This one takes a little time to build. Thanks go to the real Jasper for not minding me publishing this and to the real Eric. I owe him some pom-poms.
*
You know how life can take a screaming left turn? Well, mine did, about a week ago. I'd been minding my own business, and trying to get my life turned back around after a divorce. I'd gotten my own place and was going back to college while working part time. Not bad for fifty. Oh, and I have this roommate. One of those roommates with benefits.
Well, about six months ago, he was playing on this dating site and kept taking all the funny little match tests. When Eric found one that was really good, he'd share. Mainly by hollering over his monitor that I needed to take the 'Purity Test' or the 'Just how sexy are you?' test. I got tired of taking them over his shoulder, so I finally gave in and made my own login. Did the whole thing, and put up a profile. I've been single for a year and figured that just maybe I might find someone more interesting than my crazy roommate.
Yeah... Right... You know those jokes they make about dating sites? Well, after a few days, I decided that most of them were true. Worse yet, I'd set my profile to 'looking for friends, etc'. Sort of the safe option, because I figured that if someone really rolled my senses, we could negotiate for a date or something. Logical approach or so I thought. Well, this dating site has some really strange tests and how they correlate to who's a perfect match is voodoo science as far as I am concerned. Or, maybe dart board-ology. Either way, I was getting matches that were warped. Odd. Weird. Definitely not my type. So, I walked away for a few days.
I came back to an email box full of 'matches for Ivy'. Ivy being my nickname on the site. I went through the thirty or forty of them and found about five that I might consider. Funny part was that Eric was one of them. We laughed about that and I put him in my accepted folder just for giggles. I noticed that most of the guys I liked were similar to Eric. Not a surprise really. They were engineers, science fiction readers, alternatively religious, a good sense of humor and most of them had a broad world sense. Two of them were obviously out for the mid-twenties gal that would lay them at the drop of a hat. The other two were older than me, and we started talking. Or should I say jousting? Lots of funny quote filled conversations were emailed back and forth.
Sparks lives about fifty miles from me. He travels a lot, and we emailed back and forth when he had a connection and a chance to talk. Sweet guy. I got to meet him about a month ago. He stopped by the office and introduced himself. We chatted and then off he went. Haven't heard from him since. Oh well. He certainly was nice enough to consider as more than just a pen pal. He liked the real me, and not just the person in the email. I'm one of those short round earth mama hippy types. In fact, my sons call me the "tree huggin' dirt worshiper". It fits.
Then there was Skyhawk. He came up as a match, and I sort of dismissed the profile at first. Then I started to read it and started laughing. This guy had a great sense of humor. Warped, but in a way that matched my own. I was laughing hard enough that Eric left his computer to see what was so funny.
"What are you laughing at Gwen?" he asked as he leaned over my shoulder.
"This guy's humor is a riot," I answered.
Eric read over my shoulder for a minute. "So, are you going to message him?" he asked.
"No. I, um... I'm just enjoying the profile facts," I stuttered.
"Sure. Go ahead and chat with him. Just because you talk to him doesn't mean anything. Besides, he might be a nice guy," Eric said with that look I've gotten to know that means he thinks I'm avoiding something I ought to do.
"Fine!" I said. I had been thinking of talking to him, I just hadn't made up my mind yet. Cold feet I guess. Hell, other than Eric, I hadn't dated in thirty years. I felt just a bit rusty. Oh hell! I felt damn rusty. I waited until Eric left the room and dropped Skyhawk a hello note. I didn't want Eric gloating. Men!
The next morning, there was a note from Skyhawk. I think he was as surprised at my email as I was for sending it. We talked about bad Sci-Fi movies, good books and music. Oh, and computers. From there, we started talking about our lives. He learned that I was divorced, had four kids and six grandchildren. I learned that he'd never been married and lived way up in the mountains off the grid.
That started a three way conversation between Eric, Skyhawk and myself. Eric is very into alternative energy. Skyhawk uses it. Lots of typing and laughing at our end. We talked about the tests that we'd taken too. One night the conversation on line got difficult to type and I gave him my phone number. It had become a rather emotional exchange, and without being able to judge voice inflection, I felt I was missing something. About three minutes later, the phone rang.
"Hello, may I speak to Ivy?" this voice asked.
"Hi Skyhawk, it's nice to hear your voice," I said.
"Oh good. I hope I dialed right. By the way, my name is Jasper."
"Hello Jasper, I'm Gwen," I said.
Eric had given us some space to talk, and so we did just that until about 2am. We talked about all sorts of things, including something I had suspected, but he had only mentioned in a roundabout fashion.
"Jasper, why did you get on the dating site?" I asked.
"Well, after a lifetime of being just me, I sort of got hit upside the head by the fact that I was lonely and wanted to change things," he said.
"Change things how?" I asked.
"Well, this is real hard to admit, but..." and then there was a pause. "I've, umm.. I'm a virgin," he said at last.
Talk about being able to knock me over with a feather. "Oh," was all I could manage for a moment. "Jasper, why didn't you ever have sex?" I asked with a thousand alternatives running through my head.
"Well, I sorta got soured on that half of the species as a young man, and then just never had time for them," he said.
"Okay," I said. "Eric did say that engineers, especially electrical engineers, need a whole year in college on social interaction just so that they can deal with the rest of humanity," I said to lighten the mood. I hoped.
Jasper laughed on the other end of the line. "He's right. By the time I thought I had time for women, I figured that I was just too old and started building walls around myself."
"How old were you?" I asked.
"Oh, thirty, thirty-five," he said.
"So what made you get on the website if you had decided to be a bachelor?" I asked hoping I'd get a few more details. It sounded like there was more to this than just the male equivalent to 'my biological clock is ticking'.
"Well, I had this dream. I went to bed thinking that I really needed to change my life, and dammit, I needed help. The help showed up in the dream."
"Okay," I said thinking that he wasn't the only one who'd ever had their life change because of a dream.
"In the dream, I'm standing in this tower. The tower I'd build around my whole life I guess is what it meant. This guy, I'll call him Thor showed up. He started throwing lightning bolts and they blasted away that tower like it was nothing. Then he pointed his hammer at me and said it was time to change. Get out! Date! NOW!" he said across the phone lines.
"Oh wow," I said. It sounded dumb, the moment it left my lips.
"Wow is right. I woke up feeling like I'd grabbed a capacitor in both hands and no place to ground the charge. I felt full of energy, and decided that just maybe I ought to give women another try," he said.
"Okay, and is that when you signed onto the dating site?"
