GAL (Getting A Life)

Every Friday Night: My Year of Dating Misadventures
by Ritta McLaughlin

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

GAL (Getting A Life)

How it all started

"Everybody's got to roll around the floor one time real good." She also liked the old chestnut, "Only thing to do when a horse throws you is get right back on." I liked the sound of those two, but I never really considered what they meant until I had to live them-and the day came when I had to.

Before meeting Nicholas I'd never really given much thought to marriage. From high school to grad school, books and boys never carried equal weight-dating was strictly for entertainment. So his proposal took me by surprise, though when I thought about it, it seemed like a natural progression: We'd dated for two years, we had a great time together, and he had the makings of a good provider. He didn't do drugs or drink too much, he believed in God, and our families got along. So why not? Well, one clear October morning about six months before the wedding, the pit of my gut answered that question (and no, it wasn't PMS).

I suddenly wondered where was the chocolate buzz of being "in love"? Wasn't the earth supposed to move, or at least a few violins play? What about burning passion, or waves of desire? The knowledge in my heart that I had found my soul mate, my life partner, the love of my life? That morning I knew-maybe I was only twenty-four, but I knew that if we went through with it, we'd end up hating each other. So I called it quits. There was no high drama or nastiness: I called him and broke up with him, Fed-Exed the ring with a letter of apology, and that was that. Neat and clean.

Well, sort of. Over the next few years I sometimes felt a scary pang of regret. Was Nicholas my only chance for love? Had I bought into too many romance novels and movies with fairy-tale endings of what being with Mr. Right is supposed to sound, act, and feel like? I was really beginning to worry, but then, after three long years of unsuccessful dating and six months of halfhearted celibacy, I met Luke.

We had so much in common: the love of politics, jazz, good food and basketball, and an insatiable appetite for sex, not to mention the fireworks I saw every time we kissed. I thought he was fine-curly hair, skin the color of caramel, green eyes, chiseled jawline, six feet tall, muscular, and bowlegged. Our children would be beautiful. Okay, he didn't make six figures, have multiple degrees, or a sense of style when he wasn't in a suit. (He always wore green jeans-he thought they matched his eyes.) But he came from a hardworking, educated family, and was a "good" twenty-eight-year-old brother who made me feel like we were for keeps. Suddenly everything was clear: He was the one.

So what if he still had his ex-girlfriend's cat when we started dating, and had a near seizure every time he thought he saw her? So what if he went out with "women friends" when I was out of town on business-they were "just friends," and people can have friends outside of their relationship, right?

Besides love conquers all, right?

My Grandmother used to say, "God don't like ugly and ain't crazy about beauty." And damn if Luke didn't go and prove her right. The universe is brutally fair, and I couldn't help but think that the pain I caused Nicholas was coming back to haunt me. The fairy tale took only nine months to unravel. First, I found distinctly female jewelry in his desk drawer. "My sister left it last time she came over." Next was the box of K-Y in the trash. He swore it came in a giveaway bag from a conference and he'd thrown it away while cleaning when I was out of town. Finally, there was the condom in the toilet. He'd been caught and seemed relieved. I was unyielding. I gave him an ultimatum. He refused. It was over. I could only cry.

For weeks I refused to believe it had happened. I acted like a complete fool-ass-crying, not eating, not sleeping, walking by his house, calling his friends, his family, telling anyone who'd listen about how he'd done me wrong. I still couldn't believe the man I'd chosen would do this to me. How could this happen?

As a child of the 1970s, I was raised to believe that the world was my oyster-I could have it all. Being an African-American woman was no longer a life sentence of disrespect, heartache, overwork, and underpay. The world was a different place now, and sistas could do it for themselves. Nobody came right out and said this, but the message was clear that if I earned degrees from "good schools," worked hard, followed the Ten Commandments, saved my money, respected my body, and prayed daily, I'd reap life's rewards: a good job and the pick of the litter. I managed to get the great job. But where was my pick?

I've been told that it takes about half the time a relationship lasts to get over it, but after the third month of continuous moping with no end in sight, my close friends had had enough-they never trusted Mr. Greenjeans anyway. I was depressed and it was beyond the circle of sistas-I needed God or therapy. Max, Kay, and Olga, in consultation with my big sister Bea, decided on therapy and scheduled an appointment for me-on a Friday night.

