Single in the Twilight Zone by Anna Maria Junus

Note: This was first published in 2005, so certain references to Tom Cruise & Brad Pitt are now obsolete, however, I'm still single and the chicken dance still exists.

I’ve been on my own for two years now, and divorced for six months.

It was time.

Yep, I’m getting married next week.

Hah! Made you look! No I’m not getting married. But I bet I got your attention.

I did something almost as monumental a couple of weeks ago.

I went to a singles dinner and dance.

You don’t think when you get married at twenty that you would be dating in your forties; sixties or seventies maybe, but not at the same time as your children.

I felt like a teenager again.

Only I weighed a whole lot less when I was a teenager and I didn’t have to color my hair to hide the grey.

My friends did my hair and makeup. I wore a dress that made me look fabulous. Correction. I wore a dress.

I showed up at the dance and was pleasantly surprised to find that the music was the same music I danced to more than twenty years ago when I was single.

I was transported into the Billy Joel, David Bowie twilight zone. I looked for Farrah hair, stirrup pants, and football shoulder pads. I wondered where the guy was who always jumped on stage and lip synced to Mick Jagger. I thought that Michael Jackson was just a really talented artist and all of his legal problems were just a bad dream and he was still black and had a nose. I got scary images in my mind of someone who called himself Boy George. And I just knew that they were going to play Stairway to Heaven for the last dance.

The people were the same too, only with some wrinkles, extra weight and grey hair. Oh yeah, and there were some old people. Not old people the way that teenagers think, which is anyone over the age of thirty. I mean people in their seventies, although anyone who is at a singles dance looking for romance can’t possibly be old.

There was the girl that looked great and danced every dance except the ones she wanted to sit out.

There was the guy who thought he was the best looking one there. You could tell because he kept checking out his image in every reflective surface around.

There was the group of guys in the corner who didn’t ask anyone to dance because they figured they were too cool. Apparently it’s cool to show up to a dance and then choose not to dance.

There was the guy who would circle around the room looking for his latest victim, and every girl would rush to the bathroom when they saw him coming to avoid him. This is the same guy who break danced during ballads and asked you to marry him before the song was over.

There was the group of girls who giggled and made comments about what people were wearing. They were the sister group of the guys who are too cool to dance.

It was high school all over again.

Fortunately they did not play the chicken dance. I will do the macarana. I will line dance. I’ll twist and jerk and bunny hop and get excited over Cotton Eye Joe, but I will not do the Chicken Dance. I wish someone would just put that chicken out of its misery. An axe kills chickens off nicely, people. I think that next time a deejay plays the chicken dance at any event everyone should hang him by his microphone cord. It would send a message out to all other deejays and chickens.

I kept wishing as I sat watching everyone that I had hung a sign around my neck saying “Although I look eleven months pregnant, I’m not pregnant at all. There’s just a whole lot of me to love.”

That might look good on a T-shirt.

But then I’m not really looking for romance anyway. I’ve just completely forgotten how to talk to the opposite sex and I would like to figure it out again.

Which is hard since I know nothing about sports, cars, or stupid human tricks.

I tell my kids that when I start dating again, as long as the guy is older than my oldest child, he’s fair game.

This has not gone over well with my 21 year old.

At least I’ve set some ground rules. Men in there forties will date anyone who can produce an ID. Any ID. Her mother’s ID.

I’ve asked my kids what kind of man I should see and they said “if it’s not going to be Dad, then he’s got to be funny.”

I like funny.

I also like someone who reads, is financially stable, hasn’t served time in prison, and laughs at all my jokes.

And if he looks like Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise that doesn’t hurt either.

Come to think of it, Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise are available and my age.

Hmmm.