Sally Breslin: My Life: MY MATCHMAKING DAYS ARE OVER!

I recently learned a valuable lesson: It’s not a good idea to try to play matchmaker.

Kenny, the son of a close friend of mine, lives in New York. He is in his early 30s, has never been married, is good-looking, has a great job and best of all, has no baggage from prior relationships. He has made no secret of the fact that his ultimate goal is to meet “Miss Right” and get married, but so far, he has been extremely unlucky when it comes to love.

I never understood why some nice young woman wouldn’t be thrilled to have a kind, generous, hard-working, intelligent guy like Kenny for a husband.

Well, I understand now…but I’m getting ahead of myself here.

It all began a few weeks ago when a former co-worker of mine, Ann, who’s attractive and single, said she’d give her right arm to meet a guy who truly respected women, didn’t hang out in bars and wanted something more serious than the proverbial one-night-stand. I immediately thought of Kenny and asked her if she’d like him to contact her. She seemed very interested, but told me to tell him to email her rather than text her or call her, to protect her privacy until she got to know him better.

“You can’t be too careful nowadays,” she said.

So Ann and Kenny exchanged emails. The very next day, Ann called me to ask what kind of weirdo I was trying to set her up with! I was shocked, to say the least. I had known Kenny for years and he’d never once done anything that could be described as weirdo-ish.

Ann explained that in response to her email, Kenny had written back telling her he already could tell she was his Miss Right, the woman of his dreams, and he couldn’t wait to move to New Hampshire to be with her!

I was stunned. “What on earth did you write to him?” I asked her, imagining some boldly seductive letter, even though I knew it would be totally out of character for someone as shy as Ann.

“I just told him what I did for a living, my likes and dislikes, my hobbies - stuff like that,” she answered. “I know he’s your friend, Sally, but no offense, I’m not going to write back to him. One more email, and I’m scared I’ll find him camped out on my doorstep!”

Kenny was devastated when he didn’t hear from Ann again. And when he called me to ask if I might know the reason why, I had to gently explain that he might have come across sounding just a tad too desperate for a wife, and scared her off.

“I always do that,” he said, groaning. “I guess I’m just too eager to settle down and start a family. But you can bet I'll never act too gung-ho again, believe me!”

Fool that I was, I believed him. So a few weeks later, when a friend of mine happened to mention that her cousin Melanie, a 25-year-old legal secretary who lived in Boston, was looking for a mature, career-oriented guy who wanted a serious relationship, Kenny once again popped into my mind. I gave her his email address.

To my relief, Kenny didn’t scare Melanie away by coming on too strong. In fact, they seemed to hit it off really well.

One night, two weeks after his first contact with Melanie, Kenny called me.

“Thank you SO much, Sally!” he gushed. “Melanie is the perfect woman for me. We’re already making plans to meet, and if things go the way I think they will, I’m going to propose to her. Of course, I want you to be in our wedding party!”

“Whoa!” I said. “Propose?! You’ve known her only two weeks and haven’t even met her in person yet! You promised me you’d take things slowly, remember?”

“But I’m really head over heels in love with Melanie!” he protested. “This is the real thing! Why should I wait?”

Far be it for me to burst his bubble. I figured he was a grown man, able to make his own decisions…no matter what the outcome.

Meanwhile, Ann, not knowing about Kenny’s latest love, decided to give him another chance. She sent him an email, then also sent a copy to me so I’d know exactly what she’d written. It was the type of polite, newsy letter you might write to someone’s mother. The minute Kenny received it, however, he convinced himself she’d written it because deep down inside, she really “wanted” him.

Excited, he immediately sent a response to Ann, telling her how thrilled he was to hear from her again, how desperately he’d missed her and how much he’d thought about her. Unfortunately, in his excitement, he also accidentally sent a copy of his email…to Melanie.

Once again, my phone rang. “I think I’ve lost Melanie, the love of my life, forever!” Kenny cried to me. “I was just so excited to finally hear from Ann, I wrote a bunch of mushy stuff to her that I really didn’t mean, and I accidentally sent a copy to Melanie, and now she thinks I’m some kind of playboy who sends duplicate letters to lots of women! What am I going to do? I don’t want any other woman! I want Melanie! I can’t bear the thought of a future without her!”

I was glad he couldn’t see me rolling my eyes. The more he whined, the more I felt as if I were talking to a 14-year-old instead of a guy in his 30s. Still, I couldn’t help but feel partly to blame for his misery. “I’ll see what I can do,” I heard myself saying. “Give me Melanie’s phone number.”

I didn’t call Melanie right away because I figured she’d need a little time to cool off. I also had no idea what I was going to say to her. The first two days, Kenny called me at least five times, asking if I’d talked to Melanie yet.

It took nearly two weeks, but I finally managed to convince Melanie to give Kenny another chance. I made him sound so wonderful, so sincere, he easily could have been nominated for sainthood. I also told her how completely miserable he was without her, which seemed to please her. When Melanie finally told me she was willing to give their relationship another try, I couldn’t wait to call Kenny and deliver the great news.

“Oh?” he said, sounding about as thrilled as if I’d just told him he was going to be audited by the IRS (I had been anticipating whoops of unbridled joy). There was a long silence on the phone before he finally said, “Well, um, you see, when Melanie got upset with me and I was sure I'd lost her forever, I was so devastated, I contacted her roommate, Dawn, to ask if she would help me try to get Melanie back. The crazy thing is, Dawn and I had a long conversation and found out we have a lot in common, and well...we've secretly been in constant contact for nearly two weeks now. And guess what? We’re very much in love! I’ve never been happier. Dawn definitely is my Miss Right! It had to be fate that brought us together.”

I hung up on him.

And I swear, if I ever hear one more guy complain that women are fickle, I’ll be very tempted to slug him!

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