Every so often several friends of ours get together on a Friday evening to celebrate the week just past. We drink wine and martinis. We laugh, giggle and share stories reserved for close company. We all take turns hosting and everyone is responsible for bringing delectable goodies to share among ourselves.
One of our regulars is Amy. Amy is recently divorced from her husband of 20 so years. Her ex and she share custody of a teenage son and have spent a grand total of approximately $400.00 to file divorce paperwork (attorneys were purposely never asked to attend their legal party, saving both their son's college fund and some semblance of civility). Today, the two of them are still wonderful friends.
Recently Amy has started to think about moving on with her life. She is seriously considering trying to find a new man to share time with. On this occasion, she mentioned to the group that she would like to engage the use of an Internet dating site to possibly explore her dating possibilities.
We thought it was a great idea and in fact, due to the close proximity of a computer, decided it would be fun to peruse a well-known site to see what lurks.
We entered all of the appropriate data and clicked on "search". Page after page of potential mates appeared before us. As we eagerly took turn in reading a different profile aloud, one thing suddenly jumped out at me...an overwhelming super majority of the men wanted a women who possessed one distinct attribute. They wanted a woman who they deemed to be "extremely physically fit" even though many of these same men seemingly had not seen the inside of a gym for at least a decade (or more).
My friend, who is fit for her mid-40's, was taken aback by this display of shallowness by almost the entire selection of men before her.
Not to be discouraged so easily, Amy decided to switch to the women side of the website just to assess the competition for these idealistic men.
After reading through several of the women's profiles it became apparent that middle-aged women were not interested so much in a man's physical attributes but rather were focused, almost solely, on the man's ability to make them laugh.
I kept thinking to myself that this little experimental exercise proved beyond a doubt that there is a distinct line drawn in this battle of the sexes. On one side there are the men, who want a 20-something nymphomaniac and on the other side are the women who want a high energy comedian.
Ideals versus reality...
The reality is that no matter how beautiful we once were on the outside, it fades with age and no matter how much enthusiastic energy we once had time exacts a toll.
Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor -
Born: February 27, 1932 - Died: March 23, 2011
Elizabeth Taylor was known in her youth as one of the most beautiful and glamorous women in the world. Men wanted her and women wanted to be her. She appeared in more than 50 films winning two academy awards along the way.
She had beauty, fame, and fortune.
Then something happened...she started to grow older...and soon her radiant outer beauty was in decline.
She battled addictions, depression and obesity. It appeared from her actions that she had a hard time accepting the person she was.
She was married 8 times to 7 different men (Richard Burton was a 2 time loser). Perhaps her husbands just couldn't make her laugh any more.
Later on in life, she did find some sense of purpose. She was a successful entrepreneur selling jewelry and fragrances. Liz also found helping others served a greater purpose as well as she helped to raise millions of dollars for HIV / AIDS research.
She died at the age of 79 due to heart failure.
I didn't know Elizabeth Taylor, but I do know many people like her. These are people who live with grand ideals of how the world should be...rather than embracing the world for what it is.
The perfect mate isn't someone who comes with a precise set of measurements, possesses a certain IQ, or has the canny ability to make us laugh when we need them to.
Our ideals cause us to pre-judge a new relationship, a new product, a new idea. When opportunity knocked, did we look out through the peep hole, didn't like what we saw, and kept the door shut? Or did we open the door and greet whatever was standing before us?
OptiFuse encounters this same idealism each and every day...people unwilling to give us a shot because they've never heard of us...or because our market share is tiny compared with our primary competitors...or because our advertising and/or packaging isn't as beautiful or sexy as the next guys...
Never mind that we have exceptional products, or outstanding customer service or extremely competitive pricing.
...but that's the reality we face.
Hang in there Amy...there's a guy who'll be ringing your door bell soon enough...please resist the urge to look through the peep-hole and just answer the door...
Thank you to our valued customers who have chosen to open their doors to OptiFuse.
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