Deja Vu, All Over Again

A few weeks ago my father was in town visiting and we took my daughter Lucy, 21 months, out to brunch at a casual, local eatery. Lucy was delicately placing bits of her scrambled egg with cheese in her hair when I noticed another party being seated at the table next to us.

The woman was in her mid-forties and very pregnant. I immediately wondered which drop-down option from the fertility menu had worked its charm: clomid? artificial insemination? IVF? donor egg? I also noted that she was one of these women who looked the way I always thought I'd look someday: tall, thin besides the bump, fashionably, yet simply, dressed for a photo shoot instead of Sunday brunch at a hole in the wall. She was with a daughter, who looked to be my daughter's age, her mother and her husband. I was so busy checking her out and trying to unravel her fertility and fashion secrets that I barely noticed her husband. But when I did, I did a double- and then a triple-take. He was Greg from Jdate.

I corresponded with good old Greg from JDate about 7 years ago. I remember the pictures he'd posted of himself on various adventures around the globe and his love for farmer's markets and ethnic restaurants. At the time, he was about 39 and I was 35, but I was already past the sell-by-date on his Jdate advertisement. He, of course, wanted to date a woman 26-32 - doesn't everyone? But for some masochistic reason I e-mailed him anyway and we had a nice correspondence. Then we spoke by phone. He mentioned in passing that he used to be married, and I was confused because he'd listed himself as 'single'. I asked if he was now divorced (fearing that he was still married) and he said that he prefers not to use that word when describing himself. I asked why, and the conversation went downhill from there.

A few years later a woman in my 'Single Mothers By Choice' group described a Jewish man from her meditation group I should meet because he was 'looking for a wife'. I realized we were talking about Greg, and passed the afikomen.

My father, daughter and I finished our brunch and were heading out when my father felt the need to strike up a conversation with Greg and his bride, who - by the way - definitely didn't meet the sell-by-date, but managed to squeeze out 2 kids anyway (good for her!). I stood there, holding Lucy, and wondering if this guy had any clue who I was. All signs pointed to no. From the outsider's view, it looks like he got everything he wanted on his check list. Life is interesting.