Post 43: He appeared from the sidelines

flashback to October, 2005

Free. No work. No car. No boyfriend. No worries.

After 4 and a half years working at a hitech job in central Israel, I didn't yet know that they were about to lay me off. Before they could make a move, I had a massive Crohns-Colitis attack, the second of my life and ended up in hospital. It was a slow recovery with a lot of suffering and a few benefits. The first benefit was that I lost about ten kilos in a month (do NOT try this diet at home!) and men were looking at me again....people at work thought I was on vacation. Others thought I was pregnant, thanks to the steroids that I was on.

And since they didn't want to lay me off while I was sick, they waited a few months and gave me my notice in May. This gave me a few months to negotiate my dismissal and prepare for my new life.

Summer lent itself to a carefree life. Yes, I was job searching, but I was also rediscovering men and rather enjoying the attention. I didn't really want a boyfriend, since I was happy to have my health and life back. It really wasn't important anymore. But i went to a lot of social gatherings in order to network with men (and women) and find out about job leads. Since I was focused on the leads, and not on the men, they seemed happy to talk to me. In the end, they actually sent me cvs to send to the company I worked for, but that's another story.

The other project I took on was to set up my ex bachelor friends. Since I realized that I really really really had to swear off bachelors, the least i could do was take them to parties where they may be attracted to marriage-minded eligible young women of child-rearing age.

Little did I know that the party I took one of my friends to would actually attract my future boyfriend. I thought that the party, in northern Israel, would be full of young people, but we were the youngest there. The guests thought we were a couple, so they spoke to me with utmost confidence.

And then he appeared from the sidelines. He was interested in the carrot-orange juice that I bought, not in me, and he promptly drank almost the entire litre. We had a short conversation and we discovered that we were both headed for the same spiritual festival at the Sea of Galilee - festival Breshit - and both with our sons. We exchanged phone numbers and said we'd try to meet up there.

Nice. A divorced guy with a boy almost the same age as my son. Someone to help me put up my tent.

This writer forgot about why she had come to the party in the first place. her bachelor friend stayed a bachelor, but not for long.