May 23, 2005

Tales From The Crib

Surfing for Mr. Right – vicariously

“Look at this, will you?” My best friend Sue sounded disgusted. She passed me her laptop, which was open to her e-mail inbox. She had four new messages: “winks” from single men who had seen her profile on Match.com and were interested.

Jennifer Margulis

“That’s great!” I grabbed the computer from her. “Let’s write them!”

Although Sue had recently given up on finding a boyfriend, I thought staying up late Internet surfing for Mr. Right was nothing less than thrilling. At the helm of her computer, I get to pretend that I don’t have a husband and three small children. Sue’s singlehood gives me an excuse to scope out good-looking guys.

So while Sue squirms uncomfortably, I get down to business at the keyboard, crafting witty responses to my best friend’s potential soulmates, and signing her name at the bottom.

Can you blame me for envying her a little and wanting to live vicariously? As a mommy with three small children in a stable marriage, it’s hard for me not to yearn for her freedom sometimes. My life now is all about changing the baby’s poopy diapers, scrubbing dried scrambled eggs off the edge of the kitchen table and coaxing my daughters out of their pajamas every morning. In the five years since the birth of my first baby, I’ve barely had an uninterrupted night’s sleep. Sue, on the other hand, lives with two other single 30-something friends who hold “Game Night” once a week; she goes to loud dance parties where the theme is pink; plays in a weeklong ultimate Frisbee tournament in Hawaii; and — here’s the clincher — sleeps as late as she wants to on the weekends.

So as Sue rolls her eyes, I roll up my sleeves, pour myself a glass of wine, and check out the guys who winked her.

The first message is from Howlin’ Wolf. Hirsute in face but balding on top, he looks like a psycho-killer. “I liked your profile,” he writes, “and I’m partial to big-chested women. No offense or anything but from your photo it looks like you have big breasts.” Charming.

When I first met Sue, who was my college roommate, I had no idea that we’d become lifelong best friends. After all, Sue was wearing a purple sweatshirt with little white bunnies on the front and hanging up a poster of teddy bears. Things went from bad to worse when her boyfriend Evan walked in. Boyfriend? They’d already been together for two years whereas in high school I’d never gotten past a first kiss.

But we stayed up all night talking in excited whispers about our difficult mothers and academic fathers, our pesky brothers (hers a twin, mine just a year older than me), our desire to do some good in the world and our wish to have lots of children. As our friendship grew, so did the feeling that we were soul sisters. There was one big difference though. While Sue always had a steady and attentive boyfriend, I flitted from one bad relationship to another. Her boyfriends brought her coffee in bed in the morning, mine brought me heartache.

That’s why I was always sure that Sue would get married and have children long before I did. But she didn’t. It was Sue who steadied my husband’s hand as he cut our oldest daughter’s cord, Sue who made lasagna to freeze during the week after my second baby’s due date when every new morning failed to produce a single contraction, and Sue who sewed my kids matching purple and gray bunny costumes for Halloween.

Aunty Sue is always ready to throw a ball to the baby, doesn’t grump when the kids wake her up in the morning and is so patient and loving and kind to them that I sometimes think she’s the one who deserves children so much more than I.

Which is why I’m on a mission to find her a husband.

The next message is more than a wink. It’s a long email from a tall thin man who calls himself “Cheddar,” and who writes that he noticed they both share a concern for the environment and a love of nature. I — I mean Sue — write him back three long paragraphs and suggest coffee.

After the e-mail is sent, though, I panic. What if Cheddar actually turns out to be Mr. Right? Then I’ll have no legitimate reason to check out the hunks on Match.com. But I do have five years’ worth of baby clothes to pass along to Sue. Now, if only she’d let me come on their coffee date.