After working out at the gym, I was chatting this morning with two women behind the front desk. I've been going to this place for years, know a lot of people, and this included the younger one. The older one was new to me -- it turned out she worked in the daycare center connected to the gym. In other words, if you're a mommy with little kids and you want to come and work out, she's the one who watches your kids. What that really means is she parks them in front of a television showing cartoons, but whatever. Sometimes it's her own kid, who is about six.

The older one was definitely attractive for a woman in her forties. Not fat, pretty, put together, blue eyes, nice smile. And then the conversation, inevitably, got around to what men and women look for in relationships. Me: "They can't be crazy. Mean is fine, dumb is fine, but absolutely not crazy." Her: "I have very high standards. They have to make a lot of money. They can't have any kids. They can't be divorced. They have to own a house (and I live in an area where a house is a million dollars)." And so on. We chatted for a few more minutes, and as I was driving home, I had a blinding flash of the obvious. This was someone who cheerfully set out a bunch of fairly demanding requirements. And ...

  • Who was divorced.
  • Who had a child.
  • Who almost certainly didn't own a house.
  • And who, to top it all off, in her forties, had a career consisting of being a part-time babysitter in a gym.

Wow.