Why Are You Single?

One thing I get a lot, not necessarily from single men, but from all my friends, colleagues is ‘Why are you single?’ & then they proceed to list your qualities on their fingers, usually no more than five but at least three things that they like about you, that they think men are looking for in you & while you agree with the qualities they’ll list, you know that generally these aren’t the reasons why you are single.

So why am I single? I own my own home & have done for more than a decade, I hold steady job where I am quite successful & passionate, I am very well-traveled including having lived overseas in my mid-twenties, I am smart, I am funny & love to laugh, I don’t think I’m hideous to look at (though you may never know the answer to that!), I have a wide variety of interests – now including sport & recreation activities or music/comedy gigs, I don’t have kids & never been married so have no baggage & I love to go out but also love to stay in.

So what is it about me that people love to chat to me online & will say how perfect I am & how much they can’t wait to meet me, then when we meet, there is something that changes for them. They either say ‘do you want to catch up again’ I say yes but may never see them again. Or they leave after one hour & say there was no chemistry for them.

I honestly don’t know what it is & the more good dates I go on with a bad ending the more jaded I get & the harder it is for me to let someone in. I think that’s what scares me the most, is that now I am too damaged, to be a girlfriend. I mean I say I don’t have baggage because I don’t have an ex hanging around or kids but I might have even worse baggage that those ladies (at least their baggage is out in the open, mine is hidden so that I don’t even see it & am only really coming to terms with it).

So I’m trying a new thing, dating a guy from online that I may not think is that good looking or that I am that into. By trying other things as well, when a friend suggests to set me up, I am going to go. If nothing else happens with these men that I’m not attracted to, I’m sure there will be a blog post out of it.

So that’s what I’m trying to move forward doing, being more open! It seems good in theory but I’m not sure that it’s going to be good in practice, because usually what will happen for me (I’m sure you’ve all experienced this) is that a guy you’ve gone on a date with that you aren’t really that attracted to, is the one that finds you amazing, your friends will say give him a go, so you’ll go on a few boring dates, he’ll get attached, perhaps a little needy & turn you off. Then once you end things with him your friends will say “you’re so picky.” Well I don’t want to settle with someone & if there are alarm bells in the first few weeks, I don’t think those alarm bells go away just because you give the guy a go.

So perhaps my friends are right, I am too picky but I’m like Carrie Bradshaw, I’m looking for inconvenient, consuming, can’t live without each other love.

#IBD4U