First Cut Is The Deepest
If it’s not one thing, it’s another… Just when you thought it was safe to begin the celebration of your recovery from surgery, you’re forced to assess the progress (or lack thereof) of your 2010 dating plan. Are you sure it’s not too late to sign up for more surgery?
So now what do you do? If things haven’t been going well thus far, how do you change course? Of course, I’m probably the last guy to give advice on this subject. Remember me? I hate dating. I only date when I have to. I don’t belong to an online dating service. I don’t go on blind dates. I don’t listen to my sister, or my grandmother, or my neighbor. Thus, far be it for me to analyze and assess your dating life. OK, if you insist, I’ll do it. I may not have the solution to your dating woes and I may not recognize what you’re doing wrong, if anything, but I do know it must be some combination of the following flaws to your approach:
YOU’RE TRYING TOO HARD
Let’s start with the availability factor. You’re too available. I don’t mean desperate. Trust me, you don’t come off desperate at all. But since you work from home and don’t have a traditional work schedule, you can be available any time, any day for any date. And, you usually are. I love that about you because I can show up and drink your beer, but put yourself in a guy’s position. How about breakfast? Yes. Coffee? Yes. Lunch? Yes. Dinner? Yes. The midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show? Yes. Okay, I know you don’t always say yes. But, more than every once in a while, you have to make yourself unavailable. The illusion of being unavailable is one of the few things in life that are better than the real thing. You heard it here first.
YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU WANT
You know you’re guilty of this. If it was a felony, you’d be a candidate for the three strikes rule. You want a boyfriend, but you love your independence. You want a nice guy, but nice guys bore you to basic cable. You want a man to have great sex with, but he must also know the precise moment when it’s time for him to disappear. You want to take care of a man, but he lets you take care of him you’ll label him a complete wuss. You may be right about one thing – you may be too much like one of the guys. Guys NEVER know what they want – especially when they have it.
EXPECTATIONS
You think you deserve nothing short of a great relationship with a great man… Not great by media standards or in the eyes of the nobel prize committee, but great to you. Guess what? You’re right. You do indeed deserve nothing short of great and no, NOT everybody else deserves the same thing. Guess what else? It doesn’t matter. Finding a great man is just like finding a great woman – only harder. IF this man exists, you won’t find him with a new plan or a new dating site or a new bar – you’ll either find him by complete random occurrence, or, more likely not at all. You set the bar high for yourself, as you should. The part they don’t mention when it comes to setting the bar high is that it reduces the odds greatly. I know a bookie in my old neighborhood that would love to have you as a client.
My advice? Change everything you’re doing – or don’t change a thing. It doesn’t matter either way.
I’m really glad I could help.
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Post Op Epiphany?
So now that my surgery is over and I’m unfortunately out of my fantastic painkiller haze, I find myself licking my wounds. Not my surgical wounds – my dating wounds. 
It’s April. I am officially ¼ of the way through my “If you build it, He will come” year. But I just realized something. I think I have been so busy worrying about the “He will come” part, that I haven’t paid any attention to the “building it” part. I haven’t paid any attention to the fact that I’ve been doing it with all the wrong materials.
Or in most cases, I guess I thought it was just going to build itself.
Maybe I got enlightened under the knife, but I think I need to refocus. There are two guys interested in me right now. That’s great – except for one thing: I don’t think I’m interested in them. Emphasis on don’t “think.” Why? Because I’m not sure. At least I think I’m not sure. At least… Oh, forget it.
On paper, one guy definitely seems better suited for me than the other. We appear to have much more in common. He likes to travel, he loves baseball, drinks a lot of vodka, he’s a hotel snob and watches way too much TV. Wow, I sound like an idiot. So what’s the problem? I’ve been on 4 dates with him and feel no romantic chemistry. None. Not a lick. The word “lick” doesn’t even get me excited.
But I definitely want to drink vodka with him, watch baseball, and have him book me a hotel room.
The other guy is probably the guy of my grandmother’s dreams, may she rest in peace. He’s brilliant, he’s got a good job, comes from a great family, and he’s 100% crazy about me. He saves for a rainy day, wants nothing more than to get married and have kids, and thinks I’m just the woman to do that with. (Boy, do I have him fooled.) Oh, and he sent me get well flowers not even knowing why I had surgery. Wait until he finds out I had a sex change. Just kidding. In all seriousness, he’s perfect on paper. So what’s the problem? Yep, you guessed it – I don’t feel any romantic chemistry. But I can’t help wanting to be friends with him because I really like him.
I just don’t want to get naked with him.
So what the hell is wrong with me? Did I focus too much on my determination to be mated and forget what I am actually looking for in a mate? Or is it possible that all my years of being “one of the guys” has made me – one of the guys? Why am I not feeling any sparks with these men? I know I’ve got it in me; there was Salt and Pepper Guy back in February. I was crazy about him and wanted to rip my clothes off every time I saw him (I didn’t). Not to mention Young Cruiser Guy, who I made out with like a 9th grader (okay, maybe 8th grader these days). So it’s not for lack of fire within. Speaking of fire, did I burn myself out with the early dating bonanza? Can it be? Am I done for the year already?
Although, there is this one other guy who I think is really cute…
