The Gilligan's Island of My Mind

I do not like waiting around for something to happen. Like most people, I want action. I want progress. I want efficiency. This is one of the reasons why online dating was so uncomfortable for me. And jury duty, which occupied my time recently.

Most of my day was spent waiting -- first for several hours in the jury service waiting room, then outside of a courtroom for a couple of hours. The waiting was so interminably long, I lost interest in reading and my mind started to play "Desert Island," this silly game I play whenever I'm stuck with a group of strangers for a while. The game is based on the farfetched idea that I and this particular group of strangers would have to reestablish some sort of civilization after surviving a catastrophic event that isolates us from the rest of what's left of humanity. Sort of like Gilligan's Island, but in the middle of LA.

I scan all the men in the group to try to figure out who would be my "husband" on Desert Island. The pickings are as slim as they were for Mary Ann and Ginger on Gilligan's Island. There's an olive-skinned foreign guy in his 30s sitting in the corner with his eyes closed, slowly swaying his head side to side, as he sings what can only be a funeral dirge in the land of his birth. This is America, babe. There is a time and place that is not now or here for that. Shut the f#ck up.

There are a dozen older men dressed in the standard retiree uniform of nondescript wire-framed glasses, a pastel-colored polo shirt, big-ass running shoes (usually white), and a pair of khakis two sizes too big. Bill Gates is not a fashion icon. Quit cloning his look. Well, unless you're *trying* to make yourself unattractive. Then, by all means, go ahead.

And then there's the chatty guy working the crowd with his well meant, but benignly insipid cliches belly-flopping out of his mouth every other sentence. He's in his late 50s, I would guess, and strikes me as the kind of guy who retires and becomes "The Waver" in his town. You know, that generically friendly, but inscrutable odd guy who stands on the same corner every day at the same time, robotically waving at the commuters driving to their boring jobs. That's his hobby -- waving at strangers. This guy gives me that same "what's-your-deal?" vibe.

It's surprisingly hard to "win" at Desert Island, and I more often end up in a draw, as I did a couple days ago when I gave up trying to find an adequate Desert Island husband within the juror pool. Instead, I looked around at the women among the prospective jurors, and decided I would be better off forming a platonic, supportive group with some of them, instead of trying to pair off with any of the guys.

Coincidentally, this echoes some recent conversations I've had with a few female friends, who have been thinking about what retirement will look like for them in 15 or 20 years. Some of my friends -- many of whom are single by circumstance, not choice -- extrapolate their current situation into the future and toy with the idea of living with, or very near, a group of their closest female friends when they finally retire. And even some of my married female friends joke about retiring within the immediate proximity of a circle of supportive, fun, and lively women, picturing themselves living in a women's-only dorm for retirees.

I'm not really sure what this means. At face value, it may mean single women in middle age have come to the realization that they may not ever meet Mr. (or Miss) Right, so if retirement with a romantic partner is not in the cards, what's an acceptable alternative to retiring alone?  Or it may mean that middle-aged women are recognizing the increasingly important emotional support role of their female friends as they age. One thing I *am* sure of is that retirement with a guy like "The Waver" would be as unacceptable as Ginger or Mary Ann settling for Gilligan.