A PICTURE’S WORTH $87.50

December 28, 2007

I met Isabelle on an Internet dating site. I was attracted to her picture from the get go. Isabelle was looking for a man with a good personality and above all she needed honesty. She had been burned before. She talked about herself, her likes and her dislikes. To tell the truth, I fell for her immediately. Like most guys, her looks were what got me interested. Her long and curly, red hair, really did it for me.

Let me cut to the chase. We decided to meet at 5:30 in Little Italy at a small Italian restaurant. I bought her flowers, a nice touch I thought. It was almost six, and I was beginning to wonder if I was being stood up, when she arrived. I was sitting, thank god, when a woman, who resembled the one in picture, entered, perused the room, found my eye, smiled, waved, and walked over.

I stood up, and greeted her, “Isabelle?” She responded with a simple, “Yes, it is Isabelle”. Interesting response I thought, but hey, she was half French. She kissed me on my cheek, took off her coat and sat down. Her long curly red locks were now, very short, with blue highlights. Her face was fuller, and she looked older than her picture. I ordered her a glass of wine. She was “famished”, and ordered calamari, and fried oysters’, and on her second glass of wine before they arrived. She told me she was sorry she was late, but her session with her shrink was “intense”, and she needed time to “recover, find her inner-being, and prepare for our encounter”. Encounter? Hey, she was half French.

After she ordered her third glass of wine, I couldn’t resist asking her about her hair. She explained the blue was a reflection of the new “Isabelle”. Her life, her relationships had all gone to hell, but now, after finding the “right shrink”, Isabelle was ready to meet a man who could, “keep her mind interested, and stimulate her physical being.” An hour later I was ready to go home.

I asked for the check. Then, Isabelle began to make plans for the weekend, with me, this relationship not going to work. I still needed to know one thing. After paying my dues, $87.50 to be specific, I asked the question that popped into my mind the moment she walked in. “Isabelle, the picture on your website…?” She proceeded to tell me the picture in question, the one in which her long, curly, red hair had created great anticipation… was fifteen years old. Which prompted me to ask her why she used that picture. Her response, “it was a good picture”. I thought to myself, yes, it WAS!