My Meet Story, as promised

I am calling this a "temporary blog" because I'm not sure I want to committ, lol. Not that I have committment issues--I just have blogging issues. But I promised to tell my Meet story, so here it is and now Bob can check me off.

I apologize if the font looks funny and template stuff is all rough around the edges. I have no idea what I am doing. I actually found one or two photos I wouldn't mind posting but I have no idea how to do that either! So I'll just start my story...


Part 1. A Little Back-story, and the First Meet.

This story will begin in the 80s. Well, maybe the late 70s/early 80s. There is no Internet, no cell phones. Practically no one owns a computer and the words ‘going commando’ have not yet entered the language. We still go commando now and then, we pioneers of pantilessness, but we don’t have a cool word for it! Sex is pretty much assumed part of any relationship. AIDS is (at least according to popular misconception) a disease of gay men and we never worry about it. Mr. Goodbar is a Hollywood fiction. All a girl really needs for protection are her diaphragm and her wits.

In the late 70s and early 80s I am a young woman living on my own with a small child. I have a good job at the University of Minnesota. I am divorced from the absent-minded, very sexist professor I accidentally married when I was a teen. I own my own house in a nice suburb. I have a smart, well socialized child, and no debts beyond my mortgage. I am fiercely independent. I’ve tried marriage and it sucks. I am not looking for a husband but I do want a man in my life

On Friday nights I usually go clubbing with my best friend Janet. We have three or four favorite nightclubs down on the 494 strip in Bloomington, practically in the shadow of the old Vikings stadium. Nothing is more fun than dressing to the nines (or maybe the elevens!) and hitting some nightclubs with Janet.

Janet is one of the beautiful people of this world. Startlingly, aching beautiful. Kind of like Kiera Knightly, only prettier. I am pretty enough to look good with Janet, lol. Both of us are 5’10”, only interested in tall guys and so we wear high heels without hesitation. Depending on the height of our heels we are 6 ft. to 6 ft. 2”! I wish I had a photo of the two of us from those days, but there are none. Much of the time we don’t have to pay a cover charge for the club, the doorman guy just waves us in. Okay, mostly he waves Janet in—but I get to tag along!

It’s starting to sound like I hooked up with someone every Friday (and I guess that would make a more exciting story) but mostly Friday Night is about dressing hot, feeling hot, and having drinks with Janet. And dancing, of course. Damn, disco dancing is fun! Rarely, someone we consider date-worthy will appear. Mostly we drink and talk and dance. Guys almost always ask Janet to dance first, then ask me. Somehow this never bothers me. If I were a guy I would ask Janet first too, lol. She is ungodly gorgeous.

I also belong to three Singles Clubs and do a lot of activities – biking, canoeing, hiking, skiing, dancing – with them. By 1980 I may have met every single guy in Minnesota! Or so it seems at the time. I’ve dated maybe a dozen guys and been disappointed maybe a dozen times. I have dumped a few guys and been dumped once myself. I am still looking for The One. And I can’t find him!

In desperation, I turn to the newest, trendiest way to meet people. I take out a Personal Ad. This sounds so tame now, but in 1980 it is an extremely radical and crazy thing to do. So radical and crazy that I tell no one but Janet. But the guys I am looking for evidently do not hang out in discos, and the single clubs are mostly meat markets of the worse type. This is my ad, in the Twin Cities Reader (don’t laugh):

SWF 29 5’10” 140 lbs, waist length wavy brown hair. Seeks SM 6’+, 25-40. Likes biking, canoeing, hiking, reading & dancing. Reply to Box # 1234.

Man, I sweat blood over the wording of that ad! And I am so worried that somebody (like maybe my mother) will find out that I am advertising myself to men in the newspaper! Taking out a personal ad seems like part act of desperation, part Brave New World.

