About Joseph, Jesus and Then A Guy Whose Name I Can’t Even Pronounce Because It Has a Silent T

I was with someone for eight months named Joseph. I loved him dearly. It ended.  Well, he ended it. But that’s not what this story is about.

This is about lifting yourself up from the ground no sooner than you fall.  I used to ice skate, remember? You fall. So what? Get up and continue gliding on ice with your entire body -- which in my case involves a large, luscious Cuban ass and some nice tatas – yeah, all of that good womanhood hoisted upon on a tiny sliver of metal.

See? It’s a metaphor for life. I put my entire weight on it. I put my entire faith in this relationship. But it didn’t work out.

 We’re all skating on thin ice sometimes but if you’ve got strong ankles and a strong spirit, nothing is going to stop you.

Not even falling out of love when you want to fall in love.

When you want to be in love.

When you are love.

When you simply already are love -- a love that is not waiting to happen, because it’s already there.

 It’s a love that’s waiting to be acknowledged and appreciated by the right guy.

And there’s the rub. Finding love in Miami is not like finding a needle in a haystack. It’s like finding that one special bacteria on that heroin dealer’s needle that you almost accidentally stepped on while doing the Wynwood art walk some second Saturday in a rainy August afternoon.

Yeah, it’s that rare. That precious.

So after some coaxing from friends, I did it.

I joined an online dating site, something I swore I would never do again.



My past experiences with online dating yielded an amazing friendship with Creepy Guy from Spain, who turned out to be not so creepy, although he did try groping my thighs during lunch in Madrid, but I forgave him for that, because he taught me how to drink sherry the right way, with the sweet liquid lingering halfway between your palate and throat.



And who could blame him for wanting a piece of me?

But alas, romance never evolved. He ended up marrying a Russian bride and they had a baby while we developed a long-lasting friendship. What’s more, he ended up hiring me for a writing project.

Yes, my online date across the Atlantic, who never got past the scrimmage line of my quadriceps, became a client.

But it’s called online dating, folks. Not networking. It’s not like you use Linkedin for romance. Good grief!

So, you can imagine how scary it was to click on Match.com on my browser this time around.

Did I really want to go back there? Was I going to meet another creepy thigh groper who would hire me for my mad wordsmithing skills?



Or, if I really put all my faith into this journey, if I became open-minded, threw out the checklist and “interviewed” every pinga in Miami, would I meet someone new who would be worthy of my love and affection?



Well, that wasn’t going to happen with my old online profile. I changed my name, photos and proudly boasted I was “big and beautiful.” Too bad there isn’t a physical description category that says “fucking normal, sometimes I buy shirts at Lane Bryant."

First of all, my profile name used to be churrocaliente, which means “hot fried dough pastry covered with sugar” but I figured that now, at age 45, I should choose a moniker that is more appropriate in describing the classy, elegant and wise woman I’ve become.



Now the thing is, for the sake of privacy, I can’t tell you my current online profile name, but I assure you, it’s as cool, clean, crisp and colorful as a Lilly Pulitzer dress.

Navigating the current online dating scene challenged me. It’s different now then when I met my dear Creepy Guy.

These days, you can wink at people “for free,” send emails and even create a fake phone number before you take the step of giving him your real number.  You know, just in case he’s the booty call you never wanted to meet.

But here’s what I don’t get.



See, when a woman first joins an online dating site, she’s like a piece of rotting chicken in a pool of ravenous piranhas, quite the tasty morsel in a feeding frenzy. Sure, there’s plenty of fish out there, but it’s a fish eat fish world, and really, why tease me with your winks when you don’t follow through?

Good grief, if you’re going to eat this juicy pollo, eat me right, for pete’s sake.

If a guy can’t lift a “finger” after you wink back at him, he shows no promise of rising to the occasion.



But it’s not just about this new-fangled online courtship technology.

I think I have a literacy problem here in Miami.

The first guy I talked to -- via the fake phone number, of course -- I couldn’t even understand him. He was from the Caribbean and very sad, a poor soul looking for a green card. Sorry, not for me.



The second guy I talked to was from the Midwest and sounded like an automated voice call. I thought he had a tracheotomy at first and when prompted to speak he gave rote answers that made me think of the proverbial teacher in Peanuts, wa wa wa wa wa.



And then, salvation.

Jesus came along. Oh my God! He was actually literate. He spoke English. He spoke Spanish. And we talked. We talked for hours on end.



But, as a born Catholic and believer in God, I pondered long and hard about the idea of dating a man named Jesus when my love had been Joseph and my name is Maria.



You see, Maria was put in an awful predicament. She had a baby daddy named God, gave birth to Jesus and still had to put up with husband Joseph. And this was back in the day before Real Housewives of Bethlehem on BRAVO.

Good lord! What if I were to call out his name during sex? I mean isn't that redundant? Would I have to say "oh Jesus, Jesus?" And if I say "oh my God" would I be offending his father? If we bathed together, would that be baptism? And would I have to buy specialty salt scrubs from the Dead Sea?

If we had bread and wine would that be the last supper? How terribly depressing! I would be worried that I would never break bread with him again after every Sabbath!

And can you imagine the wedding invite: "Jesus and Maria cordially invite you to their holy union."

Holy mother of God you can't marry your mother!

Christ Almighty, what if I were an atheist? How would I then feel about his name popping on my caller ID?

But I gave Jesus a chance. After all, if we went out on a date, he could turn my Pellegrino water into a Chardonnay.



And it’s Miami, after all. I figured that if I did end up having a relationship with Jesus, I could just call him “papi” -- you know, just to avoid the awkwardness of it -- never mind that if I had to yell at him in a public space, every guy’s head in the room would turn around and all eyes would land on me.



In fact, I would love to walk into Casola’s Pizza one night and holler “papi.”  I bet every mouth in the dining hall would stop chomping. And every wife in the room would think that I was having an affair with her husband.



Jesus and I did eventually meet in person. Nice guy, but I’m not sure if I’m going to see him again. You see, he’s a hunter and can shoot and skin a wild boar without hesitation, but he’s also afraid of anthropods.

So, while we chatted and had our first and only drink together so far, I imagined that scene from Annie Hall, with Diane Keaton calling Woody Allen about a spider the size of a Buick.



“Oh hi mamasita, here’s a half ton tasty pig I just roasted after shooting him with packed heat in Ocala, but can you please spray some Raid on this tiny spider?”

To be fair though, Jesus seems like the kind of guy who could catch a fish and build a house.  He’s got beautiful hazel eyes, backbone and chutzpah -- not a bad thing to have around during hurricane season in South Florida. See? Jesus. Fisherman. Carpenter.


The next guy on my list to meet is from a now undisclosed country in Europe. He speaks English beautifully, with a slightly lilting accent that transports me to the moment when decades ago, I had strawberry ice cream in a German village. His name is in no way related to any major spiritual historical being but it does have a silent T. In fact, I might even have to practice pronouncing it.

I told you I had a literacy problem.



I am grateful for Joseph and Jesus though and thankful for all the men on my quest to find the one who will put up with me in that so-called forever, long-lasting crazy thing called love.

I don’t believe in fairy tales, but I do believe in love.  Some day, the shoe will fit and I will wear it. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll enjoy saying his name during sex without cracking up.



Keep the faith, ladies.