I dipped a toe in the water, slipped and fell, and ended up soaked and ...

This post is about dating.  Sigh.  I hate this topic.  It's hard to bring it up without sounding desperate.  It is, unfortunately, a part of life.  On my list of 101 Things to do in 1,001 days, I included "Go on a second date."  I'm a single, 35-year-old professional woman in a medium-sized city.  You would think this is not difficult.  Yes.  Of course you would think that.  You would happen to be quite wrong.

I've been single almost all my life.  The longest relationship I've ever had lasted just over 6 months.  I'm not a serial monogamist, I'm a serial single person.  I generally have a pretty good sense of whether or not someone and I will connect after the first or second meeting, and beyond that, I just don't have the patience to waste time tooling around with someone in whom I'm not terribly interested.  Life is too short to date someone just because you don't want to be alone.  I have precious little time as it is to spend with my family and friends, so I refuse to miss that quality time with them -- or being alone -- because I want to be "dating" someone I'm just not that interested in.

It takes a mighty fine man to beat No Man At All.  I love living alone, I love my independence and freedom.  That said, I would like to get married someday, and have kids.  I have always had the desire to share my life in that way.  But that's not something I can achieve on my own, either by measured steps taken or by strength of sheer will.  I get that, and I'm fine with it, and have no intentions of going in search of it.

For me, it's all about The Connection.  Either it's there or it's not.  Hopefully you know what I'm talking about.  That feeling that you've known the person longer than you actually have.  That this might be someone who could understand you, and vice versa.  It's not like I will find that connection with someone, and instantly start naming our children.  If The Connection is there, that's a sign for me that this person might be worth getting to know a little better.

During the Sick Years, I slowly came to realize that while I might end up meeting someone decades from now, who was already a friend or someone I knew through other means, the conventional idea of meeting someone, dating them for a while to get to know them better, and then eventually moving into a serious relationship -- that was not an option for me.  How can you get to know someone when you have to cancel the second (and fourth, and sixth) date because you've come down with some mysterious illness and cannot be seen in public?  Not possible.

So, my standards went lower.  I convinced myself to give up on the idea of finding a Partner, and instead just go out on Dates.  After couple more years of illness and hibernation, that became just A date.  In 2007, I wanted a date, and damn if I didn't have one.  Yep.  One.  It was fine, but there were no sparks.  It was difficult even to have a conversation, and those of you who know me in person know I am never at a loss for words.  I didn't complain, though.  I met my goal.  Went on A Date.

For 2008, I didn't set any sort of goal.  I was Feeling Better, and this was so exciting and distracting I didn't even think about dating, until I met someone with whom I found that Connection, and all sanity was lost.  After four different guys with four different lives in four different cities, I'm not sure my sanity has been regained.

A. Spring:  "You don't know what you want / At this moment you think it's me so you / Move your hand across my knee / Turn me into some novelty."  -- Patty
Griffin

I felt well enough (and optimistic enough) to plan and commit to a trip to Jazz Fest with some girlfriends.  An airport mishap led to me spending my first day stuck in airports for about 14 hours, until finally getting a seat on a plane out of Newark.  I don't usually talk to people on planes, but for some reason my seatmate, Gentleman A, and I struck up a conversation that lasted for the entire three hours of flight.

He was on his own the first weekend in NOLA, so I told him to call me if he wanted company hanging out with me and my girlfriends.  We then proceeded to spend the next four days together.  Sure, he was 20 years older than I was, but with 18 years difference between my (still happily married) parents, age has never been an issue for me.  He was smart.  Funny.  An expert on music.  Lived in a big metropolitan area in another state, but looking to move to a small city in the South.  That Connection was there the first day we met and only increased the more time we spent together. We never ran out of things to talk about, but we were comfortable with each other sitting in silence as well.  I couldn't believe my luck.

We stayed in touch after the Fest was over, until I got an email from him about a week and a half after I'd been back.  He was chit-chatty for several paragraphs, before telling me that while in NOLA he was taking a mental break from a long-term relationship, and spending time with me down there provided "helpful context."

How does someone spend that much time with someone else, tell them all sorts of personal details about past relationships and personal life, and neglect to mention a girlfriend??  Granted, we'd kept things platonic physically, for the most part.  Still, it was an inappropriate relationship.  No question.  And after so many years of hiding, to use my tentative courage to reemerge out of my shell only to get stomped on was pretty devastating.

