Maybe not wishin' and hopin'...

Sometimes I wonder how many more shots at this whole dating-love-marriage thing I’ve got left.

I feel like I may be starting to exhaust my options. Note: This is not me having a pity party, rather an appropriately logical exploration of the chances I’ve outdone myself.

Or the chances that, by the time the right guy comes along, I will be so cynical I won’t know it’s him. And I’ll walk away. Or run, even.

Really, how many times am I expected to put myself and my…heart (for lack of a less-cliché word) out there? It’s not that every date is that promising. It’s not. It’s not that I never hear from most guys again. I do.

It’s just this…well, this whole “hope” thing. I feel as though my hope should (and often does) dwindle a little bit after each date I go on. Sometimes I go out with someone I may not be incredibly impressed with simply in the hopes that he’ll surprise me and be amazing. He’s usually not. Sometimes I go out with someone I am incredibly, incredibly impressed with in the hopes that he’ll be incredibly, incredibly impressed with me. He’s usually not. Or he is, and my opinion of him has been altered by the big pink stuffed bunny he brought me that was the size of my torso (pictures will follow in later blog). (Sorry, I have enough cute little fluff around—he’s called my dog.) Besides, pink bunnies are just weird.

If I am, in fact, doling out hopes on each date, will I eventually run out of it? It’s not exactly as though we were born with infinite amounts of this thing.

And if I am at risk of running out of hope, should I stop dating in order to hold on to it? But then isn’t that giving up on or ignoring hope anyway? Stifling the last bits of hope to which I may be clinging?

Having no hope for finding love seems like a lonely place, if you ask me. But having hope for love often seems naïve and ignorant.

Where exactly is the balance?

Unanswered Prayers

A while ago I was complaining to my mom about how this guy who was interested in me wasn't my type. He was lighter and with lighter hair, and he didn't seem to have a very big personality, which I tend to like.

She said something that really stuck with me. She said, "Honey, you don't know what your type is. Only God knows your type." And I was a little offended. I said, "No, I know exactly what my type is. I like tall, big, tan guys, with dark hair, nice smiles, and light eyes. And Mom, this guy is not that!"

She then told me she didn't think my dad was her type. Thirty years later it's pretty obvious he is indeed.

I mean, obviously a "type" is not a hard and fast rule. It's just a set of preferences based on Jude Law. Kidding. Well, about the Jude Law part.

It makes me think of that (super-cheesy) Garth Brooks song that goes, "Some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers." It talks about how this guy is so glad he ended up with his wife instead of the now-aging floozy who was the high school flame he had dreamed of for years.

A Quarter for Your Thoughts

So one time I was having dinner and my date insisted I let him pay. I did. He proceeded to pull a bunch of quarters out of his pockets and pay for the entire thing in quarters.

I'm not kidding.

I think he now is serving time for the sale and possession of marijuana or something lame. Makes sense.

Garbage Disposals: The alternative uses

I was reading the newspaper over my oatmeal the other morning, and I happened upon a comic strip that struck me. You know, like it stood out to me, not like it reached out and hit me in the face. Got it? Good. Moving on.

The comic was fairly simple. It was a drawing of a burning building with flames billowing out the windows. On the top floor was a desperate woman hanging out of the window. Then there was a fireman climbing up the ladder to her rescue. As he approaches her, she says one line: “I thought you'd be taller.”

Here this poor guy is, risking his own life to save some selfish little bitch who wants her knight in [yellow, fire-retardant] armor to be 6'2, with nice teeth, an athletic frame, and oh, maybe a Porsche. (SO what if I'm projecting? This is my blog, damn it!)

And I laughed out loud at first. How right on, I thought. Until I started to feel bad for the dude. I thought of how girls pass up the opportunity to get to know a guy just because he's a little on the shorter side or whatever. He could be a perfectly good guy with a good heart and a healthy sense of adoration for the object of his affection, but we overlook him because we're taller than him when we're wearing heels.

I felt bad, I did. I scrambled the idea around in my head. I tried to justify it. I tried to make a personal pact to eyeball the short guys too—and to make an effort to deal with their inevitable “short-man syndrome” in the process.

And then it hit me. Some of the guys I've liked the most in my long, long life have not necessarily been the ones who have all the qualities found on my list. There have been some shorter ones, or some chubbier ones, some who were balding a bit (both prematurely and definitely right on time), and the list goes on. Yet these have been the most significant men in my life.

While yes, some of them were assholes and heaven knows why I liked them, most of them were really great guys. Guys who adored me. Guys who were funny, smart, driven, hard-working, cute, and who cared if they were a little short?

My point is simply that I make a big deal about these standards of mine. But if some amazing guy came along and gave me reason enough, I'd crumple up my list and shove it down my garbage disposal with little to no hesitation.

Until then, I'm hanging onto this list of mine. There's no garbage disposal in my current apartment anyway.

A Stitch in Time

I'm trying to resist the temptation to be cliché and everything, but hell, this is a blog about relationships and dating. Almost anything I may come up with is probably cliché in one way or another. So deal with it.

I am learning yet again the incredible importance of timing. I started to learn this lesson on a larger scale many, many years ago when I was in grade school. Okay, so that was last week, whatever.

When I was in grade school I got picked on quite a bit. I was a wee bit on the chunky side and some of my classmates were little devils, as kids will often be. Even then I knew my time would come.

