If Jackie was disappointed in my failure to snag Larry as my dream husband, she didn’t let on. Instead, she shifted gears with military precision, employing a new tactic: advertising me like some foreign exchange prize cow to every tall, available student in her class.
Shockingly, this actually worked. She managed to wrangle one chap into agreeing to a double date with her and her husband — which, to be fair, was probably just as much about her escaping diapers and textbooks for a night of fun as it was about helping me find everlasting love.
We met at some pub in the Tampa Bay area. The moment I was introduced to Nameless Guy, I caught a flicker of disappointment in his eyes — the kind you see when someone realizes their “mystery blind date” is less Scarlett Johansson and more awkward South African import with a dodgy perm. To make matters worse, he was clearly a few years younger than me. Good-looking, yes — but in that way late-twenties men are when they still have a wide selection of hot blondes queuing up at their feet.
I spent the evening sinking further and further into my wine glass, feeling like this was yet another lost opportunity in the ever-growing graveyard of my love life. Jackie didn’t bother pushing the match any further — his body language was practically screaming, “Abort mission!”
A few weeks later, Jackie’s husband came home with a new “opportunity”: apparently, one of the officers at the local penitentiary where he worked was interested in taking me out. That’s right. I had now officially reached the level of being pimped out to random corrections officers. My romantic prospects were no longer dazzling or exotic — they were, quite literally, prison-adjacent.
At this point, I began to wonder if I should just take holy orders and become a nun.
Of course, I couldn’t refuse, and this time Jackie had clearly abandoned any hope of transforming me into a siren. “Officer Fino” arrived around 5:30. It was still hot as hell—easily in the 100s—and I’m pretty sure you could hear my heart tumble down the stairs when we stood watching him step out of the car.
He was a large man with a round, tomato-red face, topped with what looked like a fiery orange Brillo pad trimmed into a military buzz cut. Jackie’s husband was grinning at me—not mocking, not teasing, just wearing the earnest look of a Labrador proudly delivering a dead pigeon to your feet. Meanwhile, Officer Fino’s car appeared to be held together with duct tape, prayer, and possibly a misplaced dream.
So out I went, teetering in my lead-lined shoes, to meet Officer Fino in the driveway, already composing the letter I’d write to myself later: Dear Diary, never trust a man whose vehicle looks like it moonlights as a science experiment.
Out I went, dragging my concrete shoes across the driveway like a prisoner on death row. Officer Fino extended a damp-looking hand, which I shook with all the enthusiasm of a woman about to be marched into a swamp. Up close, his face was even redder, as though he’d been slow-roasted under the Texas sun for the past decade, and the orange buzz-cut gave him the air of a traffic cone brought to life.
He grinned, revealing a set of teeth that suggested a long and meaningful relationship with Mountain Dew, and launched straight into small talk about how “it ain’t usually this hot this time of year.” I tried to laugh politely, but it came out as more of a strangled gasp, like someone who’s just been stabbed in the back but doesn’t want to make a fuss.
Behind me, I could hear Jackie’s husband cheering me on silently with his face pressed against the window, like a proud parent watching a toddler’s first school play.
So there I was, in 100 degrees, nodding along to a man who looked like he could double as a road hazard sign, trying to convince myself that this was all perfectly normal.
He drove me to a diner that looked like it had been constructed out of spare parts from a swamp boat. The kind of place where mosquitoes pay rent and the neon sign flickers just enough to remind you that electricity is optional.
Inside, it was clear they hadn’t spent a single dime on décor—unless you count the framed photo of an alligator wrestling competition as “art.” The menu was basically a love letter to fried things. Definitely no kale smoothies or artisan salads here. In fact, if you’d even whispered the word “salad,” I’m fairly sure someone would have thrown hushpuppies at you.
Naturally, wine was not on offer. I was forced into beer, which I despise, and did my best to sip it without gagging. (Honestly, beer tastes to me like someone rinsed a loaf of bread and strained it through a gym sock, but apparently everyone here thinks it’s nectar of the gods.)
My date, bless him, was a perfectly pleasant fellow, but as he launched into tales of his upbringing in some rednecked part of the country, I found myself smiling and nodding while not understanding half of what he was saying. His drawl was so thick it was practically another language. I caught “huntin’,” “catfishin’,” and possibly “grandma’s possum stew,” but the rest was lost in translation.
Officer Fino drank quite a lot of beer. To the point where I began nervously calculating the odds of survival on the drive home (and let’s just say, they weren’t in my favor). His car, held together by duct tape and blind faith, meant I wouldn’t be able to drive it myself, even if I dared.
When he suggested a walk down to the river, I thought it might be a good way to let him sober up—plus, bonus points, fresh air. Unfortunately, “fresh air” in Florida at night is like stepping into a sauna someone forgot to switch off.
We reached the river’s edge and, to my amazement, there were actual manatees floating about—like giant gray marshmallows drifting dreamily in the water. Magical, really.
