Qualifications

It was at the recent and incessant urging, pronounced nudging [nuh ‘jing], of my mother that I made the four block trek to visit with a community renowned matchmaker. Despite the weeks I spent mentally preparing myself for this unavoidably awkward encounter, it was still not even remotely enough to help me deal with what can only be described as a parade of eeek/yeeeshhh/did you really say that?/tug on you collar kind of awkward moments…

As if the idea of meeting with a complete stranger isn’t uncomfortable enough, why not meet with this complete stranger who’s speciality in life, who’s PROFESSION, is to set people up on dates with complete strangers?

Ah… the infamous irony does not escape me.

Sign me up!

Anyway, after speaking to this woman on the phone alone, I knew I was in for something potentially blog worthy. Feel free to thank me later.

At long last we set up a time to meet at her house. The instant she answered the door, The Matchmaker shrieked in a high pitched voice that I was pretty sure only dogs could hear..

The Matchmaker : “OH my GAWDDDD you are stunning!!!”

Which she then followed up with “I don’t understand HOW you are still single!”

As you may recall, I don’t exactly do well with compliments. The latter statement kind of nullified the former compliment, so I guess it was an acceptable way to compliment a person (me) who usually leaves the self deprecating responses to herself. This type of backhanded remark she gave delivered was an interesting, and slightly offensive, compliment that The Matchmaker probably gave in order to provide the situation with some much needed comic relief.

Or at least thats what I told myself in order to:

a) Make myself feel better

b) Give this woman the benefit of the doubt that she isn’t ACTUALLY that dense to make that kind of comment

c) The answer is really B

We spoke for a few minutes about what I was up to in life, how I am pursuing my masters degree, and what I was looking for in a man. It was then that she dropped yet another genius comment out of her face hole.

The Matchmaker: Oh wow!!! Well…ummm… I don’t know what to tell you. You are overqualified.

Oh…

I didn’t realize that one could be overqualified for a husband.

My bad.

This is awkward…. I guess I’ll be leaving now…

SERIOUSLY?!!?! As if I wasn’t already convinced of the fact that there is an ever dwindling pool of men out there to begin with (I won’t even limit it to normal men because that is down to about the size of a teardrop of a crying ant).

So essentially this woman is telling me that in addition to the fact that the ratio of normal guys to girls is .00000000034: 1, ASIDE from and in addition to that, apparently I am also overqualified.

What the heck is this? A job? What does that even mean!? Overqualified???

I mean I knew that being in a relationship/getting married would be hard work (pun intended) but I didn’t think they meant in the literal sense.

As I held back my fit of giggles/rage I kept thinking about what she meant by overqualified. I thought of myself as some kind of sad law school graduate who applies for a job at a fast food restaurant because there aren’t any other available means of employment? Does she expect me to settle?

Before I had time to contemplate the methods to her madness, The Matchmaker explained that I am too pretty, too tall and too smart and that unfortunately all of the men she knew were either

a) Short and educated

OR

b) Tall and dumb

Ohh my! How can I possibly decide between two such tempting choices!?

The look on my face spoke volumes. It was a mixture of hatred and frustration combined with a blatant stare that conveyed the message that I was would sooner shoot myself in the foot rather than listen to one more minute of her mindless prattle.

Essentially The Matchmaker suggested that I either dumb myself down OR shrink down a few inches (preferably both in order to further increase my potentials). She even remarked that I should probably be prepared to throw out my high heels because my height is a deterrent to those unfortunate vertically challenged individuals.

Yes it is...

She then sat in front of me and proceeded to scroll through her Blackberry for someone… ANYONE to date this poor overqualified singleton. She would sigh to herself as she scrolled away saying “Nope, too short, uneducated, short, short…etc.” Every few moments she would throw out a name of a guy who she thought would qualify…

And ironically, it just so happened that I dated ALL of the ones she suggested (I hang my head in shame):

The Count…..check (please!!!!!)

Mr. Know it all…check (please!!!!!!!)

Lovely. What do they do? Recycle the same guys over and over again? The only thing those 2 had in common was that they were tall (ish). I mean it does give them a big advantage in my book because one of my biggest “tall girl problems” is….

But once they opened their mouths it was all extremely steeply downhill.

Finally The Matchmaker managed to pull a name that I didn’t know out of her hat. “AHA! He is so nice! I met him one time at Starbucks and he really was very nice. I don’t know anything about his family though and I also don’t know any girls who have dated him. So, I’m not sure if he will take you to a nice fancy restaurant or just for coffee.”

Oh… because thats what’s important. Fancy dinners.

I wanted to explode at her for being so presumptuous and assuming that I was that materialistic and for trying to stick me with some guy who she knows nothing about. You’re a matchmaker- do some research before setting me up with a potential axe murderer. K thanks!

That whole afternoon was a disaster. Aside from dispelling any hope that I had of getting set up with someone remotely next to normal. It just showed how UNDERQUALIFIED she was to be setting me up.

To sum:

I think it is completely unfair that guys have such a broad selection of attractive, smart and kind people while we have to sift through the scraps of vertically and intellectually challenged men/men-children. I, for one, refuse to settle and exasperatingly demand an answer to my age old inquiry…

WHERE ARE THE NORMALTONS HIDING????????????????????????????