Tuesday, February 22, 2011

A long december

Over the weekend, I spent a lot of time thinking about the song "Long December" by Counting Crows. Especially the lines "maybe this year will be better than the last" and the lines "it's been so long since I've seen the ocean, I guess I should." As of late, my dating life has been tiring. No, my dating life has been exhausting. I feel as if I have been running at a sprint for such a long time while getting nowhere. I suppose the old adage "if you don't know where you are going, maybe you are already there" applies. Or the one that says "no matter where you go, there you are." Maybe I am running from myself. Maybe I am running from what everyone around me perceives me as.

In any case, I am going to stop running. Someone once told me that dating was all a numbers game (or was it me that told someone else that? I can never be too sure). According to my records, at the age of 27 I had been on a first date with 204 women. That is when I stopped keeping records. But I have easily been out with another 100 girls since then. It all started when my bishop told my older brother as he turned 16 that he should try and go out with 20 different girls before he married one. Who knows how different my life might have been if I had never heard those words. So I kept track. It became a bit of a ritual, I got home from a date and I wrote her name on the list. I dated when I had no interest in dating. I dated when I had no money. Sure I dated girls that I was really interested in. But if there wasn't one or she wasn't available, I dated anyway. Some of my friends were very critical of this list (and of my dating habits) but I wasn't really doing it for them. I had this romantic idea in my head that my wife would be the last name on the list and we would frame it and place it in our house to display what I had gone through to find her. Instead, I ended up burning the list in a little ceremony.

People were critical of the list just as they were critical (and still are) of my dating habits. But I can't take everyone's advice all the time. I guess in hindsight, I should have never taken anyone's advice. If I had those dates back, I would probably have enough money to pay off my car and my student loans. I don't think taking that many girls out on dates was selfish.

I do think that I need a change though. I am going to stop going out on dates with girls I don't like. It means I probably will spend a lot more time playing video games or watching tv and a lot less time going to shows, plays, operas, ballets, concerts, baseball games, basketball games, football games, formal dinners, informal dinners, restaurants, etc. Maybe I will start writing music again (although the only thing that ever inspired me to write music was girls). I hope I can continue to blog about some of my more interesting dating experiences.

3 comments:

  1. Welcome back!

    I applaud your change in attitude. It will lead you to happier, healthier long term relationships. =)

    ReplyDelete
  2. i agree. i think its a good change-i think before you were just kind of spinning your wheels. will anyone from your current lineup make the cut?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sometimes its good to step back and look back and readjust going forward. I know I had to do this recently. I sat down and created a list. On this list I had 4 or 5 things that I catorgorized as majors things that were really important to me and things that were must have's in a wife. Then I created a list of minor wants/needs. Things that would be nice but I could live without. I used this in my dateing that way I knew if it was worth pursueing or not. The key is the Major list needs to be realistic and not more than a handfull of things... I know that is advice but it really helped me focus and I ended up finding someone that crossed off 100% of the majors and 95% of the minors..

    ReplyDelete