To Date or Not to Date

1. If I never date again, I won't have to shave my legs anymore. Then I can take the money that I save on razors and spend them on sweaters and blouses that button all the way up to my chin.

2. If I start dating again, I won't watch happy couples walk off into the sunset at the end of romantic movies and think, "Yeah. Like that would ever happen to me."

3. If I never date again, I won't have to look at any online profiles that feature pictures of shirtless guys posing in front of their bathroom mirrors. You know how they say, "Less is more?" I'd say, "More (clothes) is better."

4. If I start dating again, I might find someone who makes me happy.

5. If I never date again, I won't have to wring my hands over the dozens of profiles of guys in their thirties and forties (and yes, not all of them are like this. But a LOT of them are) who specify that they only want to date women between the ages of 18-25, which makes me feel like I'm over the hill at age 31.

6. If I start dating again, then I might actually meet the right guy this time. Then my dream of getting married and having children someday might actually come true.

7. If I never date again, I won't wait by the phone for guys who pretend to be interested because they like the attention about as much as Kim Kardashian likes the spotlight (and famous boyfriends).

8. If I start dating again, I won't have to tell nosy people, "No, I really don't know why I'm still single."

9. If I never date again, I can spend more time on the other things that make me happy, like writing, teaching, dancing, and exploring interesting neighborhoods in the city.

10. If I start dating again, I might meet a guy who turns out to be worth all the bad dates, the creepy jerks who couldn't understand why I didn't want to date them, and all the time I wasted on the nice guys (who turned out to be not so nice after all). I might meet someone who's different from all the others and makes me think that maybe I could have both work AND love.

I recently read a post on online dating by fellow blogger Tom, who writes the blog My World in Crisis. It made me think about whether I should start dating again. It's been about a year since the last time I tried online dating. I've thought about joining another site, or perhaps one of the sites that I already tried. But right now I really need to focus on making more progress on my dissertation. My graduate funding runs out at the end of this school year, but I won't finish my dissertation until the end of next year. That means that I will be unemployed next year, unless I can find some other way to support myself (teaching, a grant, a small loan, etc.).

Even though I still want to meet someone and fall in love (FINALLY), at the same time I also want to finish my dissertation, complete my Ph.D., and find a good full-time job as a teacher. My work has always been very important to me, and I don't think that I should have to apologize for that (in spite of several people I know who have tried to make me feel like being a workaholic means that something is wrong with me).

That's why I've decided to put off online dating until January at the earliest. I will write more posts on dating in the future, but for now, I need to focus on work and school. It's one thing if I never become a "Mrs.", but I still want to become a "Dr.".

(And I have to admit, I'm kind of relieved about not going back to online dating, at least for now. If you've read any of my earlier posts on dating, you know why.)