It takes a lot of time and courage to work up the strength to date again after a marriage has failed. It’s hard to meet new people when all your friends are married and you’re a single mom. About a year after I was divorced, I let a friend of time talk me into setting me up on a blind date. I didn’t realize how little she must have thought of me. Or perhaps she just thinks a woman with small children can never find a normal man to date her.

The gentleman who showed up on my doorstep that night was at least a foot shorter then me, had a severe lisp, buck teeth, bottle cap glasses, and all joking aside, was a little on the slow side. I certainly don’t want to sound like a snob. Looks I can get past, even the lisp I could have dealt with, but I can’t have a romantic relationship with someone who I can’t have an intelligent conversation with. I just can’t work past that hurdle.

This poor lost soul stared at me like a puppy dog all night. He took me to a Beef ‘N Beer. It was for a great cause but isn’t really the kind of romantic setting you would expect for a first date.

When we arrived we sat at a table with a group of his friends and he introduced me by my first name only. Thank goodness he left out my surname because sitting at the table with us, were the brother and father of the eighteen-year home wrecker who my husband had an affair with the year before. They didn’t know who I was and I didn’t act like the screaming shrew that I was tempted to be. Instead, I sat and drank a watered down beer and poked at the stringy and undercooked beef on my plate. When the evening came to the end, my companion all but asked for my hand in marriage. I let him down gently by saying that I didn’t think I was really ready to date yet. And that was the last time I ever let a friend set me up on a blind date. I then turned to internet dating. But that’s another story….