Exception to the Rule

Copyrighted by Lorna Tedder. Originally published in Third Degree of Truth.

I was in the Orlando-Daytona  area recently on business and ran into an old friend who was going through a divorce.  I had called before  I arrived  and asked  if she wanted to get together  for dinner and “catch-up.”  Any time  we’re  going  to be within an hour’s  drive  of each other, we try to touch base. It’s always like no time at all has passed since our last visit.

Unfortunately, I decided to forgo dessert with my dinner and cut our visit short. We just didn’t seem to have as much in common anymore.

She and her husband had split up a couple of weeks before. She’d seen a lawyer but that was about it. No papers  had  been  filed  but  the  marriage  was  kaput  after many years, and she was already single in mind. In fact, since the split, she already had a string of new lovers to choose from and was in a relationship with a new man who could take her to all sorts of vacation spots.

But if he didn’t work out…. She listed the other men. By profession. Or, more specifically, by professions  that earn six figures.

That just doesn’t work for me. Not one of my criteria. I asked her what appealed to her about these particular men besides their income potential. Then she introduced her second criterion: they were all very, very alpha males. She liked a man who was in charge.

It didn’t really  seem  to matter  who.  But she didn’t want to be single  for long.  She expects  to be married again before the ink’s dry on her divorce papers, though she’s not sure who the lucky  guy will be and it doesn’t really seem to matter.

I’ve read the statistics that say most people remarry within 2 years’ of their divorces. I look at all the people around me and I’m flabbergasted.  I certainly seem to be the exception to the rule.