Rebecca Wiegand

The Gaggle: How the Guys You Know Will Help You Find the Love You Want (excerpt)

God bless and damn the networking-non-date. The best and worst one I have ever been on started pure and innocently. They always do.

Tim was a colleague of mine who worked from home. We had friendly e-correspondence and I knew his address, because I processed his paycheck every other week. When I moved to his neighborhood, I emailed him to see if he wanted to get coffee or a drink.

I had no agenda! I swear! I didn’t even know what he looked like! I was really just in the market for friends, acquaintances, some work gossip and a few tips on neighborhood spots.

Tim and I met at a local bistro and one drink turned into several. An hour turned into two. Three? His hometown was a family vacation spot I knew well; we both had a passion for ancient history; we loved jazz; we had so much in common!

Throughout our conversation, I could sense that Tim was interested in me – he laughed a little too hard at my jokes, he was bowled over by my witticisms, I sensed his passion for jazz was a bit exaggerated. Though he was young, handsome and lanky in that charming dweeb-from-Brooklyn sort of way, I did not return his interest. Fun as it was, the non-date just wasn’t clicking for me. When he suggested we trade jazz CDs and then meet for a drink the following week at another local bar, I made a vague excuse and resolved to let things chill between us. I didn’t want to lead this guy on.

Weeks went by and our e-friendship at work continued to be lovely. No awkward fallout from the non-date! However, I was constantly aware that this guy had been into me. I should put subtle stops on that as needed, I told myself.

Enter the office Christmas party. Tim shows up – with his pregnant wife! Who immediately starts telling me about their four-year-old daughter! She’s telling me how great the neighborhood is for kids! She wants to show me around! We should have coffee or a drink!

I was astonished. Had I completely mis-read Tim’s enthusiasm and overtures? Was I THAT vain? This guy was (apparently) married with a kid and a baby on the way! …But why had THAT cozy set of facts never come up in our multiple hour conversation? I had left our non-date with the very clear impression that he was single, available, and dying to trade jazz CDs and get more drinks (like, alone, together, the two of us). He had never mentioned the wife. Or the kids. It still makes my brain explode. WHY?!

Was anyone in the wrong here? I sensed Tim’s slight embarrassment as I chatted with his wife. Maybe he had just been enjoying the drink with me, living vicariously, as if he were still single and able to pursue whatever girls he wanted. But what if I had been interested in him? How many non-dates (“trading jazz CDs”) would we have gone on before the matter of the wife would come up? If at all? Is this how extra-martial affairs “innocently” started?

One thing was for sure. When I was in a relationship, my boyfriend/husband was going to be talking about me. A LOT.

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No one does “judgmental” like my Mom.

“Sweetheart, I don’t understand. If you were building a real relationship with this boy, then why would one text message destroy it all?”

She didn’t get it. George and I had been friends in college. We’d recently re-connected years later in New York and started having brunch, texting all the time, meeting up for drinks, swinging by our favorite burger joint, and making out. A lot. (We weren’t having sex, Mom, FYI.)

It thrilled me that maybe – maybe – we would have The Talk soon and he would become my boyfriend. How wild, hilarious, awesome and unexpected would that be, after all the years we had known each other!

Then came the text message. 

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