Has it been ten years? A brief review of prior posts tells me that I have posted about this particular party since 2013. Wow. Let’s let that sit for a minute. Or maybe not. If you are new to this very “seasoned” blog I am a divorcee (sounds fancy) who gets invited to a friend’s fancy party every year and has yet to take advantage of the “Plus One” offered to me. See You Don’t Have To Bring A Date, Come Alone! Come Alone! COME ALONE! The party has become an almost annual thing and I have gone many times. Always invited with a plus one, always attending alone. See I Went To A Dinner Party Alone

The last post on the subject was I Went to a Dinner Party Alone, Parts 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 . That was the 2019 entry. In that post I swore I would never attend this particular function alone, ever again. Ever. Never. Again.

Let’s do a quick and dirty update, shall we?

I will put aside for the purposes of this post the losses suffered by many as a result of Covid 19. For me, with regard to the dinner party, Covid 19 gave me a reprieve, an extra year to find an appropriate date for the party. When the party was officially canceled for 2020, not gonna lie, I breathed a sigh of relief because I hadn’t yet found my plus one. I thought “alright, alright, alright” (Matthew McConaughey style) “I have another year to find the perfect man for this event.” A perfect man would be a professional, wealthy, age appropriate, single, charming, outgoing, devastatingly good looking, and completely enamored with — moi — such that his gaze would cast a glow upon me that would cause other women to shield their eyes. Bonus, he would also be one that I would or have welcomed a physical connection with.

Now, again, to be honest, I would have settled for less than the perfect man: alive, able to speak, remembers my name, does not appear to be homeless. You get it.

While the world was on lock down — well it was not the best time to go out to meet men. Not the best time to go out at all. So my plans were all quite cerebral. I mean I have a couple of options from my past, but I didn’t want my invitation to be an invitation for anything else, whether I wanted that or not. Too much pressure.

I made no headway. And 2021 was just around the corner.

I remembered my vow from 2019. And I was willing to go outside my comfort zone. How far outside your comfort zone you ask?

I invited a longtime acquaintance, a man who had been my parent’s senior services caseworker, a man who has invited my family to visit him at his beach house, a man who advised me over the years with my kids’ college choices, an educated man, a man who comes from wealth, a brilliant conversationalist who would fit right in with the one-percenters who attend the event.

This man, who I’ll call Brady, was damn near perfect. However, he was also around half my age and gay. I’m even taller than him.

How much more of a stereotype, cliche, over used trope could I be? The not quite so young single woman who shows up with a younger gay man. I mean it doesn’t happen as much anymore since gay men are more comfortable being out and proud. I can’t even think of a recent pop culture reference. But trust me, there was a time where a – closeted or not – gay man date was a thing.

Anyway, Brady — is that what I said? I finally worked up the nerve to text him and ask. I made sure to note that I wasn’t asking him to pretend to be my boyfriend or anything and that it might be a good business opportunity for him — he’s into real estate and the families at this party have or plan to have or may want to sell beach houses.

It took him an interminably long time, to me, to respond. But to my delight he said he’d be pleased to come, he just had to check his schedule – and also find friends to stay with — he lives out of town. I got my hopes up. Although he’s much younger than me, he was prematurely gray and presented as preppy old money so it might not have been that obvious that we were not a couple, except for the fact that there would be no physical contact and his sexual orientation might come up in conversation. That might be a problem. I would be outted as actually dateless. So not exactly the romantic plus one I’d hoped for but still–I’d show up with a rich, younger man who I enjoy hanging out with. I was almost looking forward to it.

I should have known.

He declined at the last minute.

He didn’t have a place to stay and had just started a new job, etc. Truthfully, I was just glad he had entertained the thought and grateful he wasn’t offended. I do believe he had been planning to come, but it would require him to spend the night somewhere and it wouldn’t have been with me. Anyway, it gave me a few blissful days to think I would have lived up to the vow I made to you people — and myself.

So there I was, back to the where I’d been 8 years earlier. No date.

Yeah, I think I’ll have to make this a two-part entry . . . stay tuned.

Just me with — you guessed it — no date.

This sounds much more pathetic than it is. I swear.