A friend was telling me about the perils of dating recently.

I listened in horror – dating has gotten even crazier since the days when I was single.
Years ago, those dating sites were relatively new and meeting people online was a very risky phenomenon.

Not that it is really any safer now, but I think people are a little more savvy for the most part, and probably know how to do a preliminary Google search that they may not have done in 2002.

As I listened, grateful to be off the market, my friend elaborated on what she had encountered since she had dipped her toe back in the dating waters.

One guy asked her to pick him up because he didn’t want to pick her up on his bike in the rain.

When she got there, she realized his bike wasn’t a Harley but a Huffy.

Another evening turned sour when the waiter informed her date his coupon for buy-one, get-one free had expired. He didn’t want to go Dutch; he asked her if she could pay for them both as the coupon was to help cover his portion of the bill.

“I think I am going to see if any convents take 40-year olds,” she said exasperated. “Do you think that will mean I will have to convert to Catholicism? How different is that from Presbyterian?”

I wasn’t sure about any of that, but it did sound like drastic measures.

“Is it too much to want a rich man to fall in love with me?” she asked. “A rich, normal, not-on-probation man?”

I told her she had watched too many episodes of The Bachelor. “There’s no such thing,” I said.

“I hope you are wrong!” she cried.

I knew where she was coming from.

When I was divorced, I had my fair share of men asking me out that were not exactly “my type.”

One was a parolee and I think I was the first female he saw when he got out of prison.

Sadly, he was not the worst one.

At least being on parole kept him walking a straight and narrow line.

I almost had to get a restraining order on another one.

Disgusted and irritated, I declared at work one day I gave up on dating.

“This is why I would never try internet dating,” I stated. “I catch enough bad apples in the real world. I don’t need to extend that net online.”

“You just need a rich man,” a co-worker said when I recounted the horrid details of my last failed attempt at dating.  “That’s what you need.”

“Oh, I have to disagree,” a customer interjected, overhearing our conversation.

 “It’s just as easy to love a rich man as it is a poor one,” my co-worker replied.
“Sure, but it’s better to find a generous man rather than a rich one,” the customer said. “And there is a significant difference, too. If you know it beforehand, you can save yourself a lot of misery. It has nothing to do with the dollar amount in his bank account either. See, if a rich man gives you one penny, he will account for it. He will never let you forget he gave you that penny.

“But, a generous man will give you all he has without a second thought. So, look for a generous man not a rich one,” she said.

Her words stuck with me, even after all these years.

I tend to think that for the most part my husband is a generous man, at least if food is not involved. There’s no sharing of food where my husband is concerned.

Or the TV remote.
But that’s OK; he shares when it’s important.

“Look for a generous man,” I told my friend, explaining what it meant.

“That’s even rarer than someone being normal. I don’t think there is such a thing as a person being generous anymore,” she said.

I hope there is, at least for her sake.

But maybe a generous man is today’s modern day unicorn.