After a long, hard day at work, Roxanna had very little energy left. It was all she could do to drag herself over to the office of the dating service she belonged to, to resume her search for that perfect man.

It was a cool, gray March day. It looked like rain was coming soon. So that was all the more reason it was so difficult for Roxanna to feel motivated about driving over to the dating service on that day.

But Roxanna hadn’t had a man in her life, nor in her bed, since her husband had died over a year before. At 45, she was still an attractive, curvaceous woman with a very healthy sexual appetite. She knew in her heart that she deserved better than the drought her love life was going through—especially since she’d already endured a 17-year marriage with very little love, affection, and yes damn it, not enough sex!

So that thought alone was motive enough now to propel Roxanna over to the dating service’s office on that evening. She was terribly lonely. And often desperately horny. "Damn it, why is it so taboo for a woman to admit she gets downright desperately horny sometimes? More often than most men would ever realize!"

And besides her unrelenting and unquenched horniness, Roxanna had another reason to want a man in her life. Raising her 8-year-old son by herself, ever since her husband had passed on, was damned hard. Roxanna told herself that she deserved to find a man who would be good to her. And to her son.

So even though the dating service was in the opposite direction from how she normally drove home from work, and even though she was dog tired, Roxanna was determined to at least try to find a good man to date. That’s why she’d shelled out 300 of her hard-earned bucks to join the dating service in the first place!

Roxanna well knew that you couldn’t find a good man by picking up guys at a bar. By dating a coworker. By letting friends and relatives fix you up on blind dates. She had tried all of those methods. And they had all been disasters.

At least with a dating service, Roxanna could read what a guy has to say about himself. She could watch a video of the guy, and could read his body language. So when they finally would meet, at least she would already know something about him.

And before their first date, Roxanna’s date would have already read what she had to say about herself. And he would have seen her body language on her own video.

“Yes,” Roxanna had told herself when she decided to join, “this whole dating service concept seems like the best way to find the right man. And to avoid unexpected surprises about each other.”

The dating service was in a small office in a three-story, mixed-use office building. On the ground floor were a small sandwich shop and a local branch bank. Roxanna wearily climbed the outside stairway to the second floor. She passed a lawyer's office, a dentist's office, and trudged down to the end of the hallway. She pushed open the big glass door to the dating service, and she stepped into the small, familiar room.

Two walls were lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves full of red binders, containing various women's written profiles about themselves. She briefly thought about the fact that her own profile was somewhere in one of those binders.

Roxanna made a beeline directly to one of the other two walls of the room. A wall whose floor-to-ceiling bookshelves contained green binders, filled with written profiles of single men. She flipped through the plastic-covered pages of many of those binders. She even found a few men to date. But none of them seemed good husband material. At least not so far.

As she reached up on tiptoes to pull down yet another green binder, the curvaceous 5'2" Roxanna wondered, "What's the point?" Was it really worth hoping that maybe this binder would lead to a husband—or even to a really memorable fuck—when none of the other binders had so far succeeded?

Still, Roxanna had suffered a terribly lonely year since her husband had died of a progressive three-year illness. She no longer had a man to spend time with, to talk to, or to help raise Bobby, her adopted 8-year-old son. And worse, she had no man to wrap her achingly lonely arms around in bed at night.

So she sat at one of the dozen small tables in the center of the room, cracked open another green binder, and once more began flipping through the plastic-covered pages.

Roxanna was trying so hard to find Mister Right. A man for her to love. A man who would love her. And to love Bobby as his own son.

Her last boyfriend, Jack, had been, not Mister Right, but Mister All Wrong. Jack had found her through the dating service. He had asked her out. She had looked up his written profile. Quite frankly, she hadn’t been particularly impressed with what he had written about himself.

But she hadn’t dated much lately. So, against her better judgment, she had accepted a date with Jack. She should have listened to her own instincts. Because Jack had turned out to be a total loser. She couldn't imagine herself ever wanting to go to bed with him. Much less spending the rest of her life with him.

At that time, Jack was 43 and still lived with his mother. He drank too much, smoked like a chimney, and was a real cheapskate—he was reluctant to spend money on her, not even to buy her a fast-food burger without strings attached. And he pretty-much ignored her son Bobby, showing no interest in even meeting Bobby! And certainly no fatherly affection for Bobby.

But Roxanna had consoled herself with the thought that at least Jack was someone to go out with on an occasional Saturday night and dance with. Even without the sex, even without him taking and interest in her son, a date with Jack had been better than no man at all.

