Between settling into a new career, planning my upcoming nuptials and slowing taking another swing at my novel, I’ve been off the bloggy multiverse for a bit. I recently found myself in a fun discussion about dating – one that was generated by a cheesy “ain’t that just typical” pun about single men that I found HIGHlarious, but in reality was actually met with a blank stare and perhaps the sound of crickets by my audience of one. It took a slight jogging of my memory before I realized that, said conversation companion, had been in only one relationship since high school and didn’t have the entire Mencyclopedia Britannica it seems every single female in L.A. claims to have authored.

Silly me, since moving to Georgia, “this isn’t California anymore, Toto” seems to be my mantra.

As a seasoned, professional dater with 29 years experience (less the first 16, unless you count practice kissing with my pillows), it seems that I may just be somewhat of an authority on the matter. I mean, at the very least if we are using the same standards of “authority” say a show like Married At First Sight uses when they pick their “matchmaking experts,” that are little more than new-wave hippies parading around like psychotherapists (I’m sure you didn’t get your “sexology” degree from Harvard, buddy). So yeah, I guess I can call myself a bit of an expert on the matter. By the time I was done covering the basics of modern-day passive communication styles, sexpectations and  the disturbing rise in ghosting techniques, I had amassed a few more participants in the conversation.

A pretty fair suggestion emerged that this perspective was likely due to the type of man whom I had dated in the past. As I sat there and thought about it, I concluded that I didn’t actually have “a type” at all. Spinning through the rolodex of former suitors, I could see a wide range of everything from race, background, income, physical qualities, it was all over the place. And then it hit me, I was the Noah’s Ark of dating, I think I have dated two of every kind!  And no, not in the slutty way, as a matter of fact I was most adamant about one thing, if you are dating someone and don’t sleep with them after three dates, there was a 90% chance you would never hear from them again. In my experience, a guy who thinks you’re just okay is willing to put up with you for a max of three dates before they move on, to which I will raise a glass and toast to not having any precious time in my 20’s wasted by the ill-intentioned. Nope, I wasn’t going to be fooled by any husk pretending to be boyfriend material, if I was going to make lousy decisions I would do it willfully, with two eyes open and a middle finger pointed straight up to the air. Yep, my mistakes were my own and I love the fact that I was able to share little moments of my life with such a variety of people. I like to think about all the evening’s of deep conversation, good music and laughs and about the ones that got away, but mostly, I love to think about the one that decided to stay.

Being single was two sides of a coin, there were ups and downs but when it comes to my personal chronicals of dating and knowing how it led me to the path I travel today, I wouldn’t change a thing.