Friday, November 15, 2013

Debunking Bashert?

Maybe it was because I had just gone through a whole emotional tug of war to choose not to go out with a fellow who really did not compute at all, but I found this article, that has been widely circulated over the last few years, to suddenly grate on my nerves. 

Not all points, mind you. Specifically 1, 2, 3, and 7. Reading it now, after beating myself up that I didn't go out with someone who had three major strikes against him, perhaps I may be in a delicate state of hypersensitivity, but what I derived between the lines was: "If you are single, it is because you have acted stupidly." 

1) No such thing: "Every person has a special someone." Since I was ten-years-old I have said it is impossible that of all the men that walk this earth, I can be happy with only one of them. I never was a romantic.  

Duh, I have known this since for-eva. And yet, in my cheesiness I stand alone. When I go on a date and I pinpoint the differences between my date and myself, I automatically think, "Well, no one is the same. I can't expect to marry my clone." Even then it hasn't yet worked out, either on my end or on his. So genug that singles are being persnickety. 

2) Singles sabotage themselves when it comes to so-called "timing." Again, some of us bend over backward to accommodate "timing." I bump into a guy in the subway and I think "Kismet!" And pfffffft.   
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3) You dumped the right one. Well, I am the sort of gal who, to ensure proper sleeping patterns, really tries to give fair chances. I don't nix a perfectly good relationship for petty reasons. So, you know what, I'm going with "I haven't met the right one yet." 'Cause I haven't. 
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I even gave him a second chance, but he said no.
7) Singles avoid internet dating because they erroneously believe it to be "pathetic" and "desperate." In my case, I prefer not to for neither those adjectives. Personally, for me, having anonymous strangers sift through my data feels an awful lot like finding the plumber rifling through my sock drawer. It's bad enough emailing my info to a faceless individual someone else told me about; but to select a stranger from a list of other strangers to "sell" me when she doesn't know me from a hole in the wall, or having "eligible" men click on my face at whimsy makes me feel, considering my prudish sensibilities, a tad, well, icky. 

I don't think that people who date online are "pathetic and desperate." I just choose not to myself.

In the end, people cannot make statements if they haven't been there; I know it all too well. I used to be the smuggest 20-year-old when it came "older" singles. Then I became an "older" single. Now I shut up. 

For the most part. 
 
It's bad enough I triple-guess myself in the dead of night when I had perfectly valid, iron-clad, bankable reasons to choose not to proceed with a certain fellow. I don't mean because his nose was off center.   

Give us "elderly" bachelors/bachelorettes a little credit.       

2 comments:

Tovah11 said...

When we're young and single, the world is our oyster. Then, one day we wake up and we feel the necessity to couple up. Once that happens, it's over.

We start thinking that we've been too picky, that maybe the guy with the stutter isn't that bad, that feeling of...well, maybe he's not as dumb as he seems.

Men have that ability to trade on that and they think they have the upper hand and, with alot of women, they do.

I do get the feeling that you, PL, are not going to "settle". It's easy to get married; hard to marry someone you love and respect.

Princess Lea said...

Those nighttime thoughts are a killer. That and "That guy I really liked from two years ago said no because I said that weird story about my fourth-grade play."

God, I hope I don't settle. It's so hard to find anyone to respect nowadays, never mind a life-partner.