My Three Aunts Decided I Was Too Handsome to Stay Single. I Had Twelve Months Before They Ran Out of Women in Kentucky

My name is Wyatt Boone. I’m 49 years old, I make bourbon in Kentucky, and I have never been married.

I want to be clear that this is a choice.

I’ve had girlfriends. Good ones. One of them, a veterinarian from Lexington, I came very close to proposing to. Then I realized I wanted to marry the idea of her more than her. She’s happily married now to a man who actually wanted a wife. We send each other Christmas cards.

I live alone in a farmhouse on our family’s land outside Bardstown. I have a bloodhound named Colonel, a horse named Jim Beam that I am legally not allowed to rename, and a distillery my great-grandfather built in 1919, right before Prohibition. Terrible timing. Great story.

I’m happy.

My three aunts are not.

Aunt Delphine is 78. Aunt Ruby is 75. Aunt Pearl is 72. They have outlived three husbands between them, and they believe that a man who reaches fifty without a wife is a tragedy, a waste and, according to Aunt Pearl, “frankly suspicious.”

They also believe I’m handsome. They say it constantly. To waitresses, to the pharmacist, to strangers in the church parking lot.

“Look at that jaw,” Aunt Ruby told a bank teller last spring. “It’s being wasted.”

Last Christmas, after the ham and before the pie, Aunt Delphine tapped her glass with a fork.

“Wyatt,” she said, “we have something for you.”

Aunt Ruby handed me an envelope. Inside was a typed list.

Twenty-three names. Phone numbers. A short description of each woman, including religion, cooking ability and, in one case, “has her own boat.”

At the bottom, in Aunt Pearl’s handwriting, it said:

“You have until next Christmas.”