I’ve dabbled in dating. I’m a dating dabbler. Oh, just shoot me now and get it over with. This is absolutely NO reflection on the men I’ve gone out with. They are perfectly nice, handsome, fun, funny. But seriously, dating is like interviewing for a job you’re not sure you want yet. I mean, how CAN you know? You go through the social niceties. You ask all the questions and you answer all of his. You circle the fire in fear and wonder. Curiosity gets the better of you. And you know what they say about curiosity. How often do you really want to interview before you figure out maybe your current gig isn’t so bad after all? But, I am ever hopeful…I am an optimist.

Every time I think I want to date, I put my profile out on match.com to check out the local gene pool. In a small town, I’ve found I’m fishing in the shallow end. Please, don’t think ill of me, but seriously…if I have to read one more profile written entirely in lower case and peppered with misspelled words (as in, pashionet) I will go screaming into the night. Take Leisure Suit Larry, for instance. He’s posing in front of his late model red Chevy with the headlight out, in a powder blue polyester tuxedo, complete with ruffled shirt and powder blue patent leather shoes. Oh, my. I was standing in line paying my bill at Cracker Barrel one day (ok, I’m no one to talk. I eat at Cracker Barrel. Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with that. Just sayin’.) This man walks up to me to cut through the line as we were blocking the entrance to the dining room. Lo and behold, who was it but Leisure Suit Larry! He must have seen the look of recognition (and horror) on my face because he paused to really look at me. My prayers were answered when his memory banks couldn’t match me to my profile picture and he moved on. I’m terrible.

Then there’s the guy carefully posed on his sofa. Decent enough picture if it wasn’t for the roll of toilet paper beside him on the end table. Either he has a terrible cold and ran out of Kleenex or he has the unfortunate luck to have a La-Z-Boy toilet in the living room. Then there’s the guy quite literally posing in his boxers and t-shirt, complete with white socks. Oh, God…take me now!

Now, there ARE some perfectly nice men out there. I’ve met them and I’ve gone out with a couple. And, as I said, this is no reflection on them. Dating is as big a chore for them as it is for us. So, the bottom line is to have fun. If it stops being fun, I’ll stop doing it. And who knows…maybe lightning DOES strike twice….or more!

❤

“Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.”

1 Corinthians 7:8-9