Then watch in disbelief as he proceeds to count it. And as for the other thing, well, that’s what battery-operated toys were invented for. I have a career, I pay my own rent, I have a set of power tools and I know how to use them. sure,” I mutter, and begin rooting around in my change purse.ĭon’t get me wrong. “Have you got the seventy-five cents?” he prompts, his hand still outstretched.

And here I am, still looking.ĭigging out a twenty-dollar bill from my pocket, I pass it to John. Snuggled under the bedcovers with my flashlight, I couldn’t wait to grow up so I could find a man like him.īut now I have grown up. Devastatingly handsome, mysterious, smoldering, and a total romantic, he set the bar for all my future boyfriends. Forget fresh-faced Joey from New Kids on the Block or leather-clad Michael Hutchence from INXS-whose posters I had tacked to my wall-Mr.

I was just twelve years old when I first read Pride and Prejudice and I fell for him right from the start. an extra seven dollars and seventy-five cents, and that includes tax and tip,” he declares triumphantly, and shows me the screen to prove it. He seemed nice enough when he asked for my number-nice enough to share a pizza with on a Tuesday evening after work, anyway-but now, watching him hunched over the table, number-crunching, I’m fast realizing I’ve made a mistake. I’m having dinner with John, a thirty-something architect I met briefly at a friend’s birthday party last weekend. where on earth do you find a decent man these days?

Sitting in a little Italian restaurant on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, I stare across the checked tablecloth and watch, dumbfounded, as my date pulls out his CrackBerry and proceeds to cheerfully divvy up the bill. Hang on a minute, I’ve got a calculator on my BlackBerry. “So we had a drink each and shared a pizza, but you asked for two extra toppings on your half, which means you owe. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single girl in possession of her right mind must be in want of a decent man.

Me and Mr. Darcy by Alexandra Potter