"Can I Talk to You?"

Whenever a partner says these words and proceeds to close my office door, I cannot help but think that I'm in trouble. So on Friday morning when a partner entered my office and asked if we could talk for a few minutes, I experienced that feeling of dread and wonder at "what have I done now?"

So Mr. Partner sits down and says "I hope this is ok. I gave your name and number to a great guy last night. I told him we had a blond single attorney in our office and wanted you to know that he'd be calling you."

So what could I say? I had never even told Mr. Partner that I was no longer dating someone. I guess partners talk, and one of the senior partners and I had a DTR a few weeks ago. And in case you're wondering, yes it's awkward and weird to have a conversation about your love life, or lack thereof, with one of your sixty year old bosses. And it's funny to see the ways different partners go about asking about it without coming out and directly asking. I'm not complaining though. Even though it's definitely odd at times (keep in mind that I am the only unmarried attorney at my firm), I chose to be in this kind of environment as opposed to larger firms where your coworkers wouldn't know or care if your mother died, much less if you bought a house or got married or the like.

Back to the situation at hand: I told the partner that was OK, simply because I couldn't think of any other appropriate response. Mr. Partner proceeded to tell me all about "great guy" (hereinafter GG) and again, I was reminded of why I'd rather be set up with someone by a super close friend. I learned all about his extensive education, family, profession, athleticism, and fraternity, but nothing about his faith (until I asked). Fortunately I got his name, and a summer associate was kind enough to research him and draft a memorandum about him. Just kidding. All the Internet search revealed was a photo and a few sports articles where he'd been interviewed as the best friend of a well known athlete.

If the guy calls, I kind of feel like I don't have a choice but to at least meet him. That stinks. Just knowing that I'm going to have handle this extra carefully because GG is good friends with Mr. Partner (who I really like) and that Mr. Partner will be asking about all of this takes the fun out of it. Set ups by friends who really know me = potentially exciting; set ups by people who set me up with someone because we're both single and have good jobs = not exciting (I'd rather be alone or with friends). On the bright side, I always enjoy meeting new people and it's very unusual to meet someone who I can't enjoy for an hour or two. My hope is that if I only like him as a friend he'll feel the same as I do, and we'll never have that weird conversation that's never fun about just being friends (the prospect of that conversation bothers me so much, it makes me not want to date at all). And yes, I realize that perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself, but all of this is why I don't like dating and am not that anxious to jump in with both feet quite yet (especially when it isn't completely voluntary).

On a positive note, I'm going to a dinner party this evening, and I always love these and afterwards wonder why I don't ever have them. I love having interesting and fun friends, especially ones who claim his specialities include rack of lamb and chocolate mousse.