Why I Love Singlehood: by Elisa Lorello, Sarah Girrell Read Free Book Online

great picture—that’s here, isn’t it? When’d you take it?”
    I lifted my head and eyed Dean suspiciously.
    “How’d you get into the site?” I asked.
    “My username and password.”
    “You subscribe to Lovematch-dot-com?”
    “How’d you think I met Jan?”
    This revelation rendered me speechless. I’d just assumed some serendipitous event brought them together, like a fender bender or a mistaken dental appointment or side-by-side seats at a football game.
    “Are you actually looking for a mate?” Neil asked me. “What happened to you loving singlehood?”
    “Nothing happened. It’s just that so many people on the blog are telling me what I’m missing out on, so I decided to see what all the fuss is about,” I replied, hoping I sounded convincing.
    The Originals, including Scott, crowded around Dean’s laptop. Dean read aloud: “ Friends First —that’s her tagline.”
    “Nice alliteration,” interjected Car Talk Kenny, who had crossed the café to join in on my humiliation. He seemed to be directing the remark to me, however, since he glanced at me when he said it.
    Dean continued, “ Take 1 cup of 30-something ex-Yankee, 1 cup of entrepreneur, 1 cup of a master’s degree, and add generous helpings of books, TV shows, and movies. ” He looked up. “This is cute. It’s a little recipe.” He returned to the screen and read out loud again. “ Mix with a tablespoon of humor, a teaspoon of pluck, and a sprinkle of TLC. ”
    “Aw, Eva, I love it!” said Jan. “I didn’t write anything nearly as creative when I subscribed.”
    “I don’t even think I read what you wrote. Your smokin’ picture did all the talkin’,” said Dean to Jan. “Little did I know you spend your life in scrubs.”
    “At least they’re pretty scrubs,” said Tracy in an effort to comfort her visibly wounded friend. She gently touched the sleeve of Jan’s pastel blue scrubs with daisies.
    “Keep reading,” prodded Scott.
    “ Bake in up to 95-degree temperatures on the beach, but be sure to use sunscreen. Let cool in temps no lower than 40 degrees, or suffer the consequences of crankiness. Enjoy with a sweet chardonnay or a slick Sam Adams. ” Dean looked up again. “Sam Adams? Really?”
    “Better than your frat-boy Bud Light,” Norman zinged. “And you’re what, thirty years old now?”
    When the Originals started sparring over the movie quotes (I knew they’d be stumped on the one from Animal Crackers ), I slunk away into the reading room to retrieve stray coffee mugs.
    About an hour later, as I wiped down tables, I went over to Scott’s, sat opposite him, and leaned in. “So, were you seriously asking me out for a cup of coffee?” I asked in a hushed voice.
    “Hey, I’m sorry about outing you. I just couldn’t resist.”
    “Yeah, right. Because you’re Mr. Funny.”
    “What’s the big deal? Everyone does it these days. Fifty bucks says half the faculty and administrators of NCLA are on Lovematch-dot-com, including the chancellor.”
    “You didn’t answer my question.”
    He looked down for a moment and looked back up, his cheeks red. “Let me put it to you this way,” he started. “If you weren’t you and I only had your profile to go on, I would’ve asked you out.”
    I leaned back in my chair, mouth opened, wounded. “Thanks a lot.”
    “No no no no no,” he said quickly, and he lightly took hold of my wrist to keep me from standing up and walking away in a huff. “I didn’t mean it like that. I mean I’ve got too much to lose this way, that’s all.”
    “What way?”
    “This way,” he said, smacking the table. “I don’t want to lose all of this.”
    “How do you know you would lose it?”
    “I’m too much of a coward to find out either way.”
    With that, he went back to his open computer manual and highlighter, and pretended to get lost in the text. Or at least I thought he was pretending. Saying nothing in response, I got up and finished wiping down the rest of