I have a girlfriend named Debbie who has not had sex in twenty years. She is tall, blond, pretty, and has that overbite that men find appealing ... especially in shiksas ... which she is. On Jewish girls, they call them “buckteeth.” Debbie’s never been married, and at this point, prospects don’t look good. What’s the problem? Well, first she lives in LA! Second, she’s over thirty-five! Bad combo. She’s actually over forty-five (maybe even forty-nine and holding) and in major cities as far as single men are concerned, you may as well be collecting social security.

Fortunately, I at least have been married, but am now divorced and live in New York. I left LA. ten years ago because, let’s be frank, my tush had fallen just a tad and in Beverly Hills there is a tush patrol which measures you, and after twenty-five, or if you’re really lucky, thirty, your tush does fall and you have to leave. It’s a law.

The first few years, as new girl in town, I dated a lot. I’ve kept a list of every man I went out with. And a shorter list of every man I slept with. It averaged about fifty new guys a year. The first list ... the dates that is! I’ll have you know I still can count the number of men I’ve slept with ... well, by heart, if not on my fingers. So meeting guys in New York was easier ... however, I’ll be honest, lately my yearly list has been shrinking.
A new plan must be formulated!

To add fuel to this potential fire, I read a recent article in the New York Times about blonde, former trophy wives who have been replaced by younger editions. But not your average Miss America hopeful around the corner. Now the threat is global! Asian women are the type du jour. It seems the male readership of “Memoirs of a Geisha” was higher then we thought. The article stated that there is a five year “window of opportunity” for these rather scarily “lifted and tucked” divorcees to land another husband, or they are doomed to sell real estate or work behind the desk at Sotheby’s. Not career choices mind you, but “positions” mainly destined to put them in close proximity to rich men who are hopefully in a “transition phase” but still ambulatory ... or not.

I’m not a trophy wife in any way. I don’t wear Chanel, I don’t eat at Le Cirque, and my face still moves although I am blonde and on bad hair days I’ve been mistaken for Ivana Trump. (Note to self: get rid of upsweep and bangs.) Besides, I’ve always supported myself as a fairly successful writer and couldn’t pass the math aspect of a real estate license test if my life depended on it. Unlike my girlfriend, Debbie, I have had sex recently with an old lover, plus still get offers I turn down almost every day. Yes, construction workers and bike messengers do so count! At least for one’s ego. So I didn’t panic.

But my five years are definitely up ... and then some! I have a lovely condo in a great neighborhood, good friends, and am still a size eight without liposuction so I don’t feel particularly desperate but who am I to argue with the New York Times?!

My mother told me I was always too picky. She’s right. (But I’m not as picky as one of my male platonic friends who stopped dating a girl because she ate tuna fish for lunch every day. He insisted it showed an alarming lack of flexibility ... .and she smelled of fish.) Maybe what I should do after dating over four hundred guys is learn how to ... not settle, never settle, but compromise. Come to think of it, I know a size six who dated everyone in New York and wound up moving back in with her parents. Ok. Compromise wins. My plan has a refined goal. I will look for ... Mr. Adequate!

“Eat, Meet”

Since I’m a writer who works in the house, and in my nightgown, I had first better find ways to get out of both. Lunch is the first place to meet men. Well, actually breakfast would be but I don’t get up in the morning until way after the “power breakfast” guys are long gone from the Regency Hotel. That’s why I became a writer ... so I could sleep in.

Where do guys eat? Since real men still don’t each quiche, they probably eat meat but steakhouses are too noisy and as Bill Clinton reminds us with his close call, I don’t really want a new husband who’ll die soon of high cholesterol. Besides, the kind of guys I am looking for eat “power lunch.”

So armed with a list of trendy, expensive, “power” places, I now have to find someone to go with me, someone whose wallet and waistline can afford twice a week sojourns and is fairly attractive, better still, really attractive, as long as she doesn’t attract the same types I do. (I like tall and gray or dark and sexy. She can have all the blonde guys she wants and Conan O’Brien. Would anyone want Conan O’Brien? But I digress.)