One Saturday night, Jack had shown up for their date already drunk out of his mind. And then he had spent most of their date drinking still more! Roxanna had just had too much of Jack. So she had broken up with Jack over dinner that night, and she had called a taxi home from the restaurant. She wasn't about to risk her life getting in a car with the drunken Jack driving!

Back home after that breakup date, Roxanna had told her son Bobby that she had split up with Jack. Roxanna and Bobby then both had spontaneously broken into a chorus of "Hit the road Jack."

Yes, Jack had been a true disaster. In fact, most of the men Roxanna had dated recently had turned out to be real jerks. She had accepted their smoking and heavy drinking, even though she didn’t like it, just so she would occasionally have a date on a weekend. It wasn't easy to find an eligible man willing to date a flat-broke 45-year-old single mom.

Roxanna felt that she couldn't see herself becoming very intimate with any of her recent dates, much less becoming serious enough to marry one of them.

She actually had let herself be talked into sleeping with one of these dates. The guy had been her first lover since her husband died a year earlier. That man had been good looking. For some unknown reason, Roxanna had been particularly horny that night. So she had said yes to this man.

But although this guy had constantly boasted to her of his sexual prowess, actual sex with him turned out to be awkward, clumsy, and slightly painful. So Roxanna had resolved to keep all future dates strictly platonic. She would go out and have fun, but no romance. And no sex.

Platonic dating really hadn’t been enough for Roxanna. She always enjoyed the thrill of intimacy too much to have only platonic relationships with men. It was always such a nice, comfortable, cozy feeling to wake up in the morning, naked in the arms of a naked man. And to feel his love juices still fresh and warm deep inside of herself. That feeling hadn’t happened for Roxanna very often. Only a very few times, ever, in her whole life. So she had cherished what few opportunities she had found to enjoy feeling so filled-up with a man’s warm love juices. She knew that if she couldn’t find love, she would settle for that.

So here she was again, at the dating service. Looking for a man who might give her that filled-up sensation. And who might accept, maybe even grow to love, her son Bobby.

And so Roxanna flipped through yet another green binder full of men's written profiles about themselves. Hoping against hope that today she might finally find a man who isn't a jerk or a creep. A man who would be good to her in and out of bed. And who could accept her son Bobby into his heart, too.

But as usual, she wasn’t having a whole lot of luck in her search.

One guy wrote of how he likes a cold beer at a baseball stadium. Yeah, like that’s the image the average woman thinks of when she pictures the guy she wants to marry!

Another man wrote that he was smoking 6 packs a day. But hey, at least he felt bad about that. To atone for his sin of smoking so much, he spent 8 hours a day in church, every day, praying for the strength to quit.

He hadn’t tried one of those 12-step quit-smoking programs. He hadn’t bought a patch. He just prayed he would quit. Which so far, hadn’t worked for him at all. But he kept praying. So, Roxanna wondered, spending all his time smoking and praying, when would this guy find time to date?

"Hey, this guy sounds like a great catch! Divorced four times. Not looking for a serious relationship. Just wants lots and lots of meaningless sex. Required by law to admit in his profile that he’s a registered sex offender."

“Yeah, buddy!” Roxanna laughed. “You’re the man I want to marry!” How did this guy even get through the dating service’s membership screening process?

Another guy boasted he knew the score of every baseball team in every major league game all the way back to 1932. He didn’t have a job. But hey, he was a fountain of sports trivia!

"Do these guys honestly believe this is how to win a woman’s heart?"

The next guy was trying too hard. “Do you like flowers? If so, I’ll buy them for you by the truckload.”

“What?” Roxanna wondered, “Is this guy in the flower business? Wholesale flower discounts by the truckload?”

“No,” Roxanna thought. “A truckload of flowers won’t impress me. How you treat me as a person…how you touch my body…and how you treat my son…that’s what will impress me!”

On the back side of every written profile were pictures of the man described in the profile.

Roxanna knew that she’s supposed to read the written profiles first. And then look at the photos of the guys afterward. But these profiles were so frustrating! These men, writing to present their best features about themselves. All trying to impress women. Yet they all sounded like such losers!

So Roxanna flipped all the way to the back of the book. She started flipping backwards, through just the backsides of each profile page. Just the photo pages.

"OK," she laughed to herself, "I admit I’m cheating by looking at the photo first. But who doesn't?"

Roxanna was tired, and perhaps being overly picky. “Too short”. Flip. “Too fat.” Flip. “Too muscular. He would spend all his time in the gym pumping iron. Instead of in my bed, pumping me!” Flip. “Too glamorous looking. Probably spends all his time looking in the mirror. He would never tear himself away from the mirror, to look at me!” Flip.

