Ruth Neubauer,
MSW, LCSW
Huff/Post50

Late last night I gathered up my courage, as I must each time, and called the 800 number to access the voice messages responding to my personal ad.

Just composing the ad took approximately two psychological years of my life. What me? Do this? No way.

Until three friends met their husbands through the personals and I kept attending weddings in which the couple shamelessly, joyously, gratefully shared the truth. They met through the Washingtonian ads.

I told myself something like this: After all, they’re expensive so they must be self-selective, and worth something special. Not just anybody will spend a couple hundred dollars on personal advertising, to catch that someone special — that needle in a haystack — for exchanging vows, a blissful honeymoon period, and eventual negotiating the decision on which way the toilet paper should be dispensed … should the paper unfurl from the top or from the bottom?

“No messages,” the recorded voice said without pity or care. “Your mailbox is empty at this time.”

Momentarily devastated that in the privacy of my own home, I felt rejected — unloved, unlovable and hopeless. Then I dialed the number of a friend, rehearsing the funny anecdote I was going to share with him. I told him the story, and he disappointed me by sighing sadly instead of laughing.

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Ruth Neubauer, MSW, LCSW – Psychotherapist; Teacher of Psychoanalytic concepts; Faculty, Washington School of Psychiatry; Photographer; Writer.

Psychotherapy/Adults, Couples; Journal to the Self® Workshops in small group settings. rneubauertherapy.com