Thursday, October 30, 2008

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?

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