“Hey, I like these photos!” Roxanna thought, mostly subconsciously, when she saw the next guy. “This guy may not be Hollywood’s ideal of handsome. But he has a warm, genuine smile. I like that high forehead, and his glasses. Makes him look very intelligent. I’ve always liked smart men.”

After all, Roxanna had married a nerdy man who had worked with her in an electronics lab. And she had stayed married to that smart man for 17 years. Besides, few women ever went for smart men over good-looking men. Which meant that Roxanna wouldn’t have to worry about some tramp trying to steal her man away from her.

In one photo, this man had his arms folded across his chest. Even through his sweater, Roxanna could see in this photo, that he had muscular arms. Not the exaggerated muscles of a body-builder. But exhibiting obvious upper-body strength nevertheless. Strong, muscled arms that would no doubt feel all nice and warm and comfortable and snugly if they were wrapped around her!

So now Roxanna turned the page over, to read what this nice-looking guy had written about himself. And to try to figure out if he was as smart as he looked.

The man’s name was Dan. He had checked the boxes beside both “Non-smoker” and “Non-drinker.”

“Two points for Dan!” Roxanna smiled.

Under religion, Dan had joked “Never touch the stuff myself!”

That made Roxanna laugh. She had been raised a Catholic. Then in her twenties, she had discovered that much of what Catholicism had taught her didn’t match her own observable reality. So Roxanna had to agree with Dan: she had little use for religion, either. So that, too, sounded like a good match to her.

Under marital status, Dan had checked “Never Married.” The other choices were “Single”, “Divorced,” or “Widowed.” There wasn’t a box for Married. Because after all, if you’re married, what the hell are you doing being a member of a dating service?

Under children, Dan had written “One. Adopted daughter. Caroline. Age 14.”

That seemed an amazing coincidence to Roxanna! They both knew the challenge of not only being a single parent, but parenting an adopted child, which comes with its own unique challenges.

If they were to ever meet and date, Roxanna realized, they would each know intimately the unique challenges the other faces as single parent to an adopted child.

“I own an antique car,” Dan wrote, “which I’m proud to say I restored myself.”

“Well,” Roxanna considered, “that’s good in one way. He’s handy with tools. He can fix things around the house.”

But one of Roxanna's coworkers had a boyfriend who spent every waking minute in his garage, tinkering with his old car. Her friend frequently complained to Roxanna that the guy rarely had time for her. That he would rather put his hand on a carburetor than on her hard nipples or her soft, fleshy, feminine folds. Roxanna feared that Dan would be the same way. She’d already spent 17 years with a husband who had no romance, no passion, and no libido. Roxanna was definitely not looking for another 17 years of the same! So she turned the page now, past Dan’s profile.

But none of the other men’s photos or profiles seemed as interesting to her as Dan’s did. So she flipped the page back to look at Dan’s photos again.

“Yes,” Roxanna thought, “I do like how Dan looks.” So she flipped the page back to the written profile side, and she read more about Dan.

“I’m looking to date a single mom,” Dan wrote. “A woman who will accept and love my daughter. And who will let me be a loving father to her child.”

It was as if Dan had written his profile specifically with her in mind!

“I’m a professional writer. I support myself and my daughter by writing instruction manuals for designers of computer chips.”

Another amazing coincidence. Because Roxanna worked in an electronics lab, as a technician assisting some of those same computer chip designers that Dan wrote manuals for.

“I guess you could say I’ve always been ambitious,” Dan wrote. “I’ve been writing professionally since I was 12 years old. I submitted an article to a small-circulation magazine. To my surprise, they published it. At age 14, I started my own magazine. Within a year, I had 100 subscribers. After two years, I had 500 subscribers in over half the states, and even in Europe and Asia.”

If she married such an ambitious man, Roxanna realized, she would likely never want for anything.

Not that Roxanna couldn’t and didn’t support herself, and wouldn’t continue to earn her own keep if and when she married again. She had been a good wage earner through 17 years of marriage. At that time, she still earned a good wage, and she expected to continue to earn her own way through life.

“Still, Roxanna thought, “it would be nice to marry a man who can also help provide for me and my son.”

Roxanna knew in her heart that she wasn’t a gold-digger. No, her needs were simple and few. A comfortable home to live in, to raise her son in. In a safe neighborhood where crime isn’t a major problem. And a kind, gentle, loving man in whose arms she could snuggle every night. Other than that, she didn’t want or need much.