Sigh.

B. Summer:  "We went out one night / Everything went right / We got somethin' started / It was outta sight / We had such a good time . . . HEY!  Why didn't you call me?  I thought I'd see you again." -- Macy Gray

Out of the blue, a friend/colleague (let's call him B) invited me to lunch.  We work together (though not for the same employer) but have been friends for years.  Any socializing we had done in the past was in a group, but lunch was not unusual.  We sat down to eat as friends, but by the end, he asked me out on a date.  Cool. 

He proceeded to take me on the most romantic evening of my life.  It started with a motorcycle ride through the country, to watch the sun getting lower over a gorgeous reservoir.  We then went to a cute little restaurant on a lake, and watched the remaining sun disappear.  A walk on the dock, then holding hands while sitting on the swing, then kissing under the moonlight and stars.  It was the first time I'd been wooed in quite a long time, if ever.

Over the next month, he proceeded to call or email me every couple of days, saying "let's get together again" but with no follow-through on plans for another date.  Yeah, we had the Connection, but I wasn't all crazy in love.  I just wanted another opportunity to see how things would go.  And after a couple of weeks, I began to wonder just whether or not he wanted to see me again.  He finally called four and a half weeks after our first date, and spent 45 minutes chatting with me about nothing before saying that he just couldn't be in a relationship right now.  Um, dude, it's a second date, not a marriage proposal.  He acted very bizarre, until finally insulting me by using something personal and painful I had told him to explain why he wasn't interested in me.  That was when he went from a friend I'd dated once to Persona Non Grata.

A week or two later, I learned that despite what he'd told me, he had not broken up with his crazy ex-girlfriend.  Great.  Just what I was looking for -- AGAIN.  After our last conversation, he started saying things to our mutual friends about how he hoped his friendship with them wouldn't be affected since things didn't work out between us, and how he would understand if those friends were loyal to me.  The man was 55 years old, and worried that because our first date didn't turn into a second one, I would start badmouthing him to friends and colleagues.  Set aside the fact that it's rather egocentric of him to think he was such a major topic of conversation, and just look at what one of my friends told him:  "Last time I checked, Mo and I are both grownups, so I can't imagine either of us even understanding what your concern is.

Sigh.

C. Late Summer:  "I've got my feet on the ground and I don't go to sleep to dream / You've got your head in the clouds, you're not at all what you seem." -- Fiona Apple

As I've done once or twice in the past, I decided last summer to try the online dating thing.  In my view, it's just yet another possible place to meet someone.  I have several close friends who've met their spouses that way, and since I hadn't been out in the world much, I figured it couldn't hurt to find an extra boost to meet some other guys.

Enter C.  He was 43 (good age difference, not too much), lived an hour away (manageable), but seemed smart and funny and all the right things.  After a few emails, we agreed to a date in my city.  We had a nice dinner, but there were no spark and I definitely did not feel the Connection.  However, I considered my luck with the first two guys and thought he deserved another chance.  Maybe my Connection radar is not the right thing to trust or follow, that it's not something that can be read instantly on a first meeting.  I agreed to a second date.

This one was in his city.  I won't go into details, because I wouldn't put it past him to find this site and Come Find Me, but suffice it to say that he had lied to me about his age (he was 53, not 43), had what my sister suspects is a prescription drug abuse problem, and managed to become controlling bordering on stalking in the very brief time we knew each other.

I'd traded The Connection for The Crazy.

D. Autumn: "You got up out of bed / You said you had a lot of work to do / But I heard the rest in your head / And almost immediately I felt sorry." -- Liz Phair

I met D over the summer, through friends, though it was not a setup.  Just a same place, same time thing, completely unexpected.  We stayed in touch and had a good rapport going.  Some friends who had seen how we'd hit it off when we first met kept telling me to ask him out, but I didn't.  Frankly, I was just enjoying having a single guy friend. 

A couple of months later, we ended up at the same party.  We started talking, and then went to dinner and kept talking, then he was kissing me, we were drunk, and there ya go.  I had a blast, and it was an unexpected surprise, but once again that Connection was there so I thought hey, this might be worth exploring further.  Except he disappeared.  Not literally, he just went from being all up in my business to shutting me out.  I'm pretty sure I never would have heard from him again, but for the fact that he found something I'd left at his apartment.  Of course, he raced it over THAT MINUTE to drop in my mailbox in an unmarked envelope while I wasn't home.

