Martha Geaney Author of Mysteries
Set in the Soul of Ireland

July 8, 1983

On July 8, 1983 I was a teacher at Lincoln School in Hawthorne, New Jersey where I taught Grammar, Spelling, and Composition to the sixth, seventh, and eight grade students. My summer project for the Hawthorne Board of Education involved rewriting the English curriculum for the elementary schools.

On that Friday night, my role in the project completed, I was tired, hot, and bored. Earlier that week, my brother, John, and my mother gave me a tiny newspaper clipping advertising a singles dance at the local Holiday Inn. Along with the clipping came the suggestion, “You should go to this.”

I was thirty-one years old, divorced for several years, with no signs of a soulmate in sight. Mostly because I hadn’t tried dating in the years since the divorce.

So, on that fateful evening, I went to the dance. When I walked into the room where the event took place, the lights were low. Music played, some people sat at tables, others danced. I remember I didn’t know how to act, where to sit, or where to stand. Why am I here? I asked myself.

That’s when it happened! A man appeared and asked me to dance, a slow dance. His touch was gentle, he didn’t try to overwhelm me. After a few dances, he told me his name was Bill and asked if I’d be interested in going for coffee at a local diner. I agreed and we met a few minutes later in the parking lot of the Fairfield Diner.

Once inside and seated, I ordered a hot tea and an English muffin. Bill ordered an iced tea. I don’t remember much of what we talked about. I do remember I didn’t feel like I was on a job interview. At some point in the conversation, Bill asked “Would you like to join me on Sunday to go sailing on my catamaran?”

I said, “Yes.”

Before we got into our respective cars, Bill took a pencil and pad from his Chevrolet station wagon’s glove box and wrote his name and phone number on the paper including his address.

That was my reintroduction to dating at the age of thirty-one, after an abusive marriage. That night was also the beginning of the book of our life together (Bill and I).

Forty-one years after that fateful evening, I still have the orange-colored piece of note paper. I don’t remember why I chose not to discard it but in hindsight maybe I wanted to always have that reminder of how it all began.

---

March 2024

In March, a year and a half after Bill’s passing, I resolved, reluctantly, to try dating. In my heart and soul, I knew Bill wouldn’t want me to be alone all the time. So, I joined two dating apps. If you’ve enjoyed the 2005 romantic comedy, “Must Love Dogs,” starring John Cusack and Diane Lane then you know my dating app experience, thus far. If you haven’t seen the movie, I recommend it. It’s sad and funny at the same time. At least for Cusack and Lane things worked out!

The first order of business after joining the apps was to answer questions about my likes and dislikes. I wrote a profile essay outlining what I do for fun and how I keep active. The profile exercise felt like a job interview where I didn’t know the requirements. Some of the questions, in my opinion, were silly. For example, I was asked to fill in the following blank…”I’m weirdly attracted to…”

My answer: Hallmark movie actors.

But I persisted and moved on to the apps’ beauty contest aspect which required several pictures of my face, no sunglasses. A friend who used the apps in the past counseled me that I needed to include a full body image.

Because you know…(you can fill in this one). Trust me I was clothed but some of the men on the apps appeared bare chested. Really? I asked myself.

However, before long I met two men who lived, locally. I’ve changed their names for this essay. I met one, several times for coffee. During our second meeting, he shared his real name and phone number. I was reminded of Bill and how people used to share names and phone numbers. And yes, you read this correctly, he shared his real name because his name on the app was an alias.

Looking back at our meet up dates (there were three), text messaging, and phone calls, I experienced an uplift in my emotions. I looked forward to learning more about Bart. But then unfortunately he experienced a relapse in the grief he thought he’d been over from the death of his wife several years ago.

And that was the end for us. In hindsight, I understood completely how he felt. Grief comes in waves. Just when we think we are getting on with our life, something in our family or on the news reignites our feelings. Even after almost two years, I still cry at the end of a Hallmark movie because I don’t have that kind of love in my life anymore.

Several weeks later another local gentlemen asked to meet up with me. His name was Brian. However within the first fifteen minutes of meeting over coffee, I knew Brian wasn’t for me. At the end of our coffee date, he asked to see me again. Sensitive to not hurting his feelings, so I said, “I’m not ready to date.”

He replied, “Go ahead and date more guys, maybe you’ll realize that I look good compared to some of the guys you’ll meet.”

Oh, my goodness!

And then, there were the dozens of romance scammers. I’ve received a myriad of emails from the security teams at the app companies stating so and so that you’ve been messaging with has been “removed from membership due to fraudulent behavior”.

In hindsight when I think about my dating experience with Bill and now, I realize things are so much different. People hide behind a profile and sometimes spends weeks and maybe months just messaging the other person. So many people who are looking for an authentic relationship, young and old, have told me that it is almost impossible to meet someone any more.

Looking at my recent experiences, I often think the lyrics “Looking backwards might be the only way to move forward” from Taylor Swift’s “The Manuscript”. Like the person in the song, every now and then I look at the slip of paper Bill gave to me on the fateful night.

I think about how I might find a companion, someone to pal around with in a world where the majority of the people I know are paired. Someone who isn’t afraid to share their real name, someone who wants to move forward in the amount of time we seniors have left to enjoy each other and life.

There aren’t any single dances like the one where I met Bill. But looking forward, my heart continues to dance and hope that along the way on this widow/widower path, a dancing partner who is kind, honest, and funny will show up.