There’s This Guy… Thursday, Oct 11 2007

Supposedly, when you get to be my age (almost 30, gulp) and you’re still single, you’re friends are supposed to be jumping all over themselves to set you up on blind dates.  I base this assumption on years of a steady diet of chick flicks and TV shows (think “When Harry Met Sally”). 

I am here to tell you that NO ONE has ever offered to set me up with anyone.  Oh sure, we get through the first part of it okay: “Hey there’s this guy I work with (or friend of my boyfriend’s or brother-in-law) and he’s cute and I think he’s single…” 

And then that sentence just hangs there and I’m all, “Uh, okay, thanks for the bulletin.”  I never get to meet said cute guy and I certainly never get fixed up with anyone.

(Actually, I stand a little bit corrected because just now the phone rang and it was the long-distance boy with whom I have a dysfunctional, possibly completely dead relationship, and you could sort of say that I was “fixed up” with him by my former boss, but for the purposes of this blog it’s not the same thing.)

I’m not sure why I don’t have a social calendar chock full of blind dates, but it could be one of several reasons, I suppose:

1. People don’t go on blind dates anymore?

2. My friends secretely think I’m ugly or have a boring personality and they don’t want to make any single guys they know suffer through a dinner with me?

3. My friends are big chickens who don’t have, say, Nora Ephron writing a script for them?

Ding ding, I think we have a winner! 

A couple months ago I was sort of mock complaining to Best Friend A (a teacher) about never being fixed up with anybody, and she was all, “Well, I only work with two guys anyway.”  But feeling sorry for her poor, perpetually-single friend, she started investigating one of the male teachers. 

Who, it turns out, is in our age bracket and is single and actually went to our high school (he graduated several years before us, but we knew his younger sister) so now she’s trying to figure out how to orchestrate a “meet cute” moment between us without having to come right out and say, “Would you like to be fixed up with my single friend?” 

So, that could be interesting.  Stay tuned!

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Managing Expectations Wednesday, Jun 20 2007

“Managing expectations” is one of those corporate speak buzz words that people throw around quite frequently.  And it makes sense — if you take a group of people and put them through a process, you need to know from the beginning that everyone has the same expectations of what that process will entail and what the outcome will be.

But I will admit in my personal life, I don’t do a very good job of managing my own expectations.  I’m constantly hoping that the next man I meet will be THE one.  I’ve set up situations in my head and find that the reality never comes close to what I was expecting.

Last night I had a first date with a guy I’ve been talking with through Match.  And it was…meh.  I mean, he was a nice guy, we had plenty to talk about, but…there was no spark.  At all.  We’ll probably talk some more and see each other again, but I can already tell it’s not really going to work for me. 

Because I need to have that spark, that click, that chemistry.  It may not be instantly fulfilled (believe me, in the past I have waited a looong time to make that move) but I need the anticipation and the possibility and the excitement.  It’s a difficult quality to define and it may be very difficult to FIND. 

But I can’t settle.  I won’t.  I’m not going to let myself get so desperate and lonely that I don’t wait for the one person who I know is out there and is perfect for me.   I have to keep trying because one day, he will be there and it will be everything I’ve ever expected.  I hope.

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Things I Am Not Good At (One Thing in Particular) Tuesday, Jun 12 2007

Generally I am a positive person.  I will not hesitate to talk all about my good qualities and my skills and abilities.

But there are things that I am most definitely not good at.  Math, for one.  Parking.  Doing my own hair.  Budgeting and living within my means.  Being patient (at times).  Losing weight.  Sports, athletics and physical movement of most any kind.

And there is one thing that I feel that I am very NOT good at.  The Dance.  The Dating Dance.  Oh y’all, I am so bad at the dating thing.

I was sooo not the girl in high school and college that always had a boyfriend.  Or really, any serious relationships to speak of.  I was the girl who got crazy crushes on all manner of boys, with two equally pointless results — I became really good friends with him and never made the leap from friendship to dating OR I admired from afar and was never quite sure if the object of my affection even knew I was alive.

And in the years since becoming a ” real adult,” I’ve done marginally better on the dating scene.  And I really do mean marginally.  Like, we’re measuring progress in millimeters here.  But a couple times I’ve met guys through online dating sites and there was one pretty significant boyfriend for a few months two years ago and then there’s my “long-distance, on-again/off-again, I don’t know how the hell to define it but there it is” realtionship (for lack of a better word) with someone I met through work.

But ohmigod, I really hate it.  The whole getting to know each other stage.  The part where you have to figure out personality traits and quirks.  The way you have to constantly explain yourself.  The delicate act of slowly introducing someone to your life and your friends and your family.  The struggle of finding a balance between too much togetherness and not enough togetherness.   It’s awkward and it makes me (a generally outgoing, confident person) super nervous and rather nauseous.

I’ve decided that, especially when it comes to the online dating thing, the whole process is just a series of steps.  Are you interested enough to send or reply to an e-mail?  Do the e-mails continue?  When do you move onto exchanging phone numbers?  When do you meet in person?  How soon are you comfortable with affection?  When is it real?

My nature is to worry about things.  To analyze them.  To examine and re-examine every single solitary moment over and over.  Most of this is internal and, I’ll admit, somewhat nuerotic.  But it means that I’m constantly questioning myself and obsessing about doing and saying the right things.  And it is exhausting. 

All of this is on my mind right now because I’m currently doing The Dance with someone.  He responded to my online profile a couple weeks ago with a very thoughtful e-mail that actually showed he had read what I wrote in my ad (miracle!) so we’ve been exchanging e-mails since then and had our first phone conversation last night.  Part of me is excited and part of me is just waiting for the wheels to fall off the wagon, so to speak.  There are so many moments at which things could go wrong and I just wish I could know ahead of time whether it was a disaster waiting to happen. 

(Clearly, I am not as optimistic when it comes to romance.)

I had a friend once who said that everyone should come imprinted with a special symbol or code.  And all you had to do was go through life and find that one person who’s symbol or code matched your own.  That sounds like such a good idea to me.  Or, you know, arranged marriages — I mean they work out sometimes, right?  Where do I sign up for one of those??

I just need to know that one day, things will work out in the end.  That I’ll get my happily ever after.  That I won’t sabotage a potential relationship with my self-doubt and neuroses before it even gets off the ground.  That I won’t continue to be as much of a failure as it feels like I am at this dance. 

Or I at least need to find a tutor for “Dating 101 — How Not to Look Like a Loser in the First Month.”

[/whine]

(Oh hell, it’s my blog and I’ll whine if I want to.)

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