“Casey, welcome, we’re so glad you’ve decided to drop by today. I’m Dolores.” The slightly plump woman stuck out her unlined hand.
Casey noticed that Dolores did have a simple gold band on the correct finger, so she decided that she could trust her, “Thank you. I’m kind of excited.”
”Oh, you should be. Most of our clients are when they first get here.” Dolores smoothed her eggplant colored skirt and adjusted the matching jacket.
Dolores was very professional, very put together, from the top of her shiny, black bob with cherry highlights down to her patent black pumps with an eggplant trim. Even her nails were professional, short but manicured. This looked like quite the operation.
“Right this way, Casey.” Dolores motioned for Casey to follow her into a pristine office.
The office was not exactly to Casey’s taste, with its wealth of flowery pillows, but the plush mauve carpet soothed her in an odd way. The place definitely reeked of femininity, and Casey figured she could use a bit of that.
Dolores gestured towards a cushy leather chair, and Casey sat, gently smoothing her beige skirt under her as she sat. She had carefully chosen her wardrobe that morning, not wanting to appear too eager, but not wanting to look too casual either. She had to remember that <i>she</i> was paying for the service, she was the client, and remembering this, she had brushed by her business suit and settled on something just between business casual and meant for a Sunday afternoon stroll. She had refrained from straightening her wavy auburn hair, and let it fall to her shoulders, pulled back with a tortoise-shell headband. Her grey, fitted blouse was brightened by the teal tank top peaking out from underneath, just the color to highlight her turquoise eyes. And her satin flats were comfortable but elegant. Casey stopped herself from fiddling with the gold hoop in her left ear and hoped that Dolores appreciated the effort.
”Are you ready now, Dear?” Dolores spoke as though she were much older than she appeared. Casey pegged her at not a day older than 35, but she talked like one of the soapy-smelling sixty-somethings at the elementary school where Casey worked.
“I suppose. I’m not exactly sure what to expect.”
“Well, you don’t have to worry. All of our clients have been one hundred percent satisfied.”
“Uh huh. So, where do we start?” Casey noticed that Dolores had not answered her question, and she briefly wondered if this was a red flag or a misunderstanding.
”First you fill out this profile.” Dolores handed a clipboard to Casey with her manicured hand.
“Oh, I’ve filled out these before. I’ve had so many online profiles, I’ve lost count!”
Dolores stared at Casey.
“May I borrow a pen?”
Dolores handed Casey a plain bic pen, which was something of a disappointment given the uber-girly office.
Casey took her time, careful to answer each question honestly but concisely, careful to include everything she considered important and to make sure she didn’t accidentally include anything misleading. She had once mentioned her passion for painting water colors but neglected to mention that she painted maybe once a year and had found herself in a relationship with a man who thought they should spend each Sunday at a park so that she would feel “inspired.” So, Casey did not write down her passion for water colors, but she did write down her passion for baking chocolate chip cookies, her desire to live in Italy and her strong dislike of cigarettes.
“Almost done, Dear?” Dolores looked impatient and slowly began to tap her fingers against the oak desk.
Case looked up, “Yes, just a few more questions.”
Are you usually on time or usually late? Late but working on that.
Do you prefer to dine out or eat in? Depends on my mood.
Do you eat breakfast? Uh….yes.
Would you forgive a cheating spouse? Forgive, yes. Forget, probably not.
Casey was beginning to feel a bit like her personal life had been invaded and she worried about what she had signed up for when she took a friend’s advice and called The Dating Center. The friend, now happily married with a baby on the way, said that had it not been for The Dating Center, she would never have met her husband and may never have gotten married at all. That friend, like Casey, had a tendency to go on a lot of first dates, a few second and even fewer thirds. So Casey trusted that The Dating Center might work for her, as well, and at this point, with thirty just around the corner, she was getting desperate.
Casey checked one final box, a “yes” next to “Would you consider dating someone who didn’t fit with your ‘ideal’ specifications?” and handed the clipboard to Dolores.
Dolores scanned it, made cryptic notations next to a few of the answers, with a lilac colored pen, quite possibly a Montblanc and spoke what was clearly a well-rehearsed introduction, “Casey. As you may have noticed, The Dating Center, is not your average dating service. We will not ask you to video tape a message. In fact, we consider that rather crude. We will not ask you to post your information on the Internet. We consider that rather passe. We will, instead, introduce you to the male clients who meet with your specifications and leave it to you and your suitors to work out the details. You should know that the men go through the same orientation and other procedures as the women, and you are all matched based on profile.”
