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Fiction Short Story

by Pat Tompkins

Searching for Mr. Prince

“Where are all the single men?” Margaret’s lament echoed to an audience of one. With marriage, her friends grew deaf to her question; larger concerns loomed for them: weeding gardens, directing home videos of birthday parties, supervising potty training. This December, for the first time, brought no invitations to holiday parties. None. The office party didn’t count. She remembered a time when she couldn’t imagine spending New Year’s Eve alone. At home was fine, but not alone.

Not that she actually liked parties. She was lousy at small talk, impatient with polite chit-chat. Wearing makeup other than lip gloss and a dusting of powder to dim a shiny nose made her feel like a badly miscast actress. She shied away from drawing attention to her bustline or her legs, preferring “comfortable” clothes; a calf-length, black jumper with a dropped waist worn over a T-shirt was her favorite outfit. Why announce that gravity was having its way with her body? In the end, a push-up bra was just a let-down, false advertising.

She sighed as she smoothed moisturizer on her face. Margaret had stopped looking for a husband. She just wanted a good companion, someone to have fun with. Over the years, she’d tried everything to meet men: a course in carpentry, the cycling club, alumni gatherings; she’d volunteered at a wine tasting fundraiser, attempted to learn how to surf, sail, and swing dance, joined a singles dining club. On vacations, she’d gone to a Montana ranch, kayaked in the San Juan Islands, traveled alone in France, and hiked with groups of strangers. She’d even gone to Alaska, where men greatly outnumbered women, only to discover the accuracy of the state motto, “The odds are good, but the goods are odd.” She’d met lots of couples, single women, and gay men before realizing that single guys rarely gravitated toward group activities.

Although Margaret claimed she’d “tried everything,” she’d avoided one desperate measure. Co-workers claimed it worked for them, but she refused to advertise. When encouraged to run a personal ad, her standard response was, “With my luck, I’d probably get a Ted Bundy wannabe.” Even though she knew that serial killers mostly existed in cheesy mysteries, she hated the idea of blatantly marketing herself. To those who claimed the popularity of the ads proved their utility, Margaret argued the opposite: If they worked, there wouldn’t be so many. But New Year’s Eve alone moved her to action. On New Year’s Day, against her instincts, she sat at her desk composing an ad. A simple task. Describe yourself. Better yet, describe who you’re looking for.

She studied the latest ads in the newspaper as a guide to the abbreviations and ended up reading every ad. Aside from variations in age, height, and race, the ads were remarkably similar. Men were romantic, fit, and fond of walking on the beach; they wanted someone slim, passionate, fun, and younger than themselves. The women were triple A’s: attractive, active, affectionate; they wanted someone honest, educated, secure. Everyone was sincere, had a good sense of humor, and enjoyed candlelit dinners.

Margaret met the qualifications for several ads; she was not sedentary, fat, or a smoker, but this did not reassure her. The descriptions seemed as artificial as for-rent ads that transformed a liability like overlooking the freeway into “convenient location.” They reminded her of the help-wanted ads where the “ideal candidate” was a “team player” and “self-starter” who had an MBA, a Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering, with fluency in Japanese an advantage.

How many times had she heard, “You¹ve got to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince”? Forget amphibians. Reminding herself that to get what you want, you need to ask for it, Margaret wrote her ad: “SWF, 38, 5’5”, seeking Johnny Depp look-alike for evening/weekend fun. Enjoys sex, skiing, hiking, concerts, travel. You are SWM, 35-45, employed and able to buy dinner for two at restaurants without 99-cent specials, free from STDs and drug/alcohol problems, willing to use condoms without whining, capable of playing sports rather than watching them, skilled in kitchen, able to tuck shirt in without appearing to be hiding a watermelon, available to go to ‘women’s’ movies, willing to admit occasionally to being lost, wrong, or uninformed. Generous, considerate, intelligent, and talented are pluses.” She almost added “No turbans,” but wanted to be open-minded and emphasize the positive.

Her friends always said she was too picky, but Margaret didn’t think so. As she sent her ad to the newspaper, she wondered how many replies she would get. At least no one could say she hadn’t tried.


About the Author
Pat Tompkins is an editor in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her work has appeared online in the Paumanok Review, E2K, flashquake, EOTU, AntiMuse, and other e-zines.