LOVE MATTERS

I've been wondering about relationships a lot lately. It's the one area of my life that I'm dissatisfied with, and with no apparent direction for change, I have to figure something out.

Whenever I have something I want to work on, I usually find a creative way to deal with the situation. The definition of insanity (as defined by AA?) is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. So I tried something drastically different for my dating dilemma: I went on Match.com and took part in Time Out New York's Sexy Summer Singles issue. Pretty drastic, I'd say.

The results can basically be described as "meh". I went on one date with a guy from TONY which went ok, but while he was only a year younger, he looked like he could have been my 17 year old brother (and my actual brother is 23*). The Match thing was pretty fun because by the time I finally decided to join, I had 40 emails waiting for me. Let me tell you, they. were. amazing. Pretty much the most awesome way to burn through half an hour, not to mention the huge confidence boost that came with them.

I didn't take either of my match-making methods seriously, but instead used them as an exercise in bravery to shake my little world up. Then, right before my subscription and I were completely over Match.com, there was one last email that caught my eye. He seemed too good to be true (i.e. too attractive), so I assumed he looked more like his "ugliest" photo (a hypothesis later proven wrong. He looks exactly like his best photo). When I showed his email to Alexandra (my NYBF and life coach), she insisted I respond. After all, he was pretty charming.

Turns out he's a writer (plus), he's 31 (plus), dryly humored (plus). We had loads to talk about and plenty in common. Our first date lasted four hours.

And so did the second. For our third date, a long beach day split into two dates as we took separate evening siestas, only to call each other up for a late night bar hop. And on it went. We hung around each other for about three months, making our schedules match as much as possible. When he gradually became less available, I called him out on it (big step!). Apparently, he had found someone new and more "promising." Ouch.

Meanwhile, I had just made the decision that I really liked him and was going to open up to him. For the first time in a long time, I was going to let myself like him and see where it went.

And then I never saw him again.

Part II (and the point of this pity story) forthcoming.

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*I know you're prolly like "YOU HAVE A BROTHER?" Why yes, yes I do. He's pretty awesome at computers and cars and being funny, but he also likes to do his own thing. He's real quiet and smiley and tall. Real tall. Really, really tall.)