4-Nicky's apartment

Nicky lived in a large one-bedroom apartment that looked like a page out of Pottery Barn. It was in the West Village, the most expensive part of the city, on a quaint street charmed by trees. Inside her apartment, everything was clean, organized and modern.

She had a 36-inch plasma television hanging on the wall, and framed art that, to me, looked like a bunch of paint slapped on a canvas. Her kitchen was hardly touched, with its sparkling black oven and metallic refrigerator, sitting next to a state-of-the-art cappuccino maker she bought at Bloomingdales.

Her furniture resembled the inside of a Four Seasons Hotel lobby. There was a four-piece sectional couch, and a chocolate-colored leather chair with an ottoman that sat next to her fireplace.

A large green carpet was laid over her hard wood floors. And on her coffee table, sat several beauty magazines, along with issues of Time, Businessweek and Newsweek magazines that were piled up next to her mail. On top of her fireplace mantle was Nicky’s most prized possession—a picture of Nicky and her Dad taken when she was only eight years old. They both had fishing rods in their hands, and matching fisherman hats. Nicky held a small fish in her hands.

Nicky hit play on her Sharper Image answering machine, and turned on her Apple laptop computer, while her messages played.

Message one: “Hi Princess. It’s Dad. I want see if you’re free on Sunday. We can get brunch. Let me know if that works for you. Love you.”

As her messages played, Nicky walked into the bathroom where several anti-wrinkle creams and lotions stood on a shelf next to expensive bottles of perfumes. Nicky always said you could never get enough beauty products.

Message two: “Hi Nicky. It’s Joe. We met at the Loreal mixer last week and exchanged numbers. I wanted to see if you wanted to get a drink after work this week. My friends….”

Loser, Nicky thought. Why didn’t you call me the next day? I probably would have given you a second chance, if you were an inch taller, she thought. The messages kept playing, grown men practically begging for a chance to buy Nicky dinner and drinks.

Message eight: “Hey Nick. It’s Jer. A group of us are getting together for dinner on Thursday, probably in the Lower East Side..”

Nicky had tried Internet dating. She never publicly posted her picture because she knew she would be bombarded with emails from men wanting to meet her solely based on her looks. And Nicky would never be a trophy wife, or at least that’s what she proclaimed. Her Mom was always the trophy wife next to Dad, and Nicky swore as a child, she would be independent. Besides, what if her coworkers saw her picture on Eharmony or Match.com? Her reputation as the woman who could get any man would be tarnished, she thought. She had to maintain a sense of mystique.

Of course, that didn’t stop Nicky from trying other match making services. In her earlier years, Nicky had tried 10-minute speed dating, but she would later complain the men weren’t fast enough on their feet for her. She had gone with her girlfriends to singles events at political fundraisers, Christian churches, Catholic masses, even Orthodox synagogues, but she always said the men were too prudish for her.

Nicky opened her Match.com inbox, and saw seven emails from men with attractive pictures. She had emailed them a day earlier, along with a picture of herself, and just like she suspected, the men emailed her back right away. Why didn’t they at least wait a day, she thought: such an act of desperation, she thought. And before she even opened that first email, Nicky knew what he would write: “You are so pretty and funny. I think we have a lot in common.” And sure enough, every man started his emails with the same line, complementing her beauty. Nicky started to reply to a handsome man with a great profile – financial analyst, lived in the Upper West Side, 6’2”, and he wrote back more than two paragraphs—when she stopped and hit delete.

Why bother, she said out loud. It’s all going to end the same. I’m going to meet up with him, get a free dinner. He’s going to get drunk so he can strike up the courage to try to kiss me. I’m going to be repulsed by his bad breath, another evening of my life, gone forever. Nicky turned off the computer and pondered Charley’s advice. Maybe she did need an entirely new approach to men.