Have you ever been to a medium? Not a psychic. A medium.

I saw a medium once. She told me all manner of fascinating things. And at the end of an hour filled with insights into children, business and family relationships, I exclaimed, “But wait! What about my love life?!” To which she dryly responded: “Three to five. That’s what I’m seeing. Three to five.”

To my widowed ears, this sounded more like a prison sentence than the number of additional years I’d be waiting to meet Mr. Wonderful.

It was depressing. And even more disturbing was the fact that my “three to five years” of waiting was reportedly going to yield a man who would, according to her, be tall, as much as seven to eight years my junior, and have strawberry blond hair.

Now, I come from a family of northern Europeans. Romantically, I have never been attracted to blondes. I generally lust after men with dark hair. Additionally, I told her I had already dated the very man she was describing, and it had not gone particularly well.

The next vision this woman had was of a piece of meat. As in, filet mignon. On a plate. I think she said it was raw.

OK, so this could yield many interpretations.

I projected that perhaps the meat on the plate was a reference to men mistakenly attempting to take me out to dinner at the Outback Steakhouse; beefy men, or men cooking up filets for me on their back-porch grills.

Or maybe I was, indeed, just supposed to be viewing the men in this “three-to-five-year” waiting period as pieces of meat – shallow yet enjoyable ways to pass the time.

That seemed a bit cold-hearted, but hey, I’d paid the woman a sum of cash equal to our monthly cable bill, so I needed a positive spin. Waiting half a decade for the arrival of Prince Charming just wasn’t doing it for me – unless he was a wealthy cattle rancher who could get me an unlimited complimentary supply of my favorite cowboy boots from that little shop in Boston.

As I left her “office,” trailing behind the friend whose suggestion it was to venture into the world of those with a window into the future, I remember feeling a bit upset at the dismal dating situation this medium chick had left me to contemplate.

Really? Three to five more years? As a woman who had already been dating for half a decade, this seemed unfair and unnecessarily cruel news. Especially after I’d paid her in cash.

At first, I rebelled against her unfair sentence. I mean, I don’t really believe in most of that new-agey stuff anyway. I certainly saw no reason to allow some self-proclaimed medium’s incense-induced prediction to put a gray cloud over the next 36 to 60 months of my life – potentially tossing me into a dating tailspin.

In the end, I decided to make the most of it. I thought, “OK. Great. If this is to be my plight for the next three to five years, I’ll just resign myself to my fate. And I’ll relish the abundance of dinners out for filet mignon, cooked medium rare – with sauteed mushrooms and a nice bottle of cabernet sauvignon, with blackberry undertones.”

Still, it’s tough to get excited about a date when you’re already armed with the knowledge he’s a cosmic no-go. Even if he does grill a mean shish kebab.

A full year passed after “My Favorite Medium’s” prediction, and sure enough, no Mr. Fabulous. Then summer No. 2 came and went. There were a couple of possible Mr. Wonderfuls, but no real deal. Next summer will mark the end of year No. 3 of my sentencing. Hopefully, by then, I’ll no longer be eying the guy at the butcher counter at Whole Foods – and my rare medium will be proved correct.

About everything but the strawberry blond hair.

Meanwhile, at least I don’t have to worry about becoming anemic.

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No Sugar Added is Cape Elizabeth resident Sandi Amorello’s biweekly take on life, love, death, dating and single parenting. Get more of Sandi at irreverentwidow.com or contact her at sandi@irreverentwidow.com.

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