Our writer spent $3,500 hoping a professional could land her the relationship of her dreams.
I can count the number of men I’ve gone on dates with on one hand—okay, maybe one-and-a-half hands. I’ve never called anyone a boyfriend, I’ve never been one person’s priority, one person’s everything.
On a random Sunday not too long ago, I called my parents and when my mother answered she was giggling. “Tu papa me esta enamorando,” she said. Your dad is flirting with me. I scoffed in feigned disgust at my parents making googly eyes at each other in their 70s, though in my heart this is what I want.
But being 42 and never having been in a relationship, I realized I needed a little help. This is how I ended up paying a matchmaking service $3,500 to set me up with six potential partners.
As I walked through the West Village on my way to meet man No. 4, I was feeling positive. Tammi the matchmaker’s earlier email had made me hopeful, even after three failed matches so far.
I met a really interesting guy today. He is a partner in a non-profit as well as a writer and landscape designer/artist. He is very intelligent and a deep thinker. He wants to make a difference in the world. He is 49, 6’3″ tall, lives in Manhattan. Caucasian. He loves to tell stories and can talk to anyone. He often will explore the city and just randomly strike up conversation with people he meets. He enjoys new restaurants, too, comedy, has a masters degree. When can you meet?
I took a deep breath and nervously fidgeted with the strap of my purse as I walked into the dark restaurant. I looked around. At 6:00 p.m. on a Tuesday, I was the only person there.
“I’ll just take a seat,” I said to the hostess like it was no big deal. When in fact, waiting is one of the most nerve-wracking experiences. I never know what to do with my body. Is it rude to sit at the table? Do I stand outside? Lean against the bar? Do I look expectantly at the door, or at my phone, or act natural? What is natural?
I followed the hostess, limping a bit. I had twisted my ankle earlier that day. It didn’t hurt much—nothing worth canceling this over. She guided me to a small table against a black wall with a drawing of two hands reaching for each other, a neon sign over them read Futuro. It gave me another boost of hope. I sat a little taller, and faced the front door to wait for the man I was supposed to meet.
While I sipped from the water glass a bus boy put down in front of me, I thought about what Tammi might have emailed this guy about me.
I have a woman for you. She works in nonprofit management, likes to write. She is very intelligent, talkative, and family is important to her. She is 42, 5’9’, lives in Manhattan, Hispanic. Never married. She loves socializing, and is great at making friends. She likes live music and exploring the city. She has a masters degree. When can you meet?
I sounded great. Just like someone tall, artistic Patrick might want to meet for dinner. I only learned his name in a text message from Tammi minutes before.
You are meeting Patrick. He is wearing brown pants and a blue shirt.
The message did not mention that Patrick would show up dressed like he just rolled out of bed, with an old, ratty, faded baseball cap covering greasy hair. She didn’t tell me that he would slouch, as if he never learned how to deal with his height, and make it obvious throughout dinner that being on a date with me was an annoyance. Was there a game or show or some other important event I had the nerve to take him away from? Why did he pay for this service in the first place? I wondered.
I stood up for a quick intro. He wore glasses like me. When I took two steps toward him, my hand outstretched to shake his, Patrick noticed my limp.
“Yeah,” I said, “I did something to my foot.”
“And you still wore heels?” he asked, looking down at my footwear judgmentally.
They’re heeled booties, I wanted to tell him. Pretty white ones that I love; ones that make my legs look great in the burnt orange shirt dress I reserve for first dates when the weather is somewhere between fall and winter.
“I read today that the left side of your body is your feminine side, so maybe your feminine chakra is unbalanced.”
I swallowed. As a woman who works in science, this was the moment I realized this probably wasn’t going to work.
“Hmmm, I thought I stepped off a curb.”
I ordered a cocktail but no food. It was unspoken. Neither of us seemed to want to commit to a whole meal, but I did still want to give it a bit of a chance. I’d limped my way over here and had been through enough matches with guys who had a lot less going on than Patrick. I asked him about his art. We chatted a bit about Burning Man (clearly, not my thing), and about other nonsense I would soon forget. After less than an hour, I asked for the bill, which we split down the middle. When we got outside, we dutifully shook hands and walked in opposite directions.
Failed attempt No. 4.
Four out of six matches done; $3,500 to find a real relationship almost gone. It seemed the matchmaker was as terrible at finding me a soulmate as I was.
“Were you sick?” Tammi asked during our post-date debrief. “He said you gave him a cold,” she paused. “He said you were negative and gave him a cold.”
Tammi was the second matchmaker the service had assigned me, and this was her second attempt. Matches one through three blur together in the way that old episodes of M*A*S*H do. I remember two of them lived with their parents, had no career ambition or hobbies, and no conversation skills.
“Oh no,” matchmaker No. 1 said after the second date. “He really liked you.”
