Test Tubes — December, 2004
I'm quickly becoming disenchanted with dating - insofar as the process involves actively seeking out people to date. It's a worn out, trite subject matter; I know. But, it's really become a pain in the ass and I'm presently motivated to vent.
I could tell some disconcerting tales from recent pursuits, but there's a chance my Mom will read this and journalistic integrity won't cut the mustard with Mom. Allow it to suffice to say you'd laugh at me. I laugh at me.
First of all, my chosen venues are all wrong. Coffee shops and skydiving clubs are bad places to pick up women. Sure, both are often chocked full of attractive women, but these women are likely chain smoking caffeine addicts chasing down their next surge of endorphins. And, though I'm mixing crowds a bit, a lonely coffee shop geek like me can't get past the smoking, even if they are hot and skydive.
Secondly, there is a fundamental flaw to the active pursuit. After the deeply introspective personal inventory, after the advice of friends and family, and after considering the ones that got away, I arrive at some approximation of the type of person I'm looking for. But, this approximation is utter crap. I know it's wrong. If I ever found the person who put checks in all the right boxes, I know I wouldn't be enchanted; there'd be no mystery. And, as we all know, things are never as good or as bad as we anticipate them to be.
Further, even if I believed in searching for this "ideal" person, you can't judge a parcel by its packing slip. How would I know "Ms. Ideal" when I saw her? Well, I wouldn't.
What this spins down to after hours in the mental centrifuge is that I don't know who I'm looking for or what she would look like if I did. So, what the active approach to dating really boils down to is, that we pursue people we think we'd like to see naked.
Now, while this sounds exciting, it's wrought with peril. Jumping out of airplanes is safer, and cheaper. These potentially-good-looking-while-naked people usually fall into one of three well-defined categories:
1. Already taken
2. Not interested in me, or at least, not interested in seeing me naked
3. Not interesting to me
So, these purely libidinous searches are destined to leave me disappointed, broke, or running from some guy's house. No thank you.
Therefore, for now, I'll sip my lattes and flirt with baristas or jump at the skydiving club and watch the cuties pack their chutes. As for this active pursuit business - you can have it.
Well, the time has come for me to get back to the lab. I've got to check my test tubes to see if anything unexpected surfaced while they were spinning. You never know what you'll find when you least expect it.
~ topher