Everything's Coming Up...Dandelions

The above phrase is from a letter I received yesterday from a dear friend, so apologies to H., but it resonates, so I had to steal it. There is no dating news except that I'm scheduled tonight for still one more..(sigh)...phone call to a man whose picture shows him wearing a really odd hat. I'm sorry to say that I don't remember another thing about him, and I might just be too unmotivated to re-look up the pathetically few facts (that is, clues) that his profile provides before the call.

Then too, I did find a couple of interesting fellows online and wrote to them, with no results at all so far. That's it.

This leads to the existential question, Do I want to go on with this? Most people who date online are clear about what they want in general: someone they can love, or at least like, to travel with and sleep with and go places about town with. Share the wonders of life with, and so on. A relationship. They don't need to ask why they want that; it's a universal desire, almost an entitlement. Or at least a prize they feel they deserve, and can earn, by being themselves...or maybe a somewhat more pleasing presentation of themselves. And since so many want it, and are looking for each other, it should be easy.

It is easy for some people. Of the handful of people I know who met their partners online, most did it rather quickly, for example the colleague who gave me the idea to Broaden my Scope. So what does it say about me that I've been practicing this (off and on) for years and have never actually met anyone I would remotely consider spending a lot of time with? You get a choice: A. I'm neurotic and unconsciously reject perfectly nice men because at heart I don't feel I deserve to be happy, or B. The pickings are really, really slim by the time you get to my age, and I'm a woman of taste and distinction. If I choose B, I can hear the sneers -- oh sure. So let's try to put it another way.

Actually, I like most people. I can fall easily into conversation with random strangers at Starbucks, or the guy who fixes my cable (if you're my Facebook friend, you know what I mean), or the person sitting next to me on a committee. People and their unique ways of seeing and being in the world are interesting to me. On the other hand, the idea of spending most of my free time with someone, not to mention overnights with someone, ramps up the stakes so that your Perfectly Nice Man is not going to do it for me. If P.N.M. is going to take away my hard-won ability to be alone when I want to be, or do what I want to do, he'd better be giving back an awful lot in the way of emotional and/or other kinds of pleasure. There's got to be gold in them thar hills, or I'm not hiking up there. Show me a glint, at least.

Is this High Standards or is this Self-Defeating Behavior? I've been debating this amongst my selves for years. When I feel lonely, isolated and jealous of the benefits of companionship that others have (even though I would never choose their companions), I think the latter. But then I undertake the search and the needle sways toward the former. (See Choice A or B above).

Whichever it is, the fact is that I felt cut-off and left-out at the beginning of the summer, when I started this dating project. At this moment, for whatever reason, I no longer feel lonely, or needy, or hungry for a man in my life. This isn't because I'm content; I'm never content. But right now what I'm hungry for is more life, not a perfectly nice man-in-my-life.

All this is by way of trying to decide what to do next. So far, no clue.