When Romantic Stories Bring You Down

Sep 30, 2009 5 Comments »

Do you ever get annoyed with those romantic tales of “How we met?” being broadcast all over the place? They come up during dinner table conversations, they show up in the movie and they turn up as human interest stories in the paper and on the TV. Those stories can get pretty random and even farfetched. From one couple meeting on a plane to another couple meeting when one actually arrested the other—there isn’t a lot that hasn’t happened at one time or another.

Another posting on this blog is all about one of the most random of such stories. It’s where a couple meets when one accidentally dialed the other’s phone number. They end up chatting and then they end up meeting and then they end up getting married. These things should strike us all as romantically wonderful, but sometimes it just doesn’t feel that way. At least, not for me.

For me there are dry spells. There are times when I’m always meeting singles and making connections, but the majority of my single life is spent in the dry areas. Those are the times when nothing seems to click. Sure, there’s a singles’ baking class here, a singles’ party there, and perhaps a little time invested in a dating site or two, yet no sparks fly and no connections are made. It’s during those times, when nothing seems to be working out, that I just want to give up.

Those are the times, the times when nothing in my dating world works out, that I actually despise hearing about other people’s luck. Hearing about other people who met at a bar or through friends and then dated, well that’s one thing. That’s normal. But to be going through a time in which all my great efforts result in still being alone, and then to hear about people who just magically fell into each others arms… that’s teeth grindingly frustrating.

It’s hard to keep up the motivation to get out there and meet people, to follow through with dates that friends set up, or to put my heart on the line when reading about the people who seem to fall into it so easily. Not that it isn’t great for them. Not that they may not deserve it. Not that they hadn’t likely had a hard time out on the dating scene at one point either. It’s just that by knowing other people fell into it so easily, failed efforts of my own become all the harder to take.

That’s not the only factor that kills the motivation for me of course, but it’s one that’s seemed to come up a lot lately. Do your eyes also roll when you hear those stories? Or is there something else that’s knocks you down a peg? Share your thoughts just by adding a comment below. Also, feel free to go back and comment on any other posting as well.

When Meeting Singles Was a Lot Easier

Sep 29, 2009 6 Comments »

Monday night used to be games night. That was anything from Monopoly to poker, and usually took place in someone’s apartment with the usual crowd plus any random invites. Wednesdays was karaoke at some downtown bar, and again the same crowd would show with some people brining along a new friend or two. Fridays were always random but far too often involved a birthday celebration somewhere. Not surprisingly, the same crowd kept showing up. As for Sundays, well, that was an anything goes day but the invite list didn’t change.

That was then, and then went on for quite a while. As for now, things are a lot different. Not only has every night become a whatever goes night, but the invite list is virtually nonexistent. These days there are fewer people to drag along and who ends up coming along is different every time.

There isn’t much of a mystery as to why things have changed so much. The games weren’t lost, the bars didn’t burn down and the crowd didn’t move away. All that happened was a few lousy weddings. Joe married Barbara, Janice married Will, Joan married Jon, and Don married some girl none of us had ever heard of. (Names have been changed to protect the nuptualized.) Needless to say, married people don’t like going out for some reason. No, that’s not true. They just don’t seem to invite out the singles as often, possibly out of concern that the condition is contagious.

While I’m happy for them (so that they don’t have to be happy on their own?), it’s pretty much put a big hole in my dating life. I mean, in the good old days meeting singles would often happen on those group nights. Sure, when we’d go out to the bars we’d often meet people, something that seems easier when you’re traveling with a large crowd, but a lot of connections were the result of friends bringing out their friends. Or running into their friends.

Dating was so easy back then because all I’d have to do was flirt with the new people a while. If things went well I’d take them out for a drink alone. Somewhere in there our mutual friend would gossip about me to her, and her to me, and in the end all was well with the world.

Now that the married folk have moved on with their lives and the regular nights out have disappeared, we singles who’ve been left behind are pretty much lost, left to fend for ourselves. I don’t have to tell you how difficult that can be.

Do you have a lot of single friends? Or have most of them gone off on their married way? If it’s the latter, have things changed for you? Is meeting singles any harder than it used to be? Maybe it’s a coincidence. Maybe it’s all those other factors at play. Whatever your thoughts are on the matter, feel free to share them by adding a comment below. As for me, don`t worry; I was sick of games night anyway.