Now I was rattled enough at being sent to therapy (not that I didn't need it) by the people I trusted most, but Friday nights were our night-Max, Kay, Olga, and mine-and those Friday nights were the only thing that gave me any comfort. Kay and Olga are my sista-girls (Kay from college, Olga from grad school), truly sisters to me when Bea wasn't around. We somehow got in the habit of doing dinner and a video on Friday nights.

Max, the lone male in the pack . . . well, Max is a different story. The two of us had become "boys" in grad school: We crammed together, procrastinated by watching Saturday college football together, drowned our thesis blues at Dallas BBQ together, people-watched in Washington Square Park together, and, halfway into our second year, slept together.

Big mistake.

One stressed-out pre-exam night, a hug turned into a kiss and the kiss turned into-everything else. After about a month of avoidance and weirdness we vowed never to cross that line again, and happily went back to being "boys." Instead of ruining the friendship, it strengthened it. Having a close friend of the opposite sex to give dating advice and be a surrogate date for parties is just too valuable to sacrifice for something as potentially uncertain as sex. So soon after the Friday dinner-and-video night became a regular thing, I invited Max to become an honorary sista, the only man we allowed to infiltrate the circle. And he repaid the honor. He introduced Olga to her husband (his line brother from college), helped Kay get an apartment in his building, and showed us he was true blue in a hundred ways that helped us think of him as a "friend" first and a "man" second.

Friday nights became precious quality downtime for the four of us. We'd make dinner together and talk our way through the video, each of us recapping our week and getting feedback. For the newly engaged Olga, Friday nights were a chance to feel that she still had a life beyond the impending wedding and future hubby. Kay, queen of the dating game (and a Rules girl to boot), was only on a quest for Mr. Right. Her theory was that unavailability on a Friday night makes you more attractive to would-be suitors. And Max just loved kicking back with three beautiful women on a Friday night-without the stress of romance.

But the first few months after the breakup, I didn't "Thank God It's Friday" anymore-I wince just remembering it, but I think I spoiled a dozen Friday nights in a row, ranting, weeping, or just moping. But now Friday night was therapy night, and it gave me something constructive to do with all my unbearable feelings: I saved them up for the end of the week, then vented them for fifty straight minutes of tears and rage. Then I'd go and join my friends, and try not to be a zombie for the rest of the night.

I saw my therapist every Friday night for nearly six months, and thought we were making progress. I no longer pictured myself causing Luke permanent bodily harm, even if my weekly howling sessions were training me to take over the local chapter of the She-Woman Man-Haters' Club. Until one Friday night, as I was winding down an hour-long sob, the therapist asked, "So what's your firm's mental health leave policy?"

I was dumbfounded.

"We've been working together for nearly six months, and your depression seems to be worsening."

She just said my "depression." She thinks I'm clinically depressed-a wackadoo, a pathetic, heartbroken woman. Was she right?

"Perhaps you should be seeing a psychiatrist who could prescribe . . ."

Oh no. I wasn't listening anymore. I managed to schedule another appointment, mumbling, "I'll think about it," and got out of her office. That's it, I thought. I'll be damned if I'll let Luke make me spend the rest of my life on Prozac! Walking out into the brisk early March night air down Broadway towards Seventy-second Street, a surge of energy and clarity came over me. He's not crying. He's not in therapy. No one's telling him to go on Prozac. He's not taking a temporary vow of chastity while he gets himself together-he's already living with the next one. All he ever did was cheat and lie, so was I the one who deserved to be on meds?

HELL NO!

On the way home from the train, fuming at the prospect of being medicated to pull me out of the deep funk I'd been thrown into by a relationship I'd chosen to be in, I made a resolution: It was time to GAL again-to get a life. Yeah, yeah, great idea, but how?

By following my grandmother's advice: I was going to get back on that horse, and take back my Friday nights-hell, I was gonna take back my life. Was I ready? No. Was I determined? Yes. Did I keep my resolution? Damn skippy!

Armed with grandmother wit and the determination to get a life, I took a sabbatical from "friend/video night" and decided that for the next year I would spend my Friday nights dating, not feeling sorry for myself. In the course of that year I managed to "date" twenty-eight different men, averaging at least a date a week-I actually went out with sixteen of the twenty-eight more than twice. What you're about to read is the story of that year and those dates. It's also the story of what I learned, what I lost, and what I found.

Excerpted from Every Friday Night by Ritta McLaughlin Copyright © 2003 by Ritta McLaughlin. Excerpted by permission of Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

About the Author

Ritta McLaughlin is the vice president of an investment banking firm in New York City, where she lives.