Another Dead End

We left off with one of my parish priests deciding to play match maker when a woman around my age approached him after a prayer group meeting and complained about being single.  My similar gripes popped into his mind and he thought it might be a good idea if we met.  When he discussed this with me after Mass, I wound up giving him my contact information so he could pass it along to this mystery woman.

I tired to be hopeful but any feelings of excitement were tempered by my dismal track record with the opposite sex.  Sure enough, the week passed by and I didn't receive a single phone call from any desperate Catholic females in their early 40s.  I wanted to follow up with my priest about this but as (bad) luck would have it, he didn't say Mass that week.

As (worse) luck would have it, I soon found out he wasn't even in the country since he was on a month-long mission to Europe.  This was frustrating to say the least because even though he had gone out of his way to keep my interests in mind, he failed to follow through by passing along my contact information.  Now a whole month that could have been spent going out on dates was lost.  When my priest finally returned to the parish, I wanted to see if he would say something to me about this woman without me having to remind him about it.  After Mass, he talked to my mother about her many aches and pains but he didn't say one word to me about this potential girlfriend.  So the struggles that were foremost on my mind for such a long time didn't seem to be that memorable to him.

At the end of another Mass, I decided to suck up my pride and just ask him about this woman.  He looked surprised and said, “She was here at this Mass.”  I thought to myself, “Gee, that's great.  And you said nothing to her about me?”  As a long-suffering single, I usually scan the pews just to see if (by some small miracle) an attractive woman decides to visit our church.  Perhaps my view of her had been blocked by other people or maybe she sat next to a support column?  Either way, I didn't notice any woman in her 40s among the sea of elderly parishioners.  My priest took out his phone and started texting her to let her know that the single Catholic guy he told her about (me!) was here.  She texted back within a few seconds but said she had already left.  My priest expressed his regrets and hoped we would meet up sometime in the near future.
 
I started to have doubts about this woman right then and there.  How serious could she be about finding a date if she wasn't willing to stop dead in her tracks and walk right back into the church to meet me?  Mass only ended a few minutes ago and I certainly would have done as much if the situation had been reversed.

A few more weeks passed by without hearing a thing from this woman despite that fact that I was pretty easy to find.  She knew which parish I belonged to and what Mass I usually attended.  She knew that I always sat with my mother.  She knew my first and last name which meant she could easily track me down on the internet.  When I followed up with my priest about this for a second time, he said he would reach out to her again.   More time passed and still there was no word.
 
I wound up having to approach my priest for a third time.  With regret in his voice, he said that he did talk to her about me but unfortunately, she was having second thoughts about the vocation of marriage and family life so she really didn't want to see anyone right now.  All that time wasted!

My mind sought to make sense of the utter stupidity of the situation.  This woman was so frustrated with being single that she was willing to complain about it to her priest but she was unwilling to do anything to change her situation.  It also surprised me that a Catholic single was willing to write off the one and only vocation that would lead to sacramental love and a family.  Maybe she was fine being a dateless wonder or maybe she was already playing the field like so many of my secular friends had done.

Of course, there was another possibility.  Maybe she did look into who I was but didn't find me to be a great catch.  Her first name was the same as a reasonably attractive 40 something woman I had once chatted with on a Catholic dating website.  After sending her only a few innocuous messages, she flaked out and disappeared.  Perhaps this woman and my priest's mystery date were one and the same.  Who knows? 
 
One thing is for sure, it strikes me as odd that so many Catholic women think they have all the time in the world to find the perfect prince charming while they let “Mr. Goodenough” slip right through their hands.