Dating Dry Spell

When I heard the news on Groundhog Day that we would have an early spring, I wondered how the groundhog might have reacted if it had seen the blizzard that recently descended upon Chicago. I wondered if the groundhog might have thought, "Well, forget this," and then crawled back into its burrow before booking a ticket to the Bahamas.

That also made me think about how even though I've recently reentered the world of online dating, there are times where I feel like saying, "Forget it," and moving back into the safe confines of the single life. Then I could write stories about why dating sucks and how people will live longer lives if they avoid it as much as possible, and how the ice cream business will suddenly boom as a result. Or I could carry a big wooden stake around and wave it threateningly at any guy who dares to come near me, screaming, "Get AWAY from me! Your masculine wiles will not work on me, freak show!"

And the wooden stake could come in handy in case any of the guys are vampires, which apparently is very likely if you read a lot of the teen novels that are out lately. But I suppose it'd be easy to tell if they were vampires; they'd probably react to the sun by covering themselves with their dark clothes (why do vampires often wear dark clothes? Is it some kind of undead fashion statement?) and yelping, "The light! The liiiiiiiggghhht!" before bursting into flames.

(Ever notice how the vampires always seem so upset? What, are eternal youth and immortality not enough for them? I suppose that drinking blood all the time would probably be a factor. I'd rather drink Coke.)

I've definitely had a long dating dry spell, because I haven't been on a date since last summer. I put off online dating because I had gotten burned out on dating and had had one too many bad experiences. There was the guy who waited several weeks before he called me after our date. Then he kept calling me for months after that, with no response or encouragement from me, until I finally told him, "It was one date! Get over it, weirdo!" (Well, not in so many words, but I did tell him to leave me alone. He creeped me out.)

There was the guy who spent about two hours talking about himself without asking me any questions about myself; apparently I was just there to compliment him while he nodded with that fake modesty thing which made me wonder how many times he admired himself in the mirror every day and imagined women throwing roses at him. (I imagined throwing something else.)

There was the guy on match.com who sent me three or four "winks". I responded to the first wink with an e-mail, but he just kept "winking" at me. I realized that he was either too cheap or too broke to pay for a membership, so he couldn't communicate with me beyond the winks. He must have expected me to immediately provide my phone number in the first e-mail, which I never do.

There were also the creepy e-mails I'd get from even creepier guys who would make comments on my physical appearance in the pictures I posted on my profile. There were the the disappearing acts from guys who would e-mail me and then never contact me again after the first or second e-mail, which made me wonder if I was writing the wrong thing in my e-mails. It's not as if I wrote anything like, "At last I have found you, my beloved! Now we can plan the wedding. What should we name our children?"

When I first started online dating, I just wanted to go on dates and meet new people. I figured that if I met a guy that I really clicked with, then great. But now that I'm on my fourth online dating membership, I'm tired of being a serial dater. It's not like I want to get married right away; I don't have any specific time frame for that. (But hopefully I'll be married before I turn 90. I'm thinking that my dating prospects would definitely decrease by then.) But I don't want to have to keep dating new guys for years and years.

Even though dating dry spells aren't fun, sometimes dating isn't fun either. Maybe it's just because I haven't met that one guy I could really click with yet. But dating does end up being worth it for a lot of people, because they end up finding the people they want to spend the rest of their lives with. It's just that the thought of going through this whole process all over again makes me feel weary, and I've only been a member of chemistry.com for a couple weeks.

I did get a couple e-mails from this one guy on chemistry.com who seems nice, and we've texted each other a few times. We have a coffee date tentatively scheduled for this weekend (tentative because it depends on our work schedules). We'll see if anything more happens, but I fear that I'm becoming a bitter cynic when it comes to dating. Maybe I should have made my "dating sabbatical" a permanent vacation and booked a trip to the Bahamas. Well, maybe not the Bahamas. I don't like the ocean because I kind of have this phobia about sharks after watching scenes from Jaws.

But on the other hand, I believe in being proactive. If you want something good to happen, it's much more likely that you'll get what you want if you do something about it. So I have to put myself out there, and keep trying. And hopefully, eventually I'll get what I want.

Check out this video by Leann Rimes; the song is called "Something's Gotta Give. I like the song because it totally relates to my situation right now, and I like the video because it's about online dating. (And yeah, yeah, I know about the scandals surrounding her personal life. I don't really care. I like her music anyway.)