IN WHICH LIFE IS A JOURNEY NOT A DESTINATION or THAT WHICH MAKES ME NAUSEOUS

For those of you who think that I’m over romantic because I am searching for love, I can assure you, that is hardly the case.  I’ve been reading profile after profile and have to admit that the Hallmark platitudes are starting to get to me. 

Spare me from walks on the beach, candle lit dinners and watching sunsets, it’s just not my thing. Help me to keep away from communications being a two way street, as comfortable in high heels as jeans, and please, never let me never get near anyone with a Harley or a mancave.  I come off as a curmudgeon, but let me assure you again, nothing could be further from the truth. 

What is true, and it’s not just my observation, is that many of the profiles are just a concatenation of what men think women want to hear.  It is a compilation of the sappy, the syrupy, the banal, and the highly sentimental.  Blatant calculations to make the feminine heart flutter and beat faster…sigh. 

…and not the good corny of a great old Judy Garland musical, but the insipidity of a Lifetime movie for Women (which of course, you have to know that I watch).

I am not that person, guys.  That kind of prose doesn’t make my heart beat faster, au contraire, it makes me want to barf.  It’s a bit of what I said in my OkCupid profile (by the way, the profile I still like best), you don’t get to this point in life without a little acerbity… a slight tang.

So, I guess this is the point where I regroup, reboot, and reset my goals. I’m not changing my wish list, I’m just going to try to be more open to more types of people.  My only insistence continues to be photos and near for LA traffic purposes.  The most critical among you cannot quibble with that.

So here is the tote as it stands:  still on Match, OkCupid, Zoosk, and Matchmaker, only because I paid very little for three months worth.  I have to say, there’s been absolutely nothing on Zoosk or Matchmaker, so I cannot recommend either of them.  I have also paid very little to get on Match’s sister site: Chemistry.com.  So far this hasn’t yielded much either, not at all impressed.

I have gone on a couple of dates with some Match guys.  Drinks with a very nice man at my local Cheesecake Factory (they have a very nice and “happening” bar there during “happy” hour), a long Saturday afternoon with another nice man with whom I even had some chemistry, but it all came to naught, which, as we have learned, is the norm.  I think there was another one that was so unmemorable that I don’t remember it. 

Nice is so bland, isn’t it.  I’m sorry, but I can’t get up the enthusiasm to think of a better adjective.  Certainly, no URGE.

I have also been texting with a married guy – an artist who wants me to be his muse.  Too whimsical and romantic for my tastes you might think, but it’s, of course, the married part that gets to me.  He wanted to meet for a drink but I was honest and said that I wasn’t comfortable meeting with a married man. 

I thought that was the end of the matter, but then just last night got a text saying that he couldn’t get me off of his mind.  I texted back and said I knew what he meant (One Syllable), but that this sort of a situation was unwholesome and that I was an honorable person who couldn’t conceive that his wife was okay with this.  I see nothing today from him. 

Summer is a-comin’ in and I think that’s a good time for dates.  People are emerging from winter and even spring shadows and are really getting out there, the sun is shining and everything just feels better so I am optimistic.

Must also just mention that I’ve been texting back and forth with another guy who seems to think I’m just the cat’s pajamas, and then he disappears for a week and then comes back.  I think I’ve already discussed the attention span of younger guys, so I will refrain. The update to that is that he keeps texting me trying to meet, but we can’t seem to coordinate, which, to me, suggests some kind of ambivalence.  I could be wrong about that, as we know I’ve been wrong about a lot of things.

My buddy, Serial Monogamist, has had an experience that most of us girls have had at one time or another.  He met a girl that he really liked.  She kept tempting him and implying that she was interested to the extent that she took herself off of Match when they met (which I thought rather precipitous) and then would back away, breaking dates and not returning phone calls when he responded.  She had work issues, her father was sick, the cat ate her homework, etc., etc. 

I have been reading about stuff like this, and what’s interesting is that many women on the dating scene today, for whatever reason, are acting like guys.  They are being as elusive, non-committal, aggravating and mystifying.  I think it’s a horrible trend.  They’re acting like hunters who catch the quarry and throw it back, slightly used but serviceable.  Guy behavior!!!  That is discouraging!

Speaking of discouraging, did I say I was optimistic?  I am, I promise you at the back of my mind, but just for the moment am I allowed a little gloom and just a little lack of enthusiasm?  I am a tad dispirited, and it may have to do with allergies or traveling too much or various domestic problems that I won’t bore you all with. Or maybe it’s just the fact that I’ve been at it for a while and I’m still waiting for some magic – talk about over-optimistic!

Well, I promise I will not indulge in this mood for too long.