LOS ANGELES — Last Monday, two well-coiffed ladies of a certain age (50s, with work) sat down for a predinner drink at the Sunset Tower Hotel. I was at the next table, doing what any good reporter does when his companion is late: eavesdropping.

They chitchatted about the normal stuff (holiday shopping is exhausting, simply exhausting) and eventually turned to the topic of men. “You know, Rupert Murdoch is back on the market,” one woman said. “You should go for him.”

I almost choked on a cocktail peanut. Rupert Murdoch: sexiest man alive?

The Sunset Tower ladies giggled, too. But I started to wonder: Just what does Mr. Murdoch, 82, plan to do for companionship now that a divorce from his third wife, Wendi Deng, 45, has been finalized? Ms. Deng got to stay in the $44 million Manhattan triplex. Does that mean Mr. Murdoch may decamp to California, where he recently bought the $28.8 million Moraga Vineyards estate in the Bel Air hills?

With the ink barely dry on the divorce, which was completed in New York on Nov. 20, a couple of Mr. Murdoch’s confidants responded to my phoning around in a predictably chilly fashion. He is not seeing anyone, they insisted. He has no interest in romance at the moment — that juicy USA Today tidbit about his masseuse, who is actually an osteopath, is hogwash. Click.