But the magic ended abruptly when my skin suddenly burst into flames. Well, not literal flames, but close. Every exposed inch felt like it was being set upon by invisible needles. He casually informed me it was the “no-see-ums.” Apparently, that’s local slang for “demonic sand-sized vampires with wings.” They may be tiny, but their bite lingers for weeks. Weeks!
So there I stood: watching gentle sea cows glide by in twilight serenity while simultaneously being eaten alive. Florida romance, ladies and gentlemen.
Needless to say, poor Jackie’s husband had to invent some diplomatic excuse for why I wouldn’t be meeting Officer Fino again. At this point, I was starting to feel like a full-time burden on both my cousins. I could almost see them silently coming to terms with why I was still single.
But there was one last matchmaking attempt left in them. Jackie’s husband had a single cousin—Chris—who, conveniently, was “just dropping by for a visit.” I wasn’t sure if my presence was the actual reason Chris suddenly appeared, but Jackie and her husband had done a dazzling job of selling him to me. He was wealthy, he was good-looking, and that was more than enough for me to perk up.
By the time the day rolled around, I’d put on something short and cheeky, fully reverting to my old “strategy” of distraction—which is really just attraction in a mini-skirt. At that point, I was convinced my only hope of winning someone over was with my legs, because I had zero confidence in my face or my personality.
He walked in and, inside, I was practically breakdancing with joy—if breakdancing were something one did silently while holding a wine glass. He was exactly what I’d pictured in an American husband: polite, charming, and oozing that “boy-next-door who could also fix your car” energy. We started with small talk, graduated to dinner, and then—because apparently I was auditioning for the role of “all-American beer girl”—I gamely swigged lager as though I hadn’t once choked on a shandy in 1985. Music got louder, voices followed, and before long we were belting out songs in the key of “slightly drunk enthusiasm.”
He was cool with me at first, which sent my insecurities into overdrive. But as the bottles emptied, his attention warmed. Of course, I couldn’t help wondering if I was truly irresistible… or just a blurry figure being magically upgraded by hops and barley. Regardless, the night ended with me shamefully sneaking into the guest room reserved for him.
By morning, the spell had well and truly snapped. The man who had been all smiles and choruses hours before was suddenly operating at witness-protection-level avoidance. He packed up, muttered a few perfunctory words, and left me standing there with the grim realisation that my fragile self-esteem had just been punted headfirst into the nearest toilet bowl.
By this stage, I’d been in America for just over seven months, and honestly, the whole thing had turned into less “romantic adventure” and more “one long episode of me versus my own terrible decisions”. I was so pathetically unhappy that I sat down and wrote an Oscar-worthy tragedy of a letter to my parents, apologising for being a terrible child since birth. (Think: me, aged six, sulking through piano lessons = obvious proof I was destined for ruin.)
Naturally, my parents were horrified. Within days, the phone rang and their message was clear: “Sweetheart, put an end to this doomed husband-hunting expedition and come home immediately.” Which I did—packing my bags at record-breaking speed, like some sort of defeated contestant being voted off Love Island.
One week later, I was back in South Africa, mission failed, spirit crushed, ego resembling roadkill. My grand dream of finding an American husband had dissolved entirely, leaving me with nothing but a jet lag hangover, a stack of embarrassing diary entries, and the sinking suspicion that I was destined to be the cautionary tale at future family dinners.
–o0o–
For those of you who’ve read these stories, you might think I was being really unfair to the men who tried, in their own way, to date me. And you’d be right. I was unkind—not just to them, but most of all to myself.
That’s how I ended up in the ridiculous position of leaving behind my entire life in South Africa to come to America in search of a husband. Who does that? Someone who doesn’t believe they are enough on their own. Someone who is so desperate for love outside of themselves that they forget it has to start within.
The truth is, there was never much hope of me seeing the good in anyone else when I couldn’t recognize the good in myself. When you judge others only on appearance, while ignoring the depth of their character, it’s not really about them—it’s about the mirror you’re holding up to your own self-loathing.
The bottom line is that I had been living outside of the Kingdom of God for so long that my entire identity was rooted in the world’s standards. Success, appearance, relationships—these were the things I believed defined my worth. So when I first arrived at Jennifer’s and started going back to church, it felt torturous. My perspective of God the Father was so twisted that I couldn’t grasp His love.
I was the proverbial prodigal child, but the truth is, I wasn’t even at the pig pen yet—I was still making my way there. And for years, that’s exactly where I lived: in the pig pen of self-loathing, striving, and broken choices. You’ll read more about that in the chapters to come.
This is the real reason my search for a husband in America was such a complete failure. I wasn’t ready, because I hadn’t yet returned to the only One who could restore my heart. My Heavenly Father wasn’t just waiting for me to come home—He was the home I had been searching for all along.
Tales from the Tangled Trail 