Matchmaking With the Precision of a Jittery Marksman

Sep 28, 2009 2 Comments »

I have a friend who`s a bit on the large side. She`s a nice girl, very pleasant and funny and likable. She never dated a lot though, for whatever reason that was. Friends tried to step in once in a while by setting her up with guys they`d meet at work or through other friends or randomly on the street—frankly, I have no idea where those guys came from. The point is, all the guys she`d get hooked up with were also on the large side.

All the while we had this other friend. He was short and somewhat of a bookworm. Actually, he fit that bookwork stereotype so well that one look at him would tell you that he was likely going to bed at night with anyone from Dickens to Proust to whoever it writing all those god-awful vampire novels. Anyway, he`d get hooked up on dates from time to time as well. It should be no surprise that he`d get hooked up with short bookworms.

Now, it doesn`t matter that the big girl ended up marrying a big guy and that the short guy ended up marrying a short girl. The point is friends always seem to pick out what are essentially arbitrary traits and deciding that anyone else with that same trait will be a perfect match. They`re both freakishly skinny, they`re bound to fall in love. They`re both taller enough to dunk a ball on tiptoes, they`ll surely get married. As for me, I`d always get set up with dull people who couldn`t hold a conversation and didn`t know how to dress. I`ll assume for the sake of my already crumbling ego that I`m the exception.

Perhaps that was all a bit dehumanizing getting hooked up like that, having to witness the way your friends see you. At least it was based on something though. And at least it, in some of those cases, it would actually work out. These days though the criteria for hook-ups has tumbled a long way downhill.

The problem is that many of the friends in my social circle have gotten married—of course, use of the word problem is all relative. There are still times we get together and there are still times when they try to find matches for the few of us singles still straggling behind. Nowadays though, the so called matches don’t make any sense at all to the point that I started to think they were just drawing names out of a hat.

My new theory is that the reason for such lousy matchmaking is that married folk no long see us singles as tall, short, skinny or large. They don`t see us as bookworms, computer geeks, athletes or musicians. Instead, they see us as single. I actually imagine them meeting singles at the office or through other friends and thinking “Oh, I know someone else who is single, how can I get them together?” The result is the most peculiar matches imaginable, but of course the matchmakers never seem to realize it. “Why didn’t it work Honey?” they must say to each other, “they’re both single!”

I still haven’t decided whether or not that’s just a strange phenomenon or an insulting one. I also haven’t figured out if it’s unique to my circle, though I strongly suspect it isn’t. I’m betting a lot of you have been setup on dates a lot over the years, and now the curiosity is whether or not those setups have actually got worse. If worse, are you also starting to suspect your married friends think single is a personality trait? Please share your thoughts, just add a comment below.

Matchmaking With the Precision of a Jittery Marksman

Sep 25, 2009 3 Comments »

I have a friend who`s a bit on the large side. She`s a nice girl, very pleasant and funny and likable. She never dated a lot though, for whatever reason that was. Friends tried to step in once in a while by setting her up with guys they`d meet at work or through other friends or randomly on the street-frankly, I have no idea where those guys came from. The point is, all the guys she`d get hooked up with were also on the large side.

All the while we had this other friend. He was short and somewhat of a bookworm. Actually, he fit that bookwork stereotype so well that one look at him would tell you that he was likely going to bed at night with anyone from Dickens to Proust to whoever it writing all those god-awful vampire novels. Anyway, he`d get hooked up on dates from time to time as well. It should be no surprise that he`d get hooked up with short bookworms.

Now, it doesn`t matter that the big girl ended up marrying a big guy and that the short guy ended up marrying a short girl. The point is friends always seem to pick out what are essentially arbitrary traits and deciding that anyone else with that same trait will be a perfect match. They`re both freakishly skinny, they`re bound to fall in love. They`re both taller enough to dunk a ball on tiptoes, they`ll surely get married. As for me, I`d always get set up with dull people who couldn`t hold a conversation and didn`t know how to dress. I`ll assume for the sake of my already crumbling ego that I`m the exception.

