COMMITMENTS : You Have to Kiss a Lot of Toads to Find More Toads

Like many of my singles-scene experiences, this one in a Midwest nightclub resembled a scene from a David Lynch movie--a confrontation with a strange character under dim, flickering lights.

The business card he handed me proudly proclaimed him Tinky the Clown. I stared at a makeup-less face that looked like a seedier version of Frasier Crane, grim and unsmiling, but with eyes intent on me.

Was the clown bit his ticket to romantic success? Were we women supposed to be weak and defenseless in the presence of someone who entertained children? Did Tinky think we would feel the compulsion to tweak his unpainted nose?

I merely shook my head to politely discourage him. He went away for a bit, but returned. Seems he took my head-shaking as a sign of disbelief of his clown status. He handed me a pink balloon dog, squeezed my thigh and said he’d be waiting at the bar if I was interested.

Bozo--I mean, Tinky--would have a long wait.

*

The world has painted too pretty a picture of the single soul’s road to romance, a path strewn with wine and roses and running across fragrant fields.

Mine has been more like a dark back alley--dirty, smelly, with overturned trash cans and a few brick-wall dead ends.

We are encouraged to date and mingle in as many romantic encounters as possible, so we’ll know when the right person comes along. After you’ve been out here a while, you can pretty much size up who’s wrong.

I’ve made plenty of poor selections for myself, but fate has also prompted the wrong men to wing my way, like the convenience store clerks who ask where I’ve been when I haven’t been by for my usual bucket of cola and Marshmallow Munchie.

Not necessarily looking for a prince, I’ve still had to kiss (or run from) many toads.

Like the auctioneer, who, for some reason, impressed me at first. Maybe it was because he wore a tie with his toga and seemed like a perfect gentlemen when I met him at a party.

I agreed to a date with him a few nights later, but it took only a few minutes into our outing--about as long as it took him to order two pitchers of beer--to realize it was wrong. Another man intent on riding on the success of his career, he then attempted to woo me with occasional bursts of auctioneer love calls--at the bar and in the car on a drive.

Perhaps his prowess at the monotonous yodeling reduced others to Jell-O. I felt more like a heifer up for bid.

He was an old-fashioned kind of guy and conjured up a term from the past-- masher. For mashed was exactly how I felt after I finally escaped from his car and got to my door, finally away from him after repeated requests to be taken home. I was furious. He, in the delusional fog of ego, thought we’d had a great time. He probably yodeled all the way home.

*

Unfortunately, he was one of many unsuitable choices I’ve made. Sometimes dating has seemed like my sock drawer: You look for a match but all you find are a bunch of unmatable singles.

I have a collection of “party pics” in my college scrapbook, a rogue’s gallery of men who weren’t always the most sensitive: my first boyfriend, who committed dating bigamy, as I discovered when I saw him with another woman one evening; the DJ, from whom I parted after he told me journalism was boring and I interrogated him about how he was making so much money; the man with dyslexia who felt threatened because I was doing better than he was in school.

Post-college, I went out with my bus driver after a period of romanticizing to myself, imagining him watching me in the rearview mirror. He was a very nice guy, an excellent driver, but low on intellectual gas. He thought it fun to show up on my doorstep without calling first. My co-workers thought it was fun to joke about how many passengers we would be picking up on the way to our dates.

*

Another date made me the butt of a joke at a New Year’s Eve party, when he danced around the room by himself, inebriated, and almost mistook someone’s clothes closet for a water closet.

“Is this a computer date?” a dismayed friend asked. No, a computer probably could have done better.

A long-distance relationship held over the phone and with infrequent visits did not hold up for me, either. Each time we would see each other in person, he would declare he was not ready for the responsibility of a relationship. How much less responsibility could one have than a phone call or two a week and a Christmas card once a year?

Finally I have proof that many wrongs do make a right. I got a good chance to know a man well through my former job, and he is now not only my best friend, but my leading man who listens to my tales of wrong men. He’s also aware of my penchant for Marshmallow Munchies and buys me the super pack of the sugary treats from Price Club.

The convenience store guys will just have to wonder.