Of course he did, I thought. I don’t think I’m a perfect catch, or else I would’ve been caught by now. But I do think I deserve better than an unemployed father of two who lives with his mother, didn’t ask me a single question about myself, and was only interested in fishing. (I now wonder if his mom was paying for the matchmaker.)
I had been extensively interviewed by the matchmaking service to discover what it was I wanted, yet I hadn’t met a person I could even chat with about the weather (unless it was a good day for fishing), much less date.
I’ve felt a spark before, like tingles in the bottom of my gut—not often, and not in a decade, but I’ve felt it. That feeling, however, has never led to a relationship. The narrative I tell myself is that a guy has never liked me. I was too shy and too insecure and too Catholic when my friends were learning the ways of men. I heard rumors in high school of some boy who liked me, but I never knew who. Then there was my best friend’s brother who I crushed on in my late teens, who occasionally paid attention to me. There was a bigger-than-life Luigi in Atlanta in my 20s, who claimed he really liked me but was engaged. And my brother-in-law’s matchmaking attempt with Cisco that never went anywhere.
Some friends have been candid or brave enough to ask me if I think I could be gay, and that my religious upbringing has made me more repressed than I consciously know. But I’m pretty sure I’m a zero on the Kinsey scale. When I picture having sex with someone, I’m with a dude, ideally someone with nice defined arms, amazing wavy hair, and a perfect smile.
Before my fifth match—a handsome Greek guy who lived in Jersey—I said to myself, maybe now that my expectations are so low it will get better. And to be fair, it was better. He stood up as I approached the table, offered to share food, made sure I was okay getting home; he was employed, and even conventionally attractive. But no spark. I thought maybe it’ll come on a second date, but neither of us seemed motivated to make that happen.
I started to wonder if I’m even capable of feeling a spark; maybe the flutter is just no longer available to me.
No. 6, the last date allotted in my $3,500 package, was very cute and professionally accomplished—but again, no spark. Or if there was, it was extinguished by the facts of his life: He had four kids, drove a showy Tesla, lived in Jersey, and not like comes-into-the-city Jersey—like deep, I-don’t- know-the-name-of-this-town, Jersey.
These six dates are the only dates I’ve had in five years. While I am feeling clueless, everyone seems to have an opinion on what my next step should be.
Get on the apps, some say, but I don’t think I’m emotionally strong enough. My self esteem is much better now that I accept my glasses and lazy eye as a part of me, and I know my curly hair is beautiful, and my height is appealing. But my confidence still hangs on by a tiny, fragile string, and being on the apps, where anonymity can make people cool or careless, seems like a great way to snap it.
Go meet people, others tell me. But I know people. I am busy every night of the week at plays, dinners, and readings with friends.
Travel, join a run club, take a film-making class… I have done it all.
My therapist—a new thing I tried after the failed matchmaking attempts—asked me why I think I can’t find a partner.
“You’ve wanted other things and you’ve accomplished them. Living in New York City, a life full of people, a job you love,” she said in our first meeting.
“Well, relationships are not just up to me. For coupledom, I need another person to also make the decision,” I said.
She didn’t buy my answer.
Maybe it’s the romance novels, fairytales, and romantic comedies I consumed tirelessly when I was young (and sometimes still do). I’ve idealized what the feeling is supposed to look like, to my detriment. Maybe it’s the fairytale I’ve watched play out in my own life. Forty-seven years and five kids later, my demonstrative parents are very much in love.
I want the monthly celebration of the day we met. I want the “let’’s get up early and go on a motorcycle ride to breakfast in the mountains” spontaneous together-time. I want the “here are some flowers just because.” I want someone to work through life with, someone to be my someone.
All over the internet I’ve seen single, straight women in their 20s swearing off dating because of how awful the experience has been. And I’ve read several of the buzzy memoirs and novels about women really hitting their stride in their 40s and 50s. I’m somewhere in between, caught in the cultural crevasse of hoping for a romantic relationship that I want to believe exists but living my life the best way I know how, in case that never happens.
I sit with a group of old friends at my favorite bar in the city on a Wednesday night, pink-hued mezcal drink in hand. My musician friends are about to play a jazz set, as they do every Wednesday. We are talking about my recent trip to Mexico City and deciding when we will get tickets to see a dance show.
“You seem happy,” a friend says.
“Happy-ish.”
“Well,” she says, “that’s adulting—there’s always something.”
But she is right. My days are filled with meaningful work, and nights are spent at the ballet, the theatre, an art opening, a jazz night, or—my favorite—around my table, sharing a meal. If I meet someone, he’d be lucky to have this life, too. Or maybe happy-ish is its own kind of love story.
My friend and I clink glasses as the instruments are getting tuned.
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by Adriana Barillas-Batarse
Adriana Barillas-Batarse works in science research at The Rockefeller University and moonlights as a travel advisor and writer. A proud, successful single Guatemalan woman in her 40s, Adriana lives in New York City—where she divides her time between the lab, the airport, and wondering if her plants are judging her life choices.
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