Well Of Souls

There was a time when the job I had installing modular office furniture routinely brought me to downtown Denver. That was the major reason that I even considered joining the video dating service "Great Expectations." There was no office in Boulder, and so it would only happen if I found myself in Denver and we had finished early enough on that particular afternoon that I could drop in and not be trapped by rush hour traffic.
It took me some months to find this coincidental moment, but I made sure that I was ready. I brought with me the change of clothes they suggested on the phone, as well as the "get acquainted" coupon they had sent me in the mail back when the snow was falling. The fact that they had sent the special offer to "single resident" didn't matter, at least they got my address right.
It was a warm spring day when I pulled into the covered parking adjacent to the Great Expectations sign. I double-checked the suite number one last time and headed inside. The first thing that struck me when I entered was how empty it was. How was I going to meet the woman of my dreams if there were no women around? The receptionist checked my name off a list and told me to have a seat. They were waiting for two other single residents to come along on our introductory offer.
The magazines in the waiting room were far too hip for me to comprehend, so I flipped through some of the brochures that were laid out carefully within arm's reach of where I was sitting. As I waited for the rest of my tour to arrive, it crossed my mind for the very first time: "I have no idea how much this will cost."
When the two young men, both of whom would have had a much easier time coping with the reading material in the lobby, showed up, we were escorted to a meeting room. There we were shown a number of feel-good happy-ending testimonials from satisfied customers on videotape. It never occurred to me to ask my host if he had used the service himself, but after a few more minutes of preliminaries I dropped the big one: "How much is this going to cost me?"
"How much is it worth to find your soulmate?" came the response.
I knew exactly what he was getting at. He had zeroed in on the desperation I had felt by coming there in the first place. I had been on a grand total of two "real dates" in the previous eight years, and I was ready to believe that I really needed help meeting people. I needed their help enough to pay whatever it was that they were asking, so why was I asking?
The answer came to me in a flash: Because I didn't need their help that bad after all. I picked up my carefully selected wardrobe changes, still on their hangers, thanked them for their time and excused myself. As I walked past the closed doors that I could only assume contained video production equipment and banks of computers for selecting compatible couples, I half-expected to be chased out the door. "But we had a deal!"
We never did. I got back in my car and drove into the late afternoon sunshine. I wished the men I saw and all the women I never met success in their Great Expectations, but they weren't mine. I took a leap of faith and decided to save the money, however much it might have been, for the next date I went on. For the record, that came more than a year later, but it was with the woman who became my wife. That was a good investment.