Nerd in Another City

Dating!

To say that I’ve put a moratorium on dating, would be a bit of an understatement. I’ve downright boycotted the concept, the institution, the application, the very existence of dating in my life.

I’m not talking about the sweet, meet cute kind you find in rom coms. You know the kind…

“Oops, I spilled my coffee on you in line at Starbucks…let me make it up to you by taking you to dinner, where we will promptly begin falling in love.”

“Sure, while playing football on the beach with my buddies, I accidentally threw the pass that hit you square in the head, but allow me to share a beer with you as recompense and while we’re at it, wanna fall in love?”

Or one of my favorites…”I know I kidnapped your father and forced you to take his place, but I am a tortured soul who is desperate to make it up to you. So allow my ginormous library and surprisingly killer dance skills woo your heart and let’s live happily ever after.”

Ok, that last one is a bit extreme, and I’m not suggesting men go around kidnapping fathers to meet cute girls. I’m just saying, the art of the meet cute is dying/ might already be dead.

The kind of dating I have been actively avoiding lately is the more sterilized, online variety. The kind of dating that requires you to take up the art of profile translation and possibly martial arts if you hope to survive. The kind that makes you question whether it’s worth the effort at all. If you have the time to scour profiles, decipher messages, schedule meet-ups and fend off unwanted suitors, then online dating is exactly what you’re looking for. And better you than me, because I’m just not made to date that way. Not for lack of trying…See that insane list up there…I’ve tried them all. Some more than once. Now, I’ve never tried Farmers Only. Maybe that’s where I’ve gone wrong. Perhaps Mr. Cowboy is just waiting for me to don my Stetson and give it a go. But I kinda think…nuh-uh!

It’s no wonder why people don’t meet the cute way anymore. We’re all too busy interacting online, which is what made online dating boom the way it did in the first place. I’m not saying it doesn’t make sense, I’m just saying…I HATE IT!

Look…I want to have my cake and eat it too. I’m online as much as, if not more than, most people. I have instapeople and tweeple and whatever we’re calling people on Snapchat (sneeple…snapple) to interact with and I love doing that. But when it comes to dating, the joy I find in online interaction instantly dies. I wish there was an app that matched you based on a few key, unbreakable standards and then set up a way for you to meet your match…the cute way! Maybe it wouldn’t work the way my brain thinks it might.

I just know that I met this cute pilot at the airport last week. We were both in line for tea and he was in a hurry, so I let him go ahead of me. It sparked a conversation…a real one. And if he wasn’t bound for Santa Domingo and wasn’t…oh yeah…married, it might have been a “meet adorable!!” Weirdly, that tiny interaction gave me hope that there are unmarried, tea drinking pilots and such out there ripe for an adorable interaction with adorable me.

This is a 180 from the down on love Lizzie that you’re been encountering lately, I know. But I’m really trying to lock down the things I believe in and I do believe in love, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary. I’m trying to find the best way to live by the things I believe in. So love…it’s back on the table. But I won’t do it the way other people do it. I’ve gotta find my own way and I’m still working on what that even means. In the meantime,  stick around and see what happens. At the least, it could make for another web series and wouldn’t that be fun!

Bonus: I saw this online and I just have to say, if a man ever attempted this with me, I’d be tempted to marry him right on the spot…just putting that out in the universe!