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

each room, but I knew it was pointless.
    After about six minutes I went back to the front door, where Helen Goldfarb was still greeting her guests. She saw me and scrunched her face into a pained smile.
    “I think there must have been some kind of mistake,” she said.
    “Yeah, I think so. Why am I here?”
    “I really don’t know.”
    “But what about the exclusivity? What about handpicking every guest to make sure that only extraordinary, high-caliber men are invited?”
    She had no response.
    “I’m so sorry,” she said, the smile finally breaking.
    I was sorry, too. My secret admirer was neither the princess of my fantasies nor the troll of my fears. In fact, my secret admirer wasn’t anything. She didn’t exist. There was nothing left to say. I took the elevator down.
    A couple of days later, Helen Goldfarb called. She wanted to apologize. She’d gone back to her books and couldn’t figure out why I’d been invited.
    “Nothing like this has ever happened before,” she insisted.
    I told her not to worry about it.
    “Well,” she said, “let me know if you ever want to come to one of my parties in the future.”
    She had to be kidding.
    “Your friends aren’t looking for a guy like me,” I said, trying to be polite.
    “Who knows? Maybe some of them have a Mrs. Robinson fantasy.”
    That cracked me up.
    “I really don’t think your friends go to your parties with a Mrs. Robinson fantasy in mind,” I laughed.
    “Don’t be so sure,” she said slyly.
    “I’m pretty sure,” I insisted.
    “Well don’t be!” she practically purred.
    Was this possible? Was Mrs. Goldfarb trying to seduce me?
    “Are, uh, you saying that you . . . have a Mrs. Robinson fantasy?” I stammered.
    “Maybe I am.”
    So there it was. I had no secret admirer, but I did have my very own Mrs. Robinson.
    I was shocked. Like any healthy twenty-eight-year-old, I had a couple of Mrs. Robinson fantasies stored in the old fantasy Rolodex. I was very open to the idea of afternoon trysts at a discreet hotel with a grown-up woman with grown-up needs. But, again, something just wasn’t right. I mean, a Mrs. Robinson fantasy is one thing, but Mrs. Goldfarb was something else entirely. Why couldn’t my Mrs. Robinson look a little more like Anne Bancroft and a little less like Mel Brooks?
    I let the silence linger for a few moments longer, and then I very politely declined the invitation.

Lesson#11
A Grudge Can Be Art
    by Andy Selsberg
    Our second or third time in bed together she bit her lip and said she had a confession to make. I tensed up and cupped my nuts protectively to prepare for possible bombshells: crabs, herpes, warts, a psychotic boyfriend, a Nazi grandparent, a nameless rash. But it was none of that. Instead she said, “I’m not really twenty-two. I’m nineteen.”
    Nineteen! Was I angry? Hell no. I felt like I’d won the Barely Legal sweepstakes. I pinched myself, then her, and wondered what I’d done to deserve such good fortune.
    This put our span at eleven years—scintillating, but hardly a scandal. It was nothing compared to those chasms bridged regularly in Hollywood, where an actor can be in his forties, dropping the kids off at college, and his dream girl is taking nursery school entrance exams. None of that for me—what this girl and I had was positively wholesome.
    Ours wasn’t just a novelty act—we got along, bantered well. One waitress even thought we were a stage duo, our jibes were so in sync. There was a picnic in the park, the Guggenheim, a Mets game. She had big red hair and a Birth of Venus beauty that was all invitation and tease. She liked to say it was a good thing she wasn’t more attractive, because then she’d really be able to wreak sexual havoc.
    That should have been a warning. Also, she was an aspiring actress. Also, she said she wasn’t looking for anything serious. Also, she drank a lot. Also, I had to buy her beer—suddenly I was the skeevy older guy who gets booze for the high