Of course, Casey already know this was no average dating service. When she had walked into the unobtrusive building, she had been ushered into a private waiting room, giving her no opportunity to chat with fellow single women, and Dolores seemed to be her personal, uhm, Casey didn’t know the words to describe Dolores, but settled on matchmaker.
“Okay.” Casey responded to Dolores’ expectant smile.
“Splendid. Well, let me go enter your profile into our database, and we’ll see if any of your potential matches are available today.”
“Today?”
“Yes.” Dolores arched a perfectly plucked (or possibly waxed or threaded) eyebrow, “At The Dating Center, we believe that when potential exists, it should be acted upon with alacrity.”
“Alright.” Casey watched as Dolores stood, punched a few numbers into a keypad on the wall and walked through a door that opened up seemingly out of no where from the rose-print wallpaper. Casey caught a glimpse of flashing lights and heard the whir of printers.
Always anxious in a room by herself, Casey reached for her purse, pulled out her cell phone, flipped through the photos stored on the phone’s miniscule memory, made sure she’d deleted the phone numbers of the men with whom she’d most recently gone on unsuccessful dates, sent a quick text to her best friend and then quietly berated herself for being so fidgety and set the phone back in her purse and the purse back on the floor.
And Dolores returned.
“Casey, we do have several potentials for you this afternoon. And, Casey, you know, it’s only Wednesday, so you may very well have a date for yourself this weekend.” Dolores forced a smile at Casey and Casey silently cursed her now married and quite pregnant friend for the recommendation.
“Great!” Casey forced her own emotion, not quite believing that a man she would meet in the next five minutes might interest her enough to go on a date this weekend. Even with online dating, she usually e-mailed back and forth for a couple of weeks before agreeing to a date.
Dolores headed out of the mauve room and out into the pristine white hallway. She turned left, and Casey followed her. She looked around in confusion mixed with amazement as she saw that the hallway contained hundreds of doors, each closed, each with no label. Dolores’ shiny pumps click-clacked on the floor as she walked purposefully down the hallway. She turned once to make sure Casey was behind her, and Casey hurried to catch up.
“Through this door, you will find Marc. He is 29, like you, a lawyer of mixed European descent, Protestant and has a tendency to forget anniversaries, birthdays and other important events. I’ll be waiting outside.” Dolores held a door open and nodded her head towards the entrance.
Casey was stunned and unable to do anything other than walk through the door to meet forgetful Marc.
Seated in a wrought-iron cafe chair was Marc, a tall, fairly normal looking man with glasses and a decent smile, “Hi, Casey, right?”
“Yes, that’s me.”
“Great, Roger told me all about you.” Marc stood to pull out another wrought-iron chair for her.
The whole room looked like a cafe. Pots of flowers, brightly painted walls, black and white photos hung throughout.
“Roger?”
“My caseworker.”
“Oh, like Dolores? Caseworker sounds a bit harsh. I was going with matchmaker.”
“Well, aren’t you optimistic?” Marc said without the slightest trace of sarcasm.
Marc and Casey spoke briefly. March shared that he worked in family law, and Casey brightened, mentioning that she was a third grade teacher and sometimes baffled by the complicated living situations of her students. A few more moments of general chit-chat passed and then, without warning, a screen came down from the ceiling, and suddenly Casey and Marc were watching themselves on screen. Casey was crying and saying that she couldn’t believe that he’d forgotten her birthday, especially since they’d been together for three years. Marc apologized sternly saying that he had told her from the beginning that this was his fault, and that it wasn’t going to change. The screen retracted and a button popped up on the table between them. The button had an LCD screen with one question, “Can you have this fight forever?” with two buttons one “yes” and one “no” underneath.
Casey stared at Marc, “Did you know this would happen?”
Marc smiled gently, “Yeah, this is my second week. I still haven’t found the right fit.”
Casey’s face clouded with confusion, “Do you always have the same fight? Like is it always so one sided? What about my faults?”
“Oh, those will come up, too, but in this case, they’re predicting that my fault would outweigh yours and that our constant fight would be about my forgetting special events.”
“Ah.” Casey knew now why Dolores had said this was no normal dating service. She pressed no, stuck her hand out towards Marc, “It was nice to meet you, but I really like getting birthday presents. On time.”
Marc shook her hand, “Good luck, Casey.”
”No go?” Dolores was waiting right outside the cafe room.
“Not this one.”
“A shame. Actually, I’ve never had a first meeting of the day match, especially not with a new client. Marc’s rather nice though. I think he’ll need someone equally forgetful. It might take a while, you know how women are about holidays.” Dolores chuckled to herself, “Ready to keep going?”
“Sure. Dolores?”
“Yes?”
“How did they get us on the video monitors? We hadn’t met before. We haven’t dated.”
“Oh, Dear, you should see your face. No, no, don’t worry, we don’t have video feed of you in your personal life, we just have your profile images and the database creates a mock argument based on the profiles you both completed. The matches you have today, or in the future, have been carefully selected out of thousands of potentials. We won’t put you with someone who goes against a few major points. For example, you will not meet anyone today with the propensity to cheat, because of your answer to the relevant question on the profile.”
“Ah, okay.”
“Next up is Tommy. Tommy is 32, a private high school basketball coach, Catholic and has been known to argue with his girlfriends in public.”
“Pass.”
“You don’t even want to meet him? He’s quite handsome.” Dolores paused with her hand on the door.”
“I don’t mind PDAs but I despise public arguments. I don’t think that was anywhere on the profile.”
“You’re right, Casey, if we included every single possible question we would like to ask, that profile would take hours to complete and then we’d have no clients.” Dolores continued down the hallway.
Casey followed her, she entered a few doors, chatted with the men inside a pizza parlor, a bookstore and a museum cafe. She saw arguments about pets, which friends they would hang out with, bank accounts and more, but she kept hitting “no” when asked, “Could you have this fight forever?”
After the tenth and final meeting of the day, Dolores led Casey back to her office, “So, you met no one today, but you will have more chances in the coming weeks. You’ll just set up a convenient appointment and we’ll match you up again.”
“Dolores, may I ask a bit more about your process?”
“It’s your dollar, Dear,” reminding Casey that the payment structure for The Dating Center was more along the lines of a law firm, with billable hours, than the monthly fees of online dating sites.
”Well, it’s worth it so I can decide if I want to come back anytime soon. What’s the logic behind The Dating Center. What’s the philosophy?”
Dolores paused, tucked an invisible hair back into her impecable bob and answered, “Researches, well, really a group of women who had been friends for years,” Dolores lowered her voice to a whisper, “found that no matter what, they and their boyfriends or husbands would always have the same fights. The fights varied by relationship, but no matter what, the personalities they went into the relationship with dictated the one fight that would remain a constant. Sometimes there was more than one contstant, but each and every relationship had at least one. Two people, no matter how long they are together, will fight about the same thing. The women decided that they would help other women abandon those three date relationships that go nowhere or those four month relationships that end in frustration by letting both men and women see, before things even get started, what that one fight will be and decide mutually if they can live with that fight over and over again.”
Dolores paused for a breath and Casey jumped in. “Did you use The Dating Center?”
Dolores looked at her plain gold band. “Yes. Every few weeks or few months we fight about chores. The exact chores change from fight to fight, but our main fight is always about who is responsible for the chores. We’ve gotten better at the fights, and, of course, like any couple we have others, but that fight has staying power.”
“And the video feed told you this would be your fight?” Casey has begun to see more than one flaw in The Dating Center’s logic.
“Yes.”
“And you don’t think that influenced you to have that fight over and over again? If you had met some other way, do you think it might have been another fight?”
“Well, Casey,” Dolores is back in her professional mode, “Eharmony has had huge success with computer predicted matching, so we thought what about computer predicted fights. We take predominant characteristics, match them up and see what happens. My husband hates doing chores, and I hate feeling like the person who does everything. He doesn’t hate contributing to the household, and he’ll cook for me, and do other things that I might not ask, but he simply abhors having to take out the trash. It was the same when he was single. He always convinced his roommates to do the dirty work. I like control but don’t like feeling burdened, so I don’t mind assigning him chores that aren’t so bothersome for him, but I tend to get annoyed when he won’t do even those.”
“Was that on the video screen when you first met?”
“No. The exactly predicted fight was different, but it had the same meaning.”
