Normally, I am not one to write about my dating life.  There are a few reasons for this, but mainly, I don’t want to be one of those cliché women who drone on and on about all of their disappointments and heartbreak: that’s what I have my closest friends for :).  This past weekend, as I helped my father celebrate his 56th birthday, it occurred to me that, in precisely one month, I will be half my father’s age.  I started thinking about where he was at my age, what he was doing with his life; he was married and just having his second child (I have an older brother), whereas I’m single and am still feeling the sting of rejection from the last man that I dated. 

Okay, maybe sting isn’t the right word; perhaps emptiness works a little better.  You know what I’m talking about, the void that comes when you think about txting or trying to make plans and then remember that you are no longer with that person.  Your mind starts to wander to conversations that you had, specific moments you shared together; you feel happy, but as quickly as that happiness engulfs you, it leaves as you remember that those are now only distance memories, and a few weeks ago, you stopped talking to him completely.  What went wrong this time?  What could I have done differently?  Was I the problem?  All of these questions start racing through your mind.  Of course you didn’t do anything wrong.  As much as we would like for everyone to stay in our lives forever, not everyone will.  In fact, it is the ones that you least expect to stay that always do…or at least that is what happens to me.  Perhaps we are more open with them because we don’t feel the need to impress them as much.  Some of my best friends are people that just happened upon my life, not ones that I desperately tried to keep around or make connections with.

Dating in this day and age is hard.  Some people decide before you’ve even gone out on a first date that, no matter how much they end up liking you and opening up, they will not get serious.  Personally, I do not understand how this works…I mean, even if I don’t necessarily think that things will work with a guy, it doesn’t take away the possibility of something more in the future if we were to hit it off.  I allow myself to change my mind about people and maybe that is the real problem…maybe people are just scared to change their minds and open up once they have set them.  You would think that, living in NYC, and therefore having access to millions of different activities to do, and culture, it would be easier to find someone, but it isn’t, and sometimes I wonder if that doesn’t make it harder.  

A few weeks ago, I attended an art/fashion show at the Empire Hotel Rooftop…my mother was among the artists showing some work.  I ended up meeting a guy, as I was outside on my phone yelling at all of my friends who decided not to join me there.  At first he seemed nice…he was a chef and his name was Michael.  If you don’t already know, I seem to have a thing for Michaels.  I could tell that he was a little drunk, but not too much so, so I decided to let him buy me a drink (why not) and chat a little more.  Unfortunately, I did not estimate just how drunk he was.  He ended up clinging to my side the entire night (well, for the rest of my time there) and, when I went to try and leave, it took my mother, two people that we were with, and hotel security to get him to not follow me (he actually followed us into the elevator and rode it down with us as we were trying to leave, and I wasn’t even on a date with him!).  Luckily, I had been smart enough not to give him my number.