By Brian Lee
As summer ebbs and Madeira parking stalls return to their rightful owners, the shift in pace brings welcome relief for most. Squinting ahead, we can almost make out normalcy, picking its way back along the highway through the southbound train of boat trailers and minivans. Who doesn’t enjoy this time of year?
Single people, that’s who. Labour Day sets into play a predictable panic for anyone facing the unenviable prospect of spending a Pender Harbour winter alone. Like squirrels throttling up their already hyperactive pine cone hoarding, mate-less locals anxiously plot ways in which to avoid a prolonged celibacy.
It will come as no surprise that the romantic prospects available here are far more abundant in summer than winter. I’ve faced down our off-season solo many times and can offer a bit of advice to those lucky enough to already have a steady:
Go out and buy him or her some flowers, because the grass on the other side of this mountain is brown. Actually, there’s no grass at all — just dirt.
The spring that started out so promising with fresh faces arriving by the ferryload and days spent frolicking together at the lake slips away before you can stammer, "Do you wanna be my girlf... ?" And, though mine is a male perspective, I’ve been told that it’s just as daunting — and possibly even more so — for the wintering female. And if you’re gay, forget it.
It’s not that there aren’t other singles out there as eager to hook up as you are, it’s just that in a small town like this there’s not a lot of choice. Or you (and your immediate circle of friends) have already been there. By late-August, the prospect looms of a winter spent in the pub with the same seven people as last year.
So, like the squirrel, you double your efforts — it’s do or die. You chase down all the leads you passed up in July when romance seemed like a smorgasboard. It’s the bottom of the ninth and you’re looking for a Hail Mary buzzer-beater.
But your prey picks up on mixed metaphors and becomes wary. Call it "squeezing the trigger too tight" or the "unattractive odour of desperation," but there’s a point where, even if you meet someone suitably toothed and showered, it’s too late.
By Jazz Fest, that easygoing demeanor that was there when you had the whole summer of possibilities ahead is gone. It’s as if your pheromones have been poisoned, or at least diluted, by the pressure.
The resulting anxiety works to paralyze any remaining opportunity. Words are fumbled, jokes fall flat — the gazelles scatter. Sadly, there can be but one outcome for this hunter.
Here you go again.