By Rebecca Keister

Our waitress so bad, you had to love her.

At a Friday night dinner for three, she was bubbly, friendly, funny and always disappearing. We found her, when the crowd cleared, sitting a couple of tables away, chatting with some customers.

She came back, of course, and began to engage us in what I can only assume is her usual routine. She sat right down and joined in our conversation.

We were talking, of course, about boys and in particular about an almost-forgotten ex of my lovely, lovely friend.

"Well," our waitress asked. "Are you seeing anyone now? No? Oh, honey, don't worry, he is out there. You'll find him."

And so ended the possibility of us over-tipping.

That is far from the first, or last, time a stranger has remarked to one of us - and all the other unmarried women out there - that, not to worry, our someday husband is alive and well, and is probably just stuck somewhere, most likely lost and lonely.

But this was when I started keeping count, and thought back to some of my very favorite examples.

In the early days of my career, I was covering a candidates' night. A very sweet, elderly woman came over to introduce herself and ask where I worked.

"And what does your husband do, dear?," she followed and, upon learning that there was no such man, said, "Oh, that's OK, dear. You have a nice face, you'll find one." I was 24, and looked several years younger.

Then there was the more recent conversation at a younger friend's engagement party where a man, hopefully with two many celebratory toasts under his belt, said to me, "So, your clock must be ticking."

Once, an interview subject asked if my husband minded me working at night, then said, "Well, you've got looks and personality, kid. You won't be on the market long."

The obvious inappropriateness of that last one aside, I am constantly amused by how many people want to tell single women (and men) that their unmarried status is some sort of temporary, if slightly painful, affliction to which the cure is walking around somewhere, just waiting to be found.

I want to say, "Don't worry. His search party is out, and I expect a report back this evening."

The polite response, "oh," followed by a head tilt and slight smile, wins out, because this worldly advice is well meant. For some, it's unusual to see someone in their mid- or late 20s unmarried.

But it's not uncommon and so when someone says these things, it does sort of sting - because you end up thinking that they feel just a little bad for you, even if you don't feel bad at all.

My lovely, lovely friend knows this, and the brief sting of our waitress's well-meant ego punch was soon soothed.

"Oh, I know," she told the waitress. "I'm fabulous."

And she is, and somewhere, some man is being told that "she" is out there waiting.

Read the original article at the Sun Chronicle.