MEN! (uh, not a rant)

Now, there’s a subject! Men! Now, it’s not like I’m going ga-ga over someone ~ er, not even close! But, I have some spare time on my hands right now, so why not explore this a bit?

Being a singleton, I for one can tell ya that it’s not easy finding that one and only! Hell, I’ve actually been married twice and neither one was a keeper. But, now that I’m older and slightly wiser, I’m finding that it is even harder than I’d ever thought to find a companion. It could be that I’m too picky, but really ~ beyond insisting that your future husband be a blonde haired, blue eyed, fighter pilot with a PHD in economics ~ how exactly can someone be too picky when it comes to who they’ll spend the rest of their life with??? I mean, if one were to base things on a meteor falling on my head during my first date with Joe Blow, then ok. As long as the first part of the date went well, you could say that I spent the rest of my life with a great guy. But, we don’t exactly know when that meteor is going to fall, now do we?

So, I look back at my choices in the past, and like most, see at least a bit of a pattern. And, also like most, I intend to break that trend once and for all when I get back on the, er,......horse. But, the real question is how to break it. How do you even spot that you’re repeating the same old pattern until you find yourself knee deep in it? I really believe that being able to do that is what it takes to stop making the same bad choices over and over again. When you can see clearly that “uh-oh, he’s a player who thinks too much of himself”, instead of “He is really cute and confident!” ~ then the spell will be forever broken!

But, what I ponder is the numbers. Just think for a moment how many men are in the world (not just your country, thanks to the WWW). Now try to mentally subtract the married, the gay and the incarcerated. That still leaves a lot of men, doesn’t it??? So, what gives??? With so many single men and so many single women, why is it so hard to connect??

In my situation right now, that’s easy to explain. There is one single man in the neighborhood that I know of and he’s eecky. I’m not just basing that on looks either ~ trust me, there’s a very good reason dude is single! So, with that demographic, I’m kinda screwed. But, with my move to LA on the near horizon, it’ll be a whole other situation and my choices broader. One would think that it’d make finding my future husband easier. If only!

So, say I’m out exploring my new neighborhood and spot a cool little diner. I go inside and voila! ~ it’s full of 22 year olds! Damnit! Or, I’m perusing the J-horror section of the cool and hip video store I’m sure to find and “hello, Mr. my-age-and-hunky” walks in the door. We make eye contact and smile........right before he walks directly to the Broadway musical section of the store! DAMNIT!

What is the answer? Online dating ~ er, not for me. Call me old fashioned, but I prefer to meet men the way God intended ~ drunk in a bar. But, considering how little I go out anymore, that’ll be a problem. So, what does that leave me? Where is it that I can find a super smart, super funny, extremely considerate, fun loving, sex loving, travel loving, open minded, non-racist, non-bigoted, beautiful, successful, well read, brunette, horror movie fan??? Seriously ~ tell me where!

Oh, and just remember........I’m not picky.

I guess it all comes down to how we meet people, where we meet them and what the intentions are. Let’s face it, if a guy walks up and engages a woman in conversation in a nightclub, chances aren’t good that he’s looking for a life partner. Uh, unless he knows about the meteor theory. And, most women will agree that a man who attempts conversation while we’re at the store anywhere between the hours of 6am and 6pm isn’t gonna get far. Either we don’t feel pretty or are too busy or tired to hook up. So, it’s all about timing and location, right? Uh, wrong.

I just think back to the era of the world wars ~ back in the day when we over-30’s grandparents and great-grandparents were hooking up. How is it that so many young people married and married for a lifetime? Is it that they were smarter than us? Did they have better life skills? Or, is it simply that we have more options than they did? Just think about when the divorce rate really began to climb; the 80’s. The time when everyone really became aware of how dispensable and disposable everything in the world is ~ even people. Women were liberated and men shook the shackles of “alpha-male-bread-winner”. So, is that when everything fell to shit? Sometimes I think that it’s my desire for excitement that makes it so hard for me to find someone. But, then again, I’ve been in a marriage where my other half didn’t have even close to the desires from life that I did. Lord only knows that it was for the best for both of us that I ended it. We could have gone on for who knows how long, but that wouldn’t have made it a good marriage. And, a great marriage is what I’m looking for.

I guess there’s no formula ~ no method ~ only chaos and chance. Damnit! The world would be a lot better off if we’d listened to Einstein!