I compiled a list, which I still have buried in the pages of my journal. My “Guys I Won’t Ever Date When I’m Skinny” list. Ironically enough, I slimmed down substantially during the later part of my high school years and eventually became the beautiful and breathtaking creature I am today.

About a year or so ago, I ran into one of the boys on my list. Now a man, and a rather good-looking one at that, he almost immediately began to express interest in me, asking for my number, saying he wanted to take me to a Dodgers game, and all that. Well, karma’s a bitch and timing is everything, right?

I never reminded him of that one time he called me Ms. Piggy, but I never went out with him either.

That was my first long-term lesson in timing. I’ve been learning another one lately, but only time will tell if this one will be quite as satisfying as the first.

I’m going to be a little vulnerable here. Don’t expect to find much more of that any time soon, but here I go.

*@hotinvestmentbanker warning, for those of you sick of hearing about it.

There’s this guy. Or should I say was this guy. We apparently had the worst timing in the history of mankind. My interest in him was almost unprecedented. It just so happened that I picked the worst time since the Great Depression to decide to date someone in finance. Two days after our first date, the economy plummeted to an all-time low. A few weeks later I found out that not only was his job a nightmare but also a few other factors had weighed in, making him decide to “take a break” from dating.

It’s all in the timing. That’s what I keep telling myself. That’s what my co-working crew keeps telling me. That’s what my friends and roommate and neighbors keep telling me. It’s become my mantra as of late.

After seeing him online last night and suppressing the urge to instant message him, I decided to read up on timing just to strengthen my resolve.

“Life is all about the timing… The unreachable becomes reachable… the unavailable becomes available…the unattainable, attainable… Have the patience. Wait it out. It’s all about the timing.” –Stacey Charter

Okay, that’s good, I thought. Reachable, available, attainable, these are all good things. I kept reading.

“The timing of death, like the ending of a story, gives a changed meaning to what preceded it.” —Mary Catherine Bateson

Uh, so, not exactly what I’m looking for. Keep going.

“All right, so if you absolutely have to tell her the truth, at least wait until the timing’s right. And that’s what deathbeds are for.” –Chandler on “Friends”

I had to throw in the “Friends” quote…c’mon.
And here’s the one that threw me.

“You cannot afford to wait for perfect conditions. Goal setting is often a matter of balancing timing against available resources. Opportunities are easily lost while waiting for perfect conditions.” —Gary Ryan Blair

This one made me second-guess myself. I mean, really, am I throwing away opportunities while I wait for the perfect timing? Should I have instant messaged him? No. I was steadfast in my decision-making. Okay, so I had to tell my roommate to tell me I shouldn’t IM him. She said, “Give it more time.” There’s that word again, I thought.

So I’m giving it time. My gut tells me it’s the right move. And besides, in the meantime I can keep myself occupied dating guys named Chewbacca.

The Stick Figure

The Project BFOTWS was unofficially launched on Thursday. The unofficial launch made me question the genius of the project as a whole. The defining factor can only be described as a stick figure in dress slacks dancing like he was bobbing for apples right side up. He was originally dancing with women, then he switched to men, dancing quite provocatively, I must say. He began holding the hand of one guy, which really made sense, we thought. Until he began dancing with yet another man in the same group, ass-grazing and all.

As you have probably surmised, this was not at all a successful venture.

Project Being Fabulous on the Westside

I’ve done an unofficial survey. After scouring the many different neighborhood bars and nightclubs and talking to a bazillion different types of men during my tenure in this city, I’ve come to a conclusion.

I live in the wrong neighborhood.

Now, this isn’t to say I don’t like my neighborhood or that it doesn’t satisfy my needs, because it more than does. I love many aspects of where I live--my great neighbors, its close proximity to my office, and the adorable little market across the street, just to name a few.

However there is a definitive lack of one necessary commodity.

Men.

No, I don’t mean there are no men in the area. I mean there are very few men in whom I’d even consider being interested. In fact, the very thing I’ve often found myself loving about my neighborhood—the artistic vibe, fueled by the multitude of creative, struggling, young-artist types—is the thing that seems to have driven away the exact breed of fellows I like.

Not to sound narcissistic, but when in a romantic entanglement, I enjoy being the creative one. I tend to be attracted to the tie-wearing, business-minded, mathematically inclined type who is utterly amazed at my knowledge of the differences between independent and dependent clauses. Or ‘who’ and ‘whom,’ for that matter.

My neighborhood is totally and completely congested with starving-artist types, many who are far too young for me (you know, like anywhere within three years of my own age) and far too immature (like still eating Top Ramen with ketchup) and far too, well, is there a more PC word for “douchebaggish”? And let me tell you, the douchebaggishness is the real deal-breaker, my friends.

The results of my aforementioned unofficial survey have shown the Westside is heavily populated by tie-wearing, business-minded, mathematically inclined, 27-to-33-year-old, mature, nondouchebaggish men. And it is based on these results that I have decided to launch my new initiative: Project Being Fabulous on the Westside.

A number of my good friends have been trying to win me over to the west for quite some time now. “The Westside is the best side,” they chant in unison. I’m starting to be swayed. Not only has the Westside proven to be somewhat of a mini-vacay each time I visit, but these new developments provide an additional allure.

Project BFOTWS, consider yourself launched. May you bring fun, prosperity, and prospects.