I start with an acquaintance I’ll call Mrs. X. Glamorous, sort of fun, and best of all, seems happily married, so as far as I know, not looking. We’ll begin at Cipriani’s, on Fifth Avenue, simple but sophisticated, with low ceilings, very low tables and charming Italian maitre de’s who kiss your hand and make a fuss over you as every head swivels to check out each new arrival through the revolving door. I arrive a few minutes early as I am obsessive about punctuality and frankly, I want the “good seat” facing the door in the “good room.” But she has arrived earlier and already grabbed it. I am forced to sit facing the wall where I can see no one and any men can only see the back of my head. This is not going well. She was told the mission but is not cooperating. Moreover, in a room reeking with chic, she is dressed in a tight red leather minidress and hooker shoes. Mrs. X, suddenly released into the world of the “hunt,” is making the most of it, insanely flirting with everything in pants including the waiters. I am embarrassed, plus the chairs are so extremely low that I get a terrible backache and will limp home.

She orders the most expensive thing on an outrageously expensive menu plus two glasses of champagne at $15 a pop (I don’t drink) and demands we split the bill down the middle. I have now spent $65 for an appetizer and tap water. And there are no single men that make themselves apparent.

Next, I go to “21”, a clubby, dark wood and leather, masculine place with airplanes and other testosterone gadgets hanging from the ceiling. This is where captains of industry and the wealthy old money types go. The average age at “21” is 81 and my friend Lizzie, who wears only black and never leaves the house (she has a “sex friend” she’s been in love with for twenty years and who delivers) makes me promise I’ll never force her out again. Another dead end.

I hear Wall Street restaurants are full of men but that means the subway or a $40 cab ride. I can finally get a good table at the Four Seasons and there is a dessert called “warm blueberry financier.” I’d like that to go! Do they come in other flavors? I haven’t met a soul but I’m putting on weight like crazy. This plan is getting to be a pain in the ass and mine is spreading!

A woman producer wants to discuss a project with me. I suggest lunch at Nello’s. It’s a noisy crowded place on Madison Avenue where Upper East Side trendy types spill out onto the sidewalk café to ogle older celebrities like Donald Trump, Wayne Gretsky and Cher. I wait there over twenty minutes when I get a phone call from the producer saying she’s “on the way.” I decide not to get upset, compulsive on-time person that I am, and I already have the “good seat,” so I use this occasion to look around the place for Mr. Adequate. He is nowhere to be seen. There are some Eurotrash younger guys blowing smoke in my face. But I do see Shoshanna Lonstein scarfing down her lunch with her fingers. Since when is spaghetti and meatballs finger food?

The producer rushes in, disheveled, angry, and clearly a person with ADD. She doesn’t like the table, we move; she doesn’t like the menu, orders off it; she doesn’t like her food, sends it back. She eats off my plate! She talks on her cell phone constantly, looks around the room continuously, and sticks me with the check. She says she “loves to do lunch” because she’s “desperate to find guys.” The plan is not working.

I stay in the house for the next two weeks. Maybe I’m just destined to be alone. But as those of us in NY know, I’m not alone. I always have Robin Byrd. For those of you who don’t know, Robin Byrd is a sleazy woman in a crocheted bikini who has had a Public Access sex show on TV for twenty years. In between the clips of dirty movies, she has women with chest implants that look like hard cantaloupes and men with various sized penises (or is that penisi?) usually with rings around them, dance naked with little or no degree of talent, although I don’t think talent is what the viewers are looking for. And, before every show she says the same damn thing. For years. How do I know this? Well, anyway ... she says “cuddle up with a loved one and if you don’t have a loved one, you always have me.”

I don’t actually want her. But the point is, there are ways one can take care of oneself if one has the urge, cable, and the proper “tools.” Now I had a new mission.

I was too embarrassed to go to any of the raunchier sex shops that are advertised, but a friend of mine mentioned a shop explicitly for women. That opens up a whole new can of peas I’m not interested in. Should I be afraid to go alone? She assured me not. So off to Eve’s Garden I went. But that’s another story ...

The End