Free Things I've Learned from Women Who've Dumped Me by Ben Karlin

possibility. In fact, there were literally thousands of beautiful women it could possibly have been. Surely, Rebecca Schwartz was friends with many beautiful women, women who would feel right at home at a cocktail party on Park Avenue to which only extraordinary, high-caliber men like myself were invited.
    Finally, the day arrived. I had to decide what to wear. I’ve never been the cocktail party type, I certainly wasn’t at twenty-eight, and I was more than a little intimidated by the uptown address. I knew it was going to be a gathering of young professionals, and I feared that my usual outfit of T-shirt and jeans was going to make me stand out. I began to resent the whole thing. I just wasn’t in the mood to dress up to impress a bunch of “high-caliber” yuppies. Then I remembered that I didn’t need to impress anybody. I was invited by a secret admirer. She was already impressed! She just wanted me to be myself, God bless her! I put on a black T-shirt, my best jeans, and a pair of brand-new Adidas low-top shell toes (genuine leather). Instead of my normal nylon windbreaker, I pulled out a freshly dry-cleaned 100 percent cotton windbreaker. I checked out my reflection in the mirror and liked what I saw. It was hard not to secretly admire myself, myself.
    I headed to Park Avenue.
    When I got to the building I told the doorman I was there for the Rebecca Schwartz party. He nodded and directed me to the elevator. Twelfth floor. I was shocked by how nervous I was. It had all seemed like a silly joke up until then. But there I was, in the kind of building my parents’ friends live in, riding the elevator, about to walk into a party where I’m going come face-to-face with a girl who has a crush on me, a girl I may or may not be happy to see. Suddenly the “may not” part of that equation seemed very real, and very unappealing. I considered turning back, but then, didn’t I owe the Belgian royal family at least the courtesy of showing up?
    The elevator opened to the twelfth floor. There was no hallway, just a small landing with doors leading to two apartments. In front of one stood a smiling zaftig woman in her fifties with frosted blond hair.
    “May I help you?” she asked.
    “Uh, I’m Eric Slovin.”
    “Oh, hi, Eric,” she said, the smile glued to her face, “I’m Rebecca Schwartz.”
    Actually, now that I’m picturing her there, smiling in the hallway in her smart pantsuit, I’m not so sure the name Rebecca Schwartz was right after all. I think I may have had it better at the beginning. Yeah, she was definitely more of an Eileen Silverman. Or, even a Helen Goldfarb. That’s what she was, a Helen Goldfarb.
    “Welcome to the party. I guess there’s someone in there waiting to see you,” said Helen, smiling.
    I walked in.
    For two weeks I imagined a lot of things, but I never imagined what I had just walked into. The youngest man there was no less than fifty-five. The oldest could easily have been eighty, maybe more. The women ranged in age from about forty-five to sixty. Each one looked like she could be my aunt. What if one actually was my aunt? That would be awkward.
    In one corner a Nelson Rockefeller type slyly approached a woman who might have been Bette Midler’s sister. In another, a bald man with a fringe of dyed black hair was attempting to chat up a woman who looked exactly like my therapist. Over by the window, a lonely man in a cardigan spread cheese on a cracker. I’m fairly certain he was the father of a college friend.
    And then there was me, in my windbreaker and sneakers, looking for my secret admirer.
    With the exception of a few clusters of chatting women, it was a scene of perpetual lonely motion. There was very little conversation. Everyone just wandered around, eying each other. This was a meat market for the old and rich. No one said a word to me. I wondered if my youth made them uncomfortable. Maybe they thought I was there to fix the air-conditioning. I quickly walked through