Roxanna wasn’t interested in expensive jewelry, designer dresses, or fancy cars. The love of a good husband, a good lover to her and a good dad to her son, were what was truly important in life. The man she marries would have to have a heart of gold, not gold in the bank. And so far, Dan sounded to her like a man who maybe could provide her with those important intangibles.

Dan was only 40 to her 45. But the idea of a slightly-younger man sounded exciting to Roxanna. Her love life had been dim and dismal. Not just recently. But for most of her life. Maybe a guy a few years younger than her would put just the spark she needed into her mostly absent love life.

Anyway, the idea of dating, and maybe even bedding a slightly younger man sounded excitingly naughty to her.

Even under “Interests and Hobbies,” Dan had written-in many of the same interests that Roxanna had. He shared her interest in history and in ballroom dancing.

“But my main interest and hobby is raising my daughter,” Dan wrote. “She’s a born entertainer. I first noticed this when Caroline wasn’t quite 4 years old. We were eating at a restaurant with a live band. Suddenly I heard a little girl's voice belting out Jingle Bells. Surprise! That was my little girl up on stage with the band, microphone in hand!

“By the time Caroline was 9,” Dan wrote, “She was actively involved in school plays, often landing the lead role. I of course attended every one of her performances.

“Last year,” Dan’s profile continued, “Caroline told me excitedly that she had found an acting school in the big city, which is an hour train ride away. She told me she really wanted to take acting classes. So now I ride the train with her into the city every Saturday morning. During her 3-hour acting classes, I walk around and explore the city.”

“What a great dad!” Roxanna thought. She wondered if Dan could and would be as supportive of her son Bobby.

“I only wish I had a terrific woman to share these interesting exploratory jaunts around the city with me,” Dan had written.

“Hmmm,” Roxanna pondered. “I wonder if I could apply for that job?”

But then Roxanna read a little further down, still under Dan’s interests. And there it was, glaring at her yet again! Under interests, Dan had also written “antique cars.” She pictured Dan living more in his garage than in her bed. And so she turned the page again, to try to find someone else.

But once again, she turned back to Dan’s photos. Roxanna looked at Dan’s soft, inviting lips in his photos. And she wondered how those lips might feel to kiss.

Roxanna read Dan’s profile again. And again. She practically memorized it. What was it about Dan that she found so intriguing? His being a single parent to an adopted child, just as she is? His being smart and ambitious? His intelligent looks? “All of the above,” Roxanna grinned.

Roxanna considered whether to ask Dan out on a date. But then she painfully recalled that every guy she had ever asked for a date, instead of the guy asking her out, had never worked out. Never!

Roxanna wasn't sure she could stand it if she asked Dan out, a man who seemed such a perfect match for her, and then their relationship somehow didn't work out. No, she decided. If Dan was indeed Mister Right, he would have to find her, and ask her out.

But could Roxanna really trust to fate? That Dan would somehow find her, and ask her out? Roxanna reluctantly decided that she would have to trust fate. She felt that she had no choice.

Tired and slightly irritable, Roxanna closed the binder and drove home, to spend quality parental time with Bobby, her 8-year-old son.

A few weeks later, Roxanna attended a singles dance at a local ballroom dance club. She liked that she was going by herself, so she could just cut loose and have fun. She wasn't looking to hook-up with anyone.

On one song, the women were told to march in a circle clockwise around the men, who were marching in a circle counter-clockwise. When the music paused, you were supposed to dance with whoever was facing you.

The third time the song paused, Roxanna found herself face to face with Dan. The very man whose written profile had so intrigued her that one evening at the dating service, about three weeks earlier.

Feeling his strong but gentle arms around her as they danced, Roxanna's heart beat faster...and not just from the exercise of dancing. Roxanna couldn’t remember the last time she had felt this excited, just to be close to a man.

Dan was 5'10" to Roxanna's 5'2". In Roxanna’s mind, this was the perfect height ratio. This height difference meant that as they danced facing each other, her head rested against Dan’s chest. Roxanna leaned her head in close to Dan's chest as they danced. His cologne smelled so nice. Sort of a rugged western scent.

Noticing that Roxanna inhaled at his chest and then smiled at him, Dan whispered “Stetson.”

Right then and there, Roxanna decided that Stetson was her new favorite scent on a man.

As they danced close, Roxanna couldn't bring herself to tell Dan that she already knew who he was. That she had admired his photos. How intelligent he looked in those photos. And that she had read and reread his written profile. That she had found him so intriguing. She struggled inside herself to keep her resolve of letting him find his way to her.

