not without breaking a sweat. And so who could blame me if I was brilliant and witty and a little overwhelming to someone not in my verbal league? This kind of situation was not ripe for social subtlety, which might have been mistaken for what was actually the truth. I wanted to cry.

Or maybe Frank’s new girlfriend was intimidated because she is an unemployed nurse and I am a successful doctor, which must have started to became apparent when Frank hauled out a newspaper clipping he had been saving for my mom, which was on the front page of our city paper and all about moi. However I was very careful not to mention the 467 google hits on me that had come out on the same day as that report (but who was counting?). And when Frank brought up that I had just returned from Milan via London and the new girlfriend thought I had gone to Europe ”on vacation” I did not correct that either. I had no need to impress some unemployed nurse who is sleeping with Frank and taking over his kitchen about my international reputation as a leader in my field nor the worldwide lecture circuit that I traverse, sometimes in Business Class.

No need at all. Being hurt does not require the extraction of revenge. Not even the most gratifying sort of mean, immature, competitive revenge.

In fact, to give me credit, I try to be loyal to my own sex in these situations, even when I am the loser. I knew from the first second I stepped into Frank’s kitchen that this particular woman was innocent of wrong-doing no matter how I might feel. I am sure that her only crime was to put an ad on the internet in good faith and meet Frank in totally above-board fashion at some bar wearing something provocative. I am sure that in venturing out on their first blind date, she never imagined for one moment that she might be breaking the heart of some stupid, idiot woman that he already dumped twice before and who had been playing it cool the third time because she doesn’t know how to get a guy or even how to keep a guy happy if she accidentally stumbles over a willing one.

So I did my best not to look at Frank too much, and not to avoid looking at him too much, pretending I was just eating dinner with this nice but boring unemployed nurse, working desperately not to dislike her too much despite a few slippery thoughts that would pop up against my better judgement. But I could not stop myself from wondering what she could possibly have going on that was better than me. I guess there is nothing so lonely as sitting in a room with two nice people eating Thanksgiving dinner when one of them broke your heart twice already, and seems to be doing it again without even the benefit of sex first. The mashed potatoes were very good, though.

At one point the subject of breast cancer came up. The new girlfriend said proudly that if she got breast cancer she would have bilateral mastectomies. I told her that I already did that, which shut her up. Later I noticed her trying not to look at my chest too obviously. It has occurred to me in the past that maybe that’s the reason guys inevitably dump me after a while. So I took a peek at the new girlfriends’ set, and they were pretty substantial once you tracked them down to where they ended, so I suppose “lack of equipment” might be the cause of not “stacking up” to her. Still, it was not as if Frank never seemed to enjoy himself when he was with me, so we must doubt that was at the heart of my problem with men.

I had to conclude that other than having an endowment or two, this new girlfriend was no more than a very sweet, boring, dyed blonde (as opposed to us more genuine women who die our hair its own natural color, or at least what it used to be). So maybe that’s what old geezers like Frank really want. There was no reason for me to resent her. No justifiable reason, anyway.
So when she brought up that she was unemployed, I politely said “I am sure that is by choice in a city with a nursing shortage.”

She said that she had to quit her job because she could not get along with the stupid people at her work. Ha, this could be a measure of my vocational success. I have never gotten along with the stupid people at my work either, but it isn’t ME who leaves!!!!!

Frank carved the turkey (mostly into little shreds) and we all had another glass of wine and I started trying not to be the life of the party any more, a.) because I was suddenly feeling very tired and b.) being the dominatrix in the room was bound to antagonize them sooner or later, so I tried to get my act down to their less animated level. I complimented Frank on his cute cat, lovely fire in the hearth, new LCD TV, and the new hardware he changed out on his kitchen cabinets.

When I started to get boring, Frank must have felt he had better pick up the slack. So he told a story that I (and likely she) have heard a hundred times about how he once passed Robert F. Kennedy on a bus. Then the girlfriend told a story about how she was a young nurse she decided to be late to work one morning because she heard that President Kennedy was going to make a speech in our city. She went downtown to see him. Later that day, she was at work, and she heard on the radio that he had gone from here straight to Dallas and was shot dead. I politely said “Wow” and took another sip of wine.

Frank looked a little surprised. “Gosh” he said “You were at work that day? I was in high school.”

“I was in eighth grade,” I chimed in helpfully. The girlfriend changed the subject.

After dinner we sat in front of the fire for twenty minutes, and then I felt it OK to excuse myself. They demurred, I demurred, they demurred, and then I got the hell out of there.

Halfway out the door, eyes burning, throat constricting, I realized that Frank was right behind me intending to follow me to my car. He said something idiotic like “Is that a new car?”
“Yes,” I said, “I got it in 2004.” He laughed. But I was done with laughing.

I was parked very close to his pickup truck. I opened the front door trying not to bang his truck, even though I wanted to, and putting the door safely between me and him. He pushed the door back towards me and came around it. Then he tried to hug me. Sort of, because I was bending to get into the car. He was leaning down to give me a kiss. He is one sweet kisser.

I knew that he was a little worried about how I was doing, and although he probably thought it was dear of him to want me to see how much he cared, it would have been showing more empathy to let me get out of there. I grinned gamely and with finality and said “Thanks so much and tell Linda thanks and have a great weekend!”

With all that maneuvering trying to avoid him while getting the kiss anyway, I had bumped my head badly getting in the car and my ears were ringing. Frank was already hurrying back into his house, knowing he had been out there too long with me and must immediately cover up what did not happen. I backed down the driveway being careful not to crash into his neighbor’s car through my tears. Did not look back. Got safely to highway. Drove all the way home, swerving from lane to lane and bawling like a baby. Twice I let myself howl like a mortally wounded old witch. No, I do not want Frank. Wicked witches do not pine after what is lost, we eat rejection for lunch.

I was just feeling lonely, it was as simple as that.

Still I have decided to do something about my failure to live life the right way, and my disgraceful inability to get a boyfriend. I will start a blog and give romantic advice!

All the reader will have to do is the exact opposite of whatever I say, and then maybe they will be on the right track.

Maybe I can try that, too.

Della

Wicked Witch of the MidWest