Most ads are far racier than mine. I know this. But I am not looking for just a sex partner. I am looking for a full and complex real person. I get 17 letters to box #1234. Some guys send me interesting photos of themselves. Head shots. Full body shots. One guy sends a photocopied generic reply. I figure he must respond to every ad every week! I get a letter from a guy who says he is only 5’6” but he loves tall women – just loves them. As if I care! Can you see the trend here? Most letters go straight into the trash. I pick out five that seem to have possibilities and start calling the phone numbers they have sent. I arrange to meet my first chosen ones at the Ground Round, a hamburger/sports bar fairly near my house.

Guy #1 creeps me out big time. I am boobs on a bar stool to him. If the bartender had lopped my head off with a machete this guy would have barely noticed. He was too busy looking at my nipples and crotch. I give him a fake phone number and drive 10 circuitous extra miles on my way home, being very sure that no one is following me. Not a good beginning for my Personals quest.

Guy #2 is late. I am ever so punctual and arrive right on time wearing whatever it is I said I would be wearing, and wait at the bar. After about 8-10 minutes this guy gets up from a table of four guys and comes over. He’s my guy. I am moderately annoyed. Not because he decided to check me out first, but because he brought three (three!) buddies along to help him check. It just seems a bit excessive. I wish that I could know what all they said during those 8-10 minutes that I was under the microscope! Still, he is a very good looking blue-eyed blonde and just over 6 feet. We chat for a while and he seems pretty nice. He invites me to go target shooting. I explain I don’t like guns and don’t want to do that but I am open to just about anything else. He talks about how fun target shooting is and invites me to go target shooting. I tell him again I don’t like guns. He says he would like to go out, maybe we can do something else. I give him my real phone number. He calls the next night and invites me to go target shooting. GAH! Strike out guy #2.

Guy #3 takes over the conversation and interviews ME, but nicely. He laughs when I point this out and apologizes. He seems nice, says he is still married but in the process of getting a divorce. I understand, since the paperwork to get a divorce finalized takes about a year in Minnesota (at that time). And besides – I am now desperate to find at least one decent person from my Personal Ad so I don’t feel like a total fool. I decide to meet him after work at the Improper Fraction, a bar near my job. I wear a blue skirt with a tuck in sleeveless floral print blouse. He tells me his name is Tom

I see him as soon as he walks in the door of the Fraction. He doesn’t hesitate or waffle around or make a big effort to look cool. He just walks right up to me, extends his hand and says, “Hi. I’m Tom.”

I like his smile. I guess him at 6’3.” He is wearing a nice light gray suit with a tone-on-tone white shirt, blue striped tie and perfectly polished, deep oxblood-red Florsheims. This? Is a man.

We order some house wine and chat. Tom is a CPA, a Junior in one of the big accounting firms in downtown Minneapolis. He smiles and laughs easily, glances at but does not stare at my body, and just seems comfortable in his skin. He is more tough looking than handsome, but I like that look. He has a full head of curly black hair, a fairly dark complexion and a prominent nose. He also has a great body!

We find lots of things to talk about. Turns out, his CPA firm is having some kind of big dinner party at one of the ritzy yacht clubs over on Lake Minnetonka that Saturday, and Tom invites me. I say yes, of course. I have just bought a gorgeous strapless red sundress I am dying to wear, and the yacht club sounds perfect. Plus I can wear my highest heels!

Saturday, I dress carefully. I don’t have a bra that works with the dress, so I go braless. I am so in love with my dress! It is a bit tight, being one size smaller than I usually buy, but I love it so. It is some kind of stretchy material (not spandex, lol) with narrow horizontal stripes in several shades of tomato red. I put on my highest shoes—strappy, red, patent leather sandals with gold-toned metal details on the straps that criss-cross my feet and then wrap around my ankles. Best yet? The 4” heels are gold metal! I feel so hot.

The doorbell rings. I slowly count to ten then go answer the door. Tom is dressed a bit more casually than I would have liked but damned if I am going to take off The Dress! We get in his car.

…to be continued.