Ah, Valentine’s Day, you slay me. Or rather, you didn’t get me slayed at all. As I stumbled home from a pub crawl (all the single ladies, all the single ladies) I couldn’t help but have a feeling of malaise. As my mother constantly asks, why didn’t I have a boyfriend? What exactly was my issue? I was fine gallivanting along in my semi-glamorous post college mid20s life. Great apartment, wonderful friends, cushy job. And that’s when my mother said it - “you have everything you could ever want in life! Now you just need to find a man!” Cough, gurgle, blehhhh, WHAT. Come on, mom, get a grip. Now all I need is a man? Does he come with an apron? My mother thinks at the ripe age of 24, one should at least be dating their future husband if not already married to him. (Let us not even address the fact she did not get married ‘til she was 26.)
I said, “Mom, things are different now.” She said, “you don’t even give these boys a chance.”
She’s right. But in my defense, every man I’ve dated in the past year has been… cringe worthy. One of them could not define porcelain… or aversion, garner, affinity, placate, disseminate (if you’re wondering why I dated him it’s because it took me a while to figure out he was stupid, usually because I was so slack-jawed looking at him that I couldn’t put together a sentence either). But it struck a nerve - just how many guys was I really dating and ditching? Was I preemptively jumping ship? Was everyone seriously a total loser? Or was my plump little ego too big for its sweater?
Only time, and numbers, will tell.
Here’s how the blog will work: every time someone approaches me, asks me out, flirts with me, whateva the case may be, I assign them a number when they make an appearance in my life. If I’m still talking about #2 in June, good for him. If I hit #30 by May, good for me (or not? questionable). If an Ex or perhaps close friend reappears or appears in the romantic sense, they get the number that comes up next, but I will offer some background. If my ex-boyfriend from 8th grade makes a move, he does not get upgraded to #1 just because he met me before puberty.
This is the true account of a big city living, college educated, attractive 24-year-old woman just counting her wins and losses. Time to introduce the average American male to his equal.
LET’S PAINT.
