Strange Love

Fishing

· 29 Fishing SOONAFTERIBUYmyhouseinruralMichigan,mybrother Arthur,visiting from Manhattan,walks through the barn-sized garage that comes with my new property and declares it “man bait.” “What do you mean?” I ask. “There isn’t a man alive,” Arthur says, turning around in the garage’s vast, empty space, “who doesn’t dream of a place like this for a studio or a shop.” Two years later, I’m still without a male partner, and I’ve rentedoutmygarage,forthetimebeing,toamarriedcarpenter. “How do you expect to find a man in that backwoods,Podunk town?” Arthur admonishes over the phone. “What’s the population , five hundred?” “Including Saugatuck and Douglas,” I answer,“it’s around 30 · Lisa Lenzo two thousand.And Saugatuck isn’t Podunk—it’s a huge tourist attraction and a well-known artist colony.” “Sheeit,” Arthur says, drawing the word out the way that black guys did in our old neighborhood in Detroit. “You are fishing for trout in a mud puddle, Annie. Ain’t no single men in them towns, except for about five hundred gay boys and a couple dozen drunks.You want to catch yourself a keeper,you got to throw a wider net.” And so, after many dates and several relationships, eight years after my marriage is over,I finally take out a personal ad: Creative, attractive, DWF, 37, 5´4˝, 120#, affectionate, assertive & physically fit. Non-smoking, laughably light drinker,casual dresser to a fault.Spiritual,politically liberal. Television IQ of a baboon. Limited social time due to my full-time job,fourteen-year-old daughter & dedication to my creative work. I like reading, writing, gardening, canoeing, x-country skiing,Lake Michigan,art & music.I’m looking for anemotionallyopen,articulatemanforfriendship,hopefully leading to an intimate relationship. The same day my ad is printed, I check the voice mailbox I’ve been assigned and find the first response: “It’s Friday night and I don’t have nothin’ to do. . . . I like cuttin’ down trees . . . I like drivin’ trucks . . . Uhhhh . . . I’ve lived in Paw Paw all my life . . .Right now I’m livin’ with my grammaw . . . I’m forty-nine years old, but I look a whole lot younger . . . Call me soon, ’cause I like to have fun.” The next responses are better, but more often than not, the men don’t leave much information,and I feel funny calling someone back when all I know about him is his height,weight, age, and that he dresses casually and doesn’t smoke. I almost contact a man whose introductory letter to me includes: I 31 · FISHING know how to cook some Greek dishes as well as Yugoslavian, German,Polish,andmisguidedstirfry.WhatISyourcreative work? If nothing else, I’d like to talk with you as I feel that we’ve met before.(No,that’s not a postal pickup line.) I really like the phrase “misguided stir fry,” and I think that “postal pickup” has nice alliteration, but when he goes on to write that he owns an extensive teddy bear collection, my spike of interest takes a dive. My friend Karen urges me to respond to this man, and she scolds that I am being too rough on these guys.But there are so many responses that being picky seems not only okay, but necessary. During my ad’s third month, after I’ve received fifty responses and have dated three of these responders once or twice, I open a letter from a man who seems like he might be a good choice. He’s included a photo in which he is standing solemnly in a field ringed by trees, looking like a model in an ad for wilderness protection. I start dating Ron and stop dating any others. Besides fields and forests, Ron likes lakes and rivers. He builds and restores wooden canoes for a hobby, and he is a freelance industrial designer for a living. He is my age, thirty-seven. He’s never been married, and now he wants to get married and have children. Although I decided long ago that I wouldn’t have any more children, in some ways having another baby appeals to me deeply, and for the next three months, I consider how I might fit a baby into my life, into our lives. But after our first ninety days together,Ron announces that he wants to be with someone who is sure she wants a child, not...