Jesus.  Was seeing me that terrible?  I mean, I know I'm fat and could use some better skincare and all, but I didn't think I was that bad.

About a week later, through the Facebook pages of a mutual friend (of all godforsaken things), I learned the reason for the freeze out, or at least A reason.  Can you guess?  DING DING DING!  You betcha, D was dating someone else!  This one disappointed me most because the circumstances also meant that I lost what could have been a pretty cool friendship.  Oh, sure, after probing I got the "we're still friends" line, but we aren't, not really.  Of course not.  How can you be friends with the chick you cheated on someone else with?

Sigh.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? Apparently, I'm just interesting enough to spend a bit of time with when a guy needs a break from his current sitch, and then after he gets to know me the tiniest bit, runs SCREAMING back to whom he had momentarily left.  I can just picture each one of them: "Honey, I'm so sorry I took you for granted.  I had NO idea what the alternatives were out there.  ~Shudder~!"

Each time, I knew that while things were not entirely my fault, I could have done things differently.  What exactly is it that made me Not Good Enough?  If only I weren't so fat.  If only I hadn't gotten so drunk.  If only I hadn't talked so much.  If only I were thinner.  If only I wore makeup to look like I give a rip about my appearance.  If only I'd worn less makeup so I didn't appear so high-maintenance.  If only I had lost those 10 pounds beforehand. (Are you sensing a theme here?  The whole issue of weight and dating is big enough to be its own post.) 

My friends say the only thing I've actually done wrong is to CHOOSE POORLY.   Maybe that's true, but I have to wonder what it is about me that gives off a certain vibe that says "Hey!  Pick me if you want to figure out what you DON'T want, by the end of the first date."  Every.damn.time.  

Dating is hard for everyone, I know.  Once you get out of college/grad school and the ready supply of people to meet has dwindled, it takes effort just to meet someone new.  I can't help but feel, though, like my 5 years of hibernation have set me back, and not only to I have to catch up, I have to relearn what I'd forgotten after so many years out of the pool.  I suppose a way to get better at it is to practice.  This article about a woman who went on 100 first dates shows how volume -- quantity not quality -- can reduce the stakes and take some of the pressure off.  I'm sure it works, and yes it has a happy ending (I wonder how many of these stories that didn't end with the woman finding her dream guy actually get published).  I'm not interested in dating for dating's sake.  I'm also not interested in taking on dating like some sort of job.

I know I should just live my life, and see what Life brings me.  I'm perfectly okay with that, except that's what I was doing last year, and I still ended up with hands full of hot manure.  I didn't go looking for these guys.  I wasn't "on the market."  I got a little bit of fun, followed by hassle and rejection and game-playing bullshit.  Why bother?  After all this, when asked out, why on earth would any sane person say yes?  How can I trust my own judgment when I don't know where I went wrong in the past?

Don't assume I'm not grateful for ( . . . cue violins . . . ) this Second Chance.  A New Beginning. This . . .

Sorry, can't type and gag at the same time.  It sounds so hokey to me, but it really is true.  I'm glad to have the opportunity to hope for some romantic fun.  But did I really work this hard to get healthy and rejoin the world just to be faced with two choices, TEH CRAYZEH or providing Helpful Context?   

Opportunity always brings along that asshole, Responsibility:  the responsibility not to squander the opportunity you've been given.  I feel this pressure not to take this new life for granted, and to try and make the most of it and allow myself to hope for what I want.  Dating -- just the simple act of casual dating -- is something I had given up on completely, and now I feel like it's something I want to try.  Or maybe Should try.  Or both.

I don't know what the answer is.  There has to be something in between Men-Are-Unnecessary and OMGWHOAMI WITHOUT A MAN TO DEFINE ME???  There has to be some sort of balance in between.  Maybe I'm just lazy, and don't want to have to kiss 100 frogs to find my, um, royalty-by-blood-17th-removed (I'm not deluded enough to think there's a prince out there).

But really?  All I want in the next 1,001 days is a second date with someone who is single.  And not crazy.  Also, anyone who is able to remove the SUCKER tattoo across my forehead is welcome to come and help.  Not that I want to be greedy . . .

Written while listening to this.