The Absurd and Amazing Adventures of Cafