Chapter 3

Merrick

After spending nearly two days going through the entire online profile setup, I finally gained access to my special online area where Patty connected me with potential matches. It was surprisingly less exciting than I thought it would be. Basically, Patty gave me access to women’s profiles that she thought would be a good match for me. She made notes by them about why she saw them as a good match, and it was left up to me to contact them. I wasn’t exactly sure what I had envisioned the process looking like, but it certainly seemed more exciting in my head.

On Sunday morning after my investment club meeting with my friends, I sat down and began the process of analyzing profiles to see if there were any women that I wanted to go out with. Patty had compiled a list of amazing women. The women she matched me up with all had college degrees and a career, which was instantly a relief for me. I could date a ditzy model anytime I wanted, they were a dime a dozen. If I was going to consider a solid relationship, the woman was going to have to offer me more than just a pretty body.

After reading profiles for almost an hour, it was a relief when Dean called and wanted to drop by. He had recently settled down with a hot young actress, named Angelina, and they split their time between New York and Los Angeles; although they were in L.A. more often lately.

Dean and I hadn’t been close when we first met, but over his year in New York and his involvement in the investment club, I’d come to count on his opinions. He was the only one in my tight circle who was older than me and actually had some serious life experiences that I could trust.

“Hey, man, how are you?” I said as I greeted Dean at my door.

“Doing really good man, just in town for the day, and I missed you at the investment meeting. I had a chance to see Wyatt and Ren but wanted to stop by and catch up.”

“Should we go grab a beer?”

“Actually, I’m on this healthy juicing thing right now. Do you mind heading to one of the juice bars?”

“Wow, this girl really does have you wrapped around her fingers.”

I couldn’t believe how much Dean had changed since meeting Angelina. He was more confident than he had ever been while in New York. Although, while he did his play on Broadway he had no problem meeting ladies, there was a general level of sadness about him back then. Now, with Angelina and love in his life, Dean was smiling from ear to ear. He looked fit and in better shape than I’d ever seen him, and he was making a huge comeback with his movie career.

“Man, I can’t tell you how often I think that, but I don’t care. I’d rather be wrapped around her sexy ass fingers than be without her.”

“Well, a good cup of juice never hurt anyone.” I laughed. “Let’s go. I could use your advice on my own dating dilemma.”

We made our way down the block to the only juice bar I knew of in my neighborhood. I hadn’t actually gone in there before, but I wasn’t getting any younger. A little healthiness would be good for me. I’d walked past the place at least a hundred times, but I had no idea what to order and didn’t want to look like one of those crazy people who stood in the juice line for an hour. Healthiness hadn’t really been on my radar until I turned forty, then I suddenly started caring about what was happening to my body.

“So I signed up for a matchmaking service,” I said with a look of disgust on my face. “Am I totally crazy?”

I looked around the juice bar and felt pretty damn crazy. Everyone was dressed in workout clothes and seemed like they were on the way to the gym or just getting done with their workouts. I looked wildly out of place with my business suit.

“Good for you, Merrick. I’m not sure you’re ready for it.” He laughed. “But good for you. No, I don’t think you are crazy.”

“Yeah, I don’t think I am either. I’m on the fence about it, but maybe I’ll find a good match?”

“My advice is to date a few girls that you know aren’t right for you but are still decent women. You’ve been dating a lot of bad apples; it will be good for you to see some nice women. It might give you some clarity on what it is you are really looking for.”

I grabbed my phone and pulled up the online for Millionaire Matching. Patty had added even more women, and it was overwhelming. The think about it all was that I didn’t see any of the women I had dated as being bad apples. They were each unique, and I’d loved that about them. I wasn’t sure I was going to pick women that were any different, even given a better crop of women to choose from.

“Look, they are all beautiful, intelligent, and seem like the perfect combination. How the hell am I supposed to choose?”

“Since when is choosing a problem for you? Just go out with them, have some fun.”

“I had to sign a contract that I wasn’t going to sleep with them.”

“Ouch, ever? You’re not going to sleep with them ever?”

“No, Patty has a policy about being in a committed relationship, though, and I agreed.” I could see Dean’s wheels turning in his head exactly like they had for me. “And yes, I did consider just making it a committed relationship right away.” I laughed.

“This is going to be a challenge for you. Are you interested in getting married? What is your goal with these dates?”

“I don’t want to seem like a jerk here, and I wouldn’t say this to anyone else, but they all seem about the same to me. I am interested in something more than what I’ve been doing so far. I have no idea what that will entail, but I want a woman that is my match. She doesn’t have to be perfect to everyone, just perfect to me.”

“I get you,” Dean said as he scrolled through the list. “You’ll need to delve deeper than usual. Read between the lines a little. Like this one, it says she spends a lot of time in the Hamptons.”

“Dean, what’s wrong with the Hamptons?”

“Oh, come on. You know the type of woman who likes to go out there all the time. She’s more into social status than anything else. That’s something to pay attention to. Women are going to make their profile look appealing, and that’s great; you should do the same thing with yours. What is important is to see what they are telling you, without them actually telling you.”

“Oh, man! You’re right!” I hadn’t thought about that at all when I had read her profile. “What about this one? I don’t see anything alarming.”

Dean read over the profile of a nice looking brunette. She was tall, thin, smart, and sexy; certainly, there wasn’t anything wrong from what I could see on her profile. He looked through it and then scrolled to the top again.

“I’d go out with her,” he joked. “The only thing I think you should watch out for is this sentence right here.”

“Looking for an honest man,” I read. “What’s wrong with that? Honesty is an important thing for me too. Are you telling me that her looking for honesty is a bad thing?”

“In my experience, it means she was hurt badly by some jerk and isn’t over it. If she starts talking about him, run for the hills.”

We both laughed as we sipped our green health drinks and analyzed the other women that Patty had sent over for me to review. After we were done, I had narrowed down the group of women to three that I wanted to go on a date with.

“You know, for once I’d just like to see a woman who puts it all out there in one of these profiles.” Dean laughed. “Like states exactly what she wants, what she has no idea about, and who she really is. It does seem like we have to guess about everything.”

“There’s an art to selling yourself, I guess. I don’t fault a woman for putting her best foot forward. I just don’t have the time or energy to date them all to figure out who is a good fit for me.”

“One thing I can tell you is you’ll know it when you come across the girl. When I matched up with Angelina, it wasn’t love at first sight, but I knew there was something special about her. She drove me crazy, and none of the other women did that. Even if a girl doesn’t look perfect on paper, but you’ve got a feeling about her, give her a date. That’s the best advice I have.”

“I don’t get those kinds of feelings about women,” I said with a laugh. “I like them all.”

“No, this will be different. She’ll annoy you. She’ll make you laugh. You’ll put your phone away and find yourself wondering if she messaged you. You might even think she’s not at all the person you’re looking for, but there’s a connection between the two of you that you just can’t deny. That’s when you know it’s the girl.”

“Wish me luck, then, because I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Good luck.” Dean laughed as we toasted with our green juice. “To your happily ever after, may you find it when you least expect it.”

“Ha, yep, I don’t know if I’m ready for happily ever after yet. I’ll settle for happily in the moment.”

***

Date number one was with Cynthia, a financial broker from New York with blonde hair and big boobs. Of course, I wasn’t going out with her because of her physical attributes, but they were a bonus. When I arrived at her door to pick her up, I instantly knew this girl wasn’t for me.

There was a strong odor coming from her apartment long before she actually opened the door. When she did open the door, the odor practically knocked me off my feet. It smelt like an actual zoo in her apartment, I couldn’t understand how that was even possible in the middle of Manhattan. I’d never been to a woman’s apartment that smelt as badly as this one did. I wanted to turn around and run in the other direction, but I already had her standing right there in front of me.

“Wow,” I said more in response to the smell than to her looks, although she was very beautiful.

“Thank you; it’s nice to finally meet you.”

She grabbed her coat and shut the apartment door, but there was no stopping the smell that still lingered. She was drenched in the stench, and I could only hope that the farther away from her apartment that we got, the better she was going to smell. Because at that moment, I couldn’t imagine making it through a single drink with this woman let alone a whole date.

“Do you have a lot of animals?” I asked as we walked down the hallway.

“Oh, yes, I love animals. I’ve got three dogs, four cats, and eight birds. I used to have a bat, but one of the cats ate it.”

I wanted to stop the date right then and there and plead false advertising. She should have mentioned her extreme penchant for animals in her profile. I’m an animal lover as much as the next guy, but when you have more animals than family members, it’s just too much.

I pushed through it though because I didn’t want to be the jerk who ran out on his first date through the Millionaire Matching program. For three long hours, I pretended to be interested in this girl, and we enjoyed a nice dinner and drinks. If I didn’t have a contract with Patty, I probably would have brought her back to my place, but I didn’t, and instead walked her to her door and said my goodnights I was at least going to be a gentleman and walk her to her door.

“It was nice meeting you. I wish you the best in finding your match,” I said bluntly at her door.

I didn’t stick around for small talk, but at least I had actually walked her back to her door. I had considered dropping her off at the front of the building but decided against it at the last moment. I wasn’t a cruel man, but I also wasn’t the right man for this girl, that was for sure.

“You too,” she replied with a fake smile.

By the next morning, Patty was calling me, and I knew I was in trouble.. At least I hadn’t slept with the girl. That was my only saving grace as I answered her call and prepared to explain what had happened.

“You’re not even trying!” Patty yelled.

“Oh, I tried.”

“You brushed her off.”

“No, I was up front and honest with her. You should be praising me. I didn’t sleep with her. You don’t want me to pretend to like someone when I don’t, right? I should have canceled the date the moment I picked her up, but I didn’t. I gave her a chance.”

“You didn’t even like her; why would you sleep with her? Oh, don’t even tell me. Okay, so why were you going to cancel the date when you picked her up?”

“I liked her enough to sleep with her. Nothing has ever stopped me from sleeping with a beautiful woman before,” I argued. “She smelled like a zoo and had more animals in her apartment than anyone I’ve ever met.”

I expected Patty to fight me on this one, but she paused for a minute and seemed to be flipping through some papers.

“She said she likes animals in her profile,” Patty said flatly. “I didn’t realize she was so extreme about it. But you can’t just brush them off like that. Try a little more tact next time, please.”

“I’ll try.” I laughed. “I’m going out with Robyn, the elementary school teacher next.”

“She’s nice, but I don’t think you two are going to hit it off now. It’s probably not a match. Have you already scheduled your date?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, but be nice to her; she’s a fragile one.”

“Fine, but why don’t you try to find me some better matches? None of these girls seem like a good fit for me. I mean they are nice women, obviously beautiful, but I need more personality in a woman.”

“I’ll see what I can find.”

My date with Robyn, the elementary school teacher wasn’t horrible. She was a nice girl, and I was positive she’d find a match someday, but I just wasn’t it. The chemistry between us was nonexistent, and I could hardly keep my eyes open as she talked about the children in her class for over an hour. I commended her on dedicating her life to children, but it wasn’t the kind of life I had, and I found it difficult to imagine the two of us having much in common.

“Thank you for going out with me. I appreciate your time, and I really hope you at least enjoyed our evening.”

“Oh, yes, I did. It’s hard to know if you’re right for someone until you go out with them. I don’t think we are a good fit, though. What do you think?”

“Probably not.”

“Well, maybe you’ll find your match, or maybe God has some other plan for you. Enjoy your evening,” she said as she got up to leave the restaurant.

“I have to insist on taking you home,” I said as I quickly followed her.

“I’m okay.”

“No, Patty would be angry with me.” I laughed. “I can’t be a jerk. It’s in my contract.”

“Okay then, only for Patty.”

Robyn let me ride in the Uber with her back to her apartment, and we said goodbye. She was a really nice woman, and I genuinely hoped she found her match, although I didn’t think she was going to find it on the Millionaire Matching site unless she was willing to give up her job.

It was horrible to think, but most of the millionaires probably were looking for a woman who didn’t work. What a contradiction that was. We wanted smart, independent women, but then wanted them to give up their jobs and follow us around so we didn’t have to coordinate with their schedules..

I went out with the last woman that I had liked from the batch of Patty’s matches. Sahara was a dancer and had a lean dancer’s body. She had a picture of her dancing in a ballet, and I liked that. The artistic type of woman was always someone I enjoyed being around. Although I wasn’t very artistic myself, I thought that personality type complemented me well.

It turned out that Sahara had been lying about her history and was actually an ex-stripper and just looking for a sugar daddy. When I told Patty this, she was irate and vowed to ban the girl from her program forever. It was a nice gesture, but I felt bad because I was sure she would have matched up with one of the men eventually. Most of the men I knew would overlook a woman’s history if it meant they got to have a beautiful woman on their arm.

I was done with the dating site for the time being. Patty needed to find me some better matches or at least some women who were honest. I didn’t have time for traditional dating, and that was why I had paid so much to join the exclusive millionaire club. I wanted that perfect match, the woman I wouldn’t be able to live without. I wanted what I saw Dean and Wyatt had. It was funny because I hadn’t been so agreeable to the whole forever loving a woman thing until I had seen how happy those two guys were.

Perhaps I was expecting too much in going to the club. Visions of sexy women throwing themselves at me were a little too much, but I didn’t think dating was this hard. Then again, I hadn’t dated much with the purpose of having a relationship. My history in the dating world was much more concentrated on the short term. Although I logically knew these two worlds were different, I hadn’t been aware of how vastly different they were when it came to the quality of woman I was looking for.

Patty was surprisingly scary to me, though. I didn’t want it to get back to her again that I wasn’t being appropriate with one of her girls because I was pretty sure she’d kick me out of her club for good. Even though I wasn’t sure I’d find the perfect girl for me right away, or that I’d be ready for her if I did, I didn’t want the opportunity to be taken away from me.

My phone dinged with a notification, and I got a little excited as I went back into the Millionaire Matching application. Who had Patty Matched me up with now?