On the next pause in the music, Roxanna found herself dancing with some other man. This new dance partner's clothing smelled of cigarette smoke. So Roxanna knew she couldn't find herself interested in this man.

Roxanna never saw Dan again the rest of that night. But she sure thought about him several times during the rest of that evening's dance.

Roxanna even found herself stopping at the men’s cologne section of the local department store the next day. Just so she could inhale the free sample of Stetson cologne.

About two weeks later, the dating service held a costume dance. Roxanna showed-up dressed as a 1920s flapper. Extremely short skirt. Low-cut blouse. Sexy, lacy black fingerless gloves. She smiled happily to herself as she felt several men’s hot gaze directed up and down her barely-covered body. It was great to feel that at 45, she still had something men find desirable.

One man showed up at the dance in a tux and top hat, also very much 1920s style. His costume seemed to complement hers perfectly. She danced herself into close proximity to this man, to get a better look.

When the man in the tux turned around, Roxanna realized it was him! Dan! Roxanna felt her heart beating fast under her mostly-exposed breasts. But he was dancing with another woman at the time, so her joy on seeing him quickly turned to a pout. And then Dan met and left with this Asian woman. So Roxanna never got to talk to Dan at all that night, and her mood turned even darker.

About a month after that, Roxanna was visiting some relatives in another city, hundreds of miles from home. While out for a leisurely walk, she passed a high-rise hotel. She was surprised to see that the hotel's parking lot was full of antique cars that day. Some sort of old-car show was going on. She hated antique cars. And she hated this in-her-face reminder that Dan owned an antique car, and that if they ever did start dating, he would likely spend more time in his garage than in her bed.

Much to Roxanna’s surprise, despite her feelings about guys and their cars, some unseen magnetic force seemed to draw her into the parking lot, to look at the cars. Despite her enthusiasm for history, Roxanna had never really had much interest in old cars. So what was drawing her footsteps to those cars on this day?

Walking around the parking lot and looking over the cars, Roxanna could have sworn that Dan, the intriguing man from the dating service profile, was there. But how could that be, so far from home?

Roxanna smiled and said hello as she passed him. Not knowing her yet, Dan simply gave her a friendly hello back and walked on. Dan didn’t even remember or recognize Roxanna from having danced with her once, very briefly, for about five minutes. When he showed no signs of recognition, Roxanna began to doubt that this really was Dan. Was she becoming obsessed with this man? Why did she see his face everywhere? Even in the face of a total stranger, hundreds of miles from home?

Something inside her wouldn't allow Roxanna to let it go at that. "Which car is yours?" she called out after him.

"My car isn't here. I live too far away to drive it here. I just came here to see the show."

Just then, one of the old cars chugged right past them, and loudly blew its horn at them both. “Ooga!”

The horn startled Roxanna, and she fell forward. Right into Dan’s chest. She definitely recognized that scent. It was Stetson!

Something else seemed familiar, too. She remembered when she had danced with Dan. How he had been just the perfect height for her to snuggle her face against his chest as they danced. The same way she was doing right now.

"Oh my god," Roxanna realized, "it's him!"

Somehow Roxanna and Dan kept running into each other. Roxanna thought this was getting weird! She got scared, and she briskly walked away.

Later that day, Roxanna mentally kicked herself for being such a chicken! She went back to that high-rise hotel. But the car show was over by then. All the antique cars had left the parking lot. And there was no sign of Dan.

"Maybe Dan and I keep running into each other because we're meant to be together. Destined to be soul-mates," Roxanna thought. "Have I already blown it? I’ve had three chances to introduce myself to Dan. And I blew all three opportunities. Will we ever get another chance?"

But Roxanna remembered her resolve. She remembered how asking a guy out never seemed to work for her. How if it was meant to be, if Dan really was Mister Right, he would have to make the first move. Which so far, he hadn’t done. Even after meeting her three times!

Maybe Roxanna had convinced herself that Dan was her destiny, when it really just wasn’t so! Was she fooling herself? Deluding herself?

Finding love was just too damned hard! Why did something this critical to life, this important to human happiness, have to be so damned hard to find?

An old song came to Roxanna’s mind now. The perfect song for the situation. The perfect song for her whole life: "You Can't Hurry Love." Like the song, she began wondering how long would she have to wait.

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This story, including all the chapters that will follow, is copyright (c) 2004 by the author (the copyright is on file with the US Register of Copyrights).