1 day until V-Day or what we singles refer to as Single Awareness Day—you know the day where the rest of the world pays homage to love and being loved while we singles tend to wonder how anybody is meeting anybody else these days and gorge ourselves on ice cream and chocolate. [HA! OK, so maybe that’s not other singles—maybe it’s just me! Hey, can you pass the chocolate syrup please?]
I’m still struck with how people meet. I’m compelled to be curious about this topic. I find it’s the question that most puzzles me. I ask it when I meet new couples all the time. This stuff just doesn’t happen to me.
No guy has ever approached me in the super market. I mean, I think one guy was following me once, but I’ve watched a lot of movies and shows like Alias, and it has me always looking over my shoulder anyway. [Not that my Tae Bo kick would do me much good, but I like to pretend I’m ready to take on the world, you know.] Oh and then one time a lady in the checkout lane in front of me seemed to be hitting on me! That was awkward for this straight girl.
All in all, I think I’m a pretty approachable person. I like to smile at perfect strangers. I do it all the time. I think a smile can change the course of humanity if we’d only use it more…but so far it has yet to get me one date!
No guy has ever come up to me in a bar or a restaurant and said, “How you doing?” [OK, maybe I’d prefer that he’d work on a bit more dignified intro as opposed to the Joey Tribbiani opener, but hey, at this point, I’m not sure I’d be so selective. I’m 32, you know. Tick Tock!] I’m baffled by the fact that people are hooking up this way.
Granted I’m no Barbie, but then the Kens of this world don’t really appeal to me either, but either way, no one has of yet approached me when I was out with friends and started hitting on me. And even though, I’ve met some interesting men, and I do believe there are still good men available, I’m quite often stung by the apparent contradiction from what men are saying they are looking for and what they seek out in the big wide world there.
Men say they want…
a woman who can think for herself
a woman who can discuss fine literature and poetry
a woman who appreciates the arts, music and culture
a woman who enjoys good food and good company
a woman who has diverse interests outside of theirs (like photography, travel, etc.)
a woman that listens, pays attention to detail and wants to participate in their life
a woman who can make them laugh and isn’t afraid to laugh at herself.
Yes, this all sounds good. At this point, my interest is piqued, and I’m ready to wave a white flag and say…“Hello, I’m right here. I’m the one.”
BUT there’s a disclaimer that men in general add on…it isn’t always in writing or isn’t even discussed, but their actions speak volumes. They want to add the restriction that this thinker, this unique and fascinating creature that they are longing to meet and looking for has to fit into a size 2 frame. Ahhhh, therein lies the rub!!! Oh, I’m a size 2 alright. Try 22!
I’ve often wondered that maybe some of us have more personality than can fit into a size 2 jeans? I think I’ve been in double digits since junior high. I think I jumped right from 14 girl size into a woman’s size 12. (And now, I’d kill to be a size 12…well figuratively anyway!) All in all, I think I have a pretty big personality…I love so many different things, and I have a bazillion different interests, and I’m expanding them every year. Photography, travel, ballets and symphonies, hiking and camping, plays and theatres, architecture and old buildings, nieces and nephews, castles and England, chocolate and ice cream, card making and scrapbooking, history and geneaology…and the list goes on.
Somehow I think that no matter whether I return to that size 12 or not, I imagine that there just might be my own special someone still out there. A man who will love me for who I am rather than the size of clothing I wear. Someone I can grow old with, travel with, share a life with and laugh with. He’s out there…he’s probably taken already or pursuing a size 0 as we speak, but maybe he’ll work his way up, and he’ll come round one day. I can’t quite let go of my hope in the maybes of life yet. It might be dangerous to still carry hope, but somehow I think it might be more dangerous to not have any…
As C.S. Lewis once wrote: “Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
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