New Fashioned dating is making me an Old Fashioned girl. “Not your mother’s” traditional gal, I am 30-something, single, bisexual, dating exclusively men the past several years, independent, and happily looking for the guy who will delight in the complexity of my package: professional, artist, imaginative spiritual seeker who excites over the real estate and investment news. I e-date, get fixed up by friends, meet people traveling, have sex on the first date when it feels right (and sadly sometimes when it doesn’t), get shocked by people who have sex on the first date, dig myself out of too-true-to-be-true scenarios, and howl with laughter at the adventures. But lately, though I feel like a New Fashioned woman, I realize that, for all my perceived difference, I am still just a girl wanting a guy to love me.
Finding the guy who will click with my mainstream head and sub-culture heart has been nothing short of a journey …and as on all good journeys, I am learning about myself and the world all the time.
The truth is I am on the longest learning curve of my life. Raised with five brothers and spare female influence, I am STILL learning what I think I should have learned a long time ago about being a woman around men. Tenderness, provocation, there is so much to slalom that dates-in-practice are a tailspin sometimes.
The Talkies
I get the Talkies in my head: “Easy girl, men love mysterious. Let him engage you, or you’ll never know if he’s truly interested.”
“Don’t you dare!” Another Talkie jumps in. “You just be you. Don’t let those dating books you read get you into a corner.”
I cock my head. My date smiles at me over his drink, innocent of my brain brawl.
The Talkies are the brain trust that holds my dating advice. The problem is the brain trust is rowdy like a school cafeteria. It needs some organization.
Tell Me the Truth
This is where you come in, friendly reader. You have read advice columns that teach people about love, manners, and family matters? Well, we’ll call “Incredibly True Adventures” an advice column in reverse. I will write the stories if you do the advising. Tell me your experiences, how you relate, what happened to you. It is hard to believe that some of my dates could possibly be repeated out in the world. But if they happen to me, they must happen to other women too. Right?
To give you an idea of my journey, I have been the definition of single for 10 years (unmarried, uncommitted). I have lived in several cities around the U.S., following my career, and dating all flavors of folk. My singleness, and maybe my travels, have led to steady streams of romantic adventures, but never big love. Never great big fat juicy, wanna hug you, squeeze you, keep you forever kind of love.
For the record, I was head-over-heels at 16, and in love again at 20. Later, I nurtured and then killed several relationships before surrendering my status as a serial monogamist. And there were the hard falls, for a couple of amazing assemblies of perfection I thought sure marked the rest of my life…who didn’t fall for me back.
Equal parts heartbreaker and heartbroken, I’ve been on a whole lotta dates. With a whole lotta men.
Love is smorgasbord. It is a cruise aboard U.S.S. Love Me Tender. Love is the motor behind my dating machine, and the spike in my punch. As much as dating for ten years gets me down, the promise of love gets me up all over again, in search of the man that fits as fine and snug, with enough give and that touch of pull, as my sexiest pair of jeans.
“The Incredibly True Adventures of A Girl in Search of Love” will be an ongoing story of my dating life and its characters. (This week I went on a third date with a lovely man I am pretty sure now is gay, and got dolled up and stood up by a handsome new neighbor for Sunday brunch.) It will be an observation on men, on myself, on women, what we think, what we do, what we want.
Most of all, it will be me on my journey: I want a guy. Scratch that. I want MY guy. You know, the one that gets me, loves me, drives me wild? You might be looking for the same thing. After ten years and five cities of singledom, I am ready to try something new. I’m ready for love.
Never having grown up with sisters, I am looking forward to hearing the chorus of sisterhood on this topic of finding the guy.
And in some cases, the girl.
. . . . . . .
Photo courtesy of idrewuk
Add New Comment
Viewing 5 Comments
Thanks. Your comment is awaiting approval by a moderator.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Add New Comment