I like where I live very much. It has proved itself an excellent support base from which to conduct my own business from my home, and to maintain a sufficiently roomy, inexpensive residence, and otherwise to serve well various aspects of my life. But it's not a place designed for singles to meet, unless you're ready to do the singles-bar scene. It's a bedroom community, mostly families and married couples, not a rich cultural environment. Nor the kind of mating ground where what Irwin Shaw once called "the girls in their summer dresses" stroll the streets deliciously and plentifully in the warmer weather -- not much street life of the kind you get in Manhattan, Toronto, Montreal, Paris.

The new café and restaurant down the street help enormously, of course, each in its own way. They create the atmosphere of community and sophistication, and draw people looking to socialize. I'm a regular at each, and have some local recognition as a figure of some note, so I'm something of a big fish in these small ponds.

Both Pilar, who runs the restaurant, and Jack, who owns the café, hire some lovely young things as wait staff. As previously mentioned, I've served as romantic advisor to one of these. Over the past six weeks, Pilar has started breaking in yet another, who we'll call Nikki: short, slender, small-breasted, dirty blonde, tattooed, and extremely friendly. At least to me; she's made a point of smiling at me, chatting me up, lingering near my table, and casting inviting looks my way since Pilar first introduced us.

Whenever I plan to travel, I make a point of asking Pilar if there's anything food-related I can bring back for her from my destination. (Last time, it was an assortment of hot stuff -- frozen green chilies and various chili powders -- from the southwest.) I also bring her the excess from my rooftop garden. Last fall, just after she opened, I handed over two bags full of green tomatoes from the final crop, brought in just before the first freeze. Two weeks ago it was a large bouquet of fresh mint, the season's first.

Nikki's eyes grew enormous when she saw the mint. "Mojitos!" she whispered. Pilar has no liquor license, so she can't serve anything beyond wine and port. Noting Nikki's response, I invited her over to teach me her mojito technique, and she quickly accepted. We'd chatted since then, but I hadn't pursued the matter. However, I had learned that she had at least three tattoos: one at the back of her neck, hidden by her hair, the ideogram for "unique" in Japanese; one "on my belly," as she put it, also in Japanese, for "father in heaven," to commemorate her dad's passing; and a third at the base of her spine, its top barely visible above the waistline of her low-slung slacks. She didn't mention the last of these.

Yesterday evening, on the verge of departing for Europe, I went in for dinner. Nikki was on duty, and since the place wasn't crowded we got to talk, off and on. She seemed to enjoy feeling my eyes on her, Somewhere along the way I told her she'd held out on me by not telling me about the third tattoo. She blushed. "It's not a word," she said; "it's a design." Then she mentioned that she's considering a fourth. I asked if she planned to become heavily tattooed; she said no, but added, "It does become addictive."

On her left hand's ring finger I'd noted a silver band, so, when she brought my meal, I asked her if that was marriage, engagement, self-defense, or camouflage. "It's a 'partnership ring,'" she said, "and the 'partnership' is going . . . " She put her hand into a nosedive. "My little dog Kabuki is more fun in bed than he is." She blushed again.

On the way out, paying my bill, I leaned across the counter and said, "I'm going to Europe for three weeks. When I come back, if you want a sympathetic shoulder while you cry into your mojitos, I'll have a bumper crop of mint waiting for you." She beamed at me, leaned over, and whispered, "When you get back, make sure to come in right away." "It's a promise," I told her. She called goodbye as I stepped out the door, and I waved.

Who knows? As my friend Michael once said, when I was in the throes of a breakup, "Somewhere your next lover is yawning and combing her hair." Even as we speak, Nikki may be brushing hers.

More to come . . .