Learning the Rules

“Seven o’clock?” my friend Dee said. “That is late for a happy hour. That’s his way of getting out of having to buy you dinner. Next time, ask if you should eat first.”

Dee’s been divorced for years, and moved to St. Pete about three years ago. She’s been one of my friends tutoring me in the fine art of internet dating.

Too bad for Steve that I hadn’t talked to her before meeting him. I’d come straight from a late work meeting, and I was starving. We talked for two hours, and he ended up paying for my non-happy-hour-priced drink and appetizer. When I’d asked if he were hungry, he’d told me that he’d already eaten. He seemed magnanimous about picking up the check – for a date that he’d initiated – but made it clear the next one would be on me.

There’s not going to be a next one. Even though he walked me back to the parking garage, holding my hand, gave me a peck on the lips and exchanged phone numbers with me, I haven’t heard from him. Maybe there’s a rule that the woman always initiates contact after the first meeting, but if there is one, I haven’t heard it. In any case, I’m relieved. I really don’t want to go out with him again, but I also don’t want to blow him off to his face. Much easier to pretend there will be another meeting while not actually setting one up. He’s cute, but he lives all the way in Clearwater. I spend too much time in my car as it is; driving to people’s houses all over Pinellas County as part of my in-house sales job. A guy has to be amazing for me to look for love outside to St. Pete.

I’ve been dating for less than a year; have had two relationships since the divorce. At first, I was eager to meet new men and enjoyed surfing the sites. I went out with my first “boyfriend” three times before I felt a spark of attraction, so I thought I owed it to myself to give decent guys more than one chance.

Then I met a guy to whom I felt an immediate attraction, and then spent months trying to make a relationship work when we had nothing else in common.

Now, even though I’m looking for my next relationship, I’m looking for reasons not to date. They include:

Lives too far away

Votes Republican

Too much younger than me (granted, I don’t run into this too often)

Too much older than me

Look like they’re older than me

Didn’t graduate college

Never married

Married too often

Didn’t have kids

Has too many kids

Not physically active

Too physically active

Doesn’t like TV

Watches too much TV

Talks too much

Doesn’t talk enough.

So you can see, this might be a problem.

Maybe the problem is me.