Perhaps that was all a bit dehumanizing getting hooked up like that, having to witness the way your friends see you. At least it was based on something though. And at least it, in some of those cases, it would actually work out. These days though the criteria for hook-ups has tumbled a long way downhill.

The problem is that many of the friends in my social circle have gotten married-of course, use of the word problem is all relative. There are still times we get together and there are still times when they try to find matches for the few of us singles still straggling behind. Nowadays though, the so called matches don’t make any sense at all to the point that I started to think they were just drawing names out of a hat.

My new theory is that the reason for such lousy matchmaking is that married folk no long see us singles as tall, short, skinny or large. They don`t see us as bookworms, computer geeks, athletes or musicians. Instead, they see us as single. I actually imagine them meeting singles at the office or through other friends and thinking “Oh, I know someone else who is single, how can I get them together?” The result is the most peculiar matches imaginable, but of course the matchmakers never seem to realize it. “Why didn’t it work Honey?” they must say to each other, “they’re both single!”

I still haven’t decided whether or not that’s just a strange phenomenon or an insulting one. I also haven’t figured out if it’s unique to my circle, though I strongly suspect it isn’t. I’m betting a lot of you have been setup on dates a lot over the years, and now the curiosity is whether or not those setups have actually got worse. If worse, are you also starting to suspect your married friends think single is a personality trait? Please share your thoughts, just add a comment below.

Looking Your Best for the Strangest Situations

Sep 24, 2009 1 Comment »

Expectation seems to play into the way we do a lot of things. You know, if we expect a day of blandness we may prepare ourselves differently than if we expect a day of excitement. When expecting to be in place with lots of potential for meeting singles, most of us probably get ourselves ready differently than if we were just going to work.

As for myself, when I go to work I wear jeans and a t-shirt, with no guarantee that either of them had seen a washing machine in the weeks prior. There’s also a good chance the jeans and t-shirt don’t match up with the day’s choice of footwear, or that the days choice of footwear matches up with the day’s choice of socks. Frankly, my whole attire usually suggests that “I’m out of bed and awake, what more do you want?” Actually, my current choice of t-shirt says just that in bright blue lettering.

When I go to a friend’s place for dinner to watch TV, or to discuss deep metaphysical and theological ideas while drinking beers and playing SIMs, my choice of outfit isn’t much different. In fact, the only real change is that I wouldn’t actually pay attention to whether or not my clothes actually look like they came out of the hamper.

On a date though, things are much different. On a date, whether it’s to a café, a restaurant, a movie or a walk in the park, my attire is fully washed and wrinkle free. The pants I choose are hole-free, are rarely jeans and are complimented by my shoes. My shirt, t or otherwise, always has a collar and never has any large block-lettered writing on it, no matter how funny I think it may be. After all, I want to make a good impression.

The times I’m actually dressed the best though are those in between times. The times when I go out to a place and think I might end up meeting someone, or at least get the chance to meet someone. The truth is, whenever I have the chance for meeting singles I spend more time getting ready than in almost any other situation.

Those moments can be anything. It really depends on the mood. There was a time when I’d have to get myself all prettied up before going to the mall. Now it’s usually just nights at clubs, singles events or parties.

Sometimes though, when the mood is right, I can’t help but get my hopes up for making some sort of a connection in the oddest of situations. There’s been more than one occasion, for instance, that I’ve spent a good deal of time getting ready so I’d look my best for the grocery store. Other times I’d have little errands to run such as picking up a book, and suddenly have a surge of inspiration that the bookstore is the perfect place to meet someone and flirt a little. I’d then spend a while in the shower, picking out clothes, fixing my air and so on and son on… just so I could buy a book.

In all honesty, I can’t think of a time when my efforts paid off in any substantial way. Still, I get that urge time and again, perhaps diluting myself into thinking the stars will align just right if only I’d wear the right thing when swinging by the gas station.

Now, for sure a lot of you are always looking your best and are always dressed in a head turning manner. For you this must all seem a little strange. As for those who only put that extra effort into their look for dates and times they hope they can get dates, well, when do you do it? Bookstore and grocery store trips are odd enough, but what’s the strangest outing you’ve ever purposefully dressed up for? Thoughts? Comments? Just add them below!