“Oh. Well, I’m not sure I want to do this. I understand where The Dating Center is coming from, but I think I’d rather just figure out the fights on my own.”
Dolores looked startled, her mascaraed lashes twitched just a bit, and she started to speak. Before her words could fully form on her tongue, a buzzing started to come from her computer. She smiled at Casey and turned to the computer.
“Would you be willing to try one more meeting?”
“I’ve had ten, Dolores.” Casey reached for her purse, “I’m tired, and I want to go home. And I don’t want to come back.”
“Not just one more?”
“Are you going to get fired if I leave? You’ll still get paid.” Casey felt an impulse to get out of the room as quickly as possible.
“No. Okay. Casey, I’m sorry we couldn’t do more for you, but I also hope you won’t give up on dating.”
“Oh, I won’t.”
“You’re getting up there in age, and I can understand that feeling of desperation.” Dolores gave me a tight smile, stood and clasped Casey’s hands between hers, “You’ll be okay.”
Casey eased herself up from the squishy chair and backed towards the door, she open the knob with the hand behind her back and opened it, “Thank you, Dolores, really. I appreciate it. Take care.”
Dolores just stood still behind her desk, her eyes still and unblinking.
Casey walked cautiously out of the door before starting a fast walk out of the unobtrusive building and was up to a full run by the time she reached the familiar sidewalk outside.
A rush of hot air hit her in the face, and it was a welcome relief after the icy air conditioning of The Dating Center.
Two weeks later
Recovered from her odd experience and cautiously optimistic about entering the dating scene again, Caesy met up with a blind date at a coffee shop a few blocks from the school where she taught. He was a son of one her mother’s friends from church and seemed like a safe bet for a harmless first date. She’d long ago grown exhausted from telling her mother not to set her up and now simply accepted if the date wouldn’t demand too much of her.
“Casey?” A slim, blonde man in a polo shirt and jeans stood as she walked into the cafe.
“Dave?” Seeing him in such casual clothing, she didn’t regret wearing her work clothes, her play with third graders clothes.
“It’s nice to meet you. Did you have trouble finding the place?”
“Uh, no, it’s just around the corner from my office.”
“Oh, right right right. My mom said you’re a teacher in this neighborhood.”
“Yes indeedy.”
“Awesome. So, shall we get a coffee?”
“That’d be great.” Casey headed towards the barista and placed her uncomplicated order. Dave stood next to her and ordered something Casey could hardly comprehend, “And light on the foam, please.”
The barista, though, handled it with ease and rattled off the order to her co-worker.
Casey smiled at Dave, “You’re quite the expert at this coffee thing. Do you always order such, oh, high maintenance drinks?” Her voice teased gently. She liked the looks of Dave and considered a second date a genuine possibility if he didn’t do anything to annoy her too much in the next hour.
“I admit it. I’m a bit of a city guy, and I have my needs.”
“He has his needs. He’s a city guy.” A voice spoke, and a hand reached out with a cup of caramel colored coffee.
Casey turned from Dave with words still unspoken on her lips and looked into the face of Dolores. “Uh, oh. Yeah, I can do the city. I like the country, too.”
She maintained her composure and resisted the urge to stair open-mouthed at the cherry-highlighted woman in a green polo shirt and apron.
“I can’t do country. Blech, dirt, mice, tractors.”
The Dolores look-alike (it couldn’t really be her, could it?) handed over Casey’s Chai Latte with a smile, “Mmm, country air.”
“Thank you.” Casey took her drink and started to walk back to their table.
“Can’t stand it. I like the smell of diesel fumes and the business.”
“Even a weekend out in the country? Can you handle that?” Dolores’s presence had unnerved Casey her question came out both overtly flirtatious and mildly annoyed.
“I certainly couldn’t handle not going to the country, though I haven’t been in forever!” Dolores-clone stretched out the last word.
“You know, Dave, it’s such a nice day, would you rather walk while we drink these?” Casey had to get out of the cafe. She caught Dolores looking at her and Casey narrowed her eyes.
“Uh, sure. Why not?” Dave put a lid on his coffee and started to follow Casey.
Without a backwards glance at Dolores, Casey walked straight out of the cafe. She turned briefly to wait for Dave, took a deep breath and prepared herself for another first date that could lead anywhere…or nowhere.
