MANifesting

“Hmm.” My pen tapped against the page for a moment. “I guess early to mid-thirties? You know, someone who has a career, not just a throwaway job.”

“That makes sense,” Christine said. She tended to date all sorts of different guys, from artists and hipsters our age to older stockbrokers.

“What do you want him to look like?” she asked.

I stared into space for a minute. “I don’t know. I mean, handsome, I guess.”

“When you’ve pictured your future boyfriend, you don’t know what he looks like?”

“It’s more of a feeling,” I said, crossing my legs as I forced my fingers to stop tapping my pen. “I guess I want him to be good looking, but also make me feel…you know. That tingle.”

Christine laughed so loud that a couple of the laptop jockeys in the front glanced over their shoulders at us in surprise. “Honey, trust me. An extremely wrong man can make y

ou tingle as well.”

“Quiet,” I shushed her. “You know what I mean. That spark. That magical little spark that everyone talks about.”

“You can feel the spark from the laziest guy in the universe who lives in his mother’s basement if he has pretty eyes,” she giggled.

“Eyes,” I heard myself say softly. “Yeah, he has to have dreamy eyes.”

“Write that down,” she said, pointing to my notebook.

I felt silly but added ‘dreamy eyes’ to the list.

“Do you want him to be sporty, or artsy, or anything in particular?” she asked.

“I guess it’s more about energy,” I said, looking up to watch a streetcar pass by the window. “If he wants to go rock climbing and parasailing and whatever crazy things, that’s great, as long as he’s not aggressive when he’s around me. Does that make any sense?”

“I think so. You’re a quiet type, and you don’t want him to drag you too far out of your comfort zone.”

Nodding, I wrote, ‘Respectful of my comfort zone.’

“So far, this sounds like a quarter of the guys on the planet,” Christine said. “Oh, wait–” she pulled out her phone and scrolled through something, then held up the screen. ‘Singles meet up tonight at The Duke Lounge.’

“I’d go with you, but I have a date with Kyle,” Christine continued. “Marie sent me the link, but she can’t go either.” Marie was Christine’s slightly older sister, who was a bit uptight, but had always been nice to me. Plus, it sounded like she was subtly trying to get Christine to date better men.

Christine laughed as I added to the list, ‘Don’t want to meet him in a bar.’

“Why not? People meet in bars all the time.”

“It’s just tacky,” I said, shaking my head quickly. “It’s not something that you want to tell your kids someday.”

“Kids won’t care,” she said. “Tell them that mommy and daddy met in a bar, and you should be happy about it because now you exist.”

“It just doesn’t feel right.”

“Well, Miss Fussy Pants, this is at a lounge, not a bar. So there. Honestly, I think you should go and just meet a couple of people to break the ice.”

Her hand darted out to clutch my wrist. “Hey – with all of your manifesting and intentional planning stuff, aren’t you supposed to believe in signs?”

“A bit.”

“I remembered to tell you about this event while you were in the midst of plotting the details of your future boyfriend. That is totally a sign, and you have to go.”

She forwarded me the information, and I heard my phone beep in my purse on the chair beside me. “I’m sorry, I have to run,” she said, “Kyle is picking me up in an hour, and I still have to change and do my makeup.”

Staring at her face analytically as only a best friend can, I shook my head. “Your makeup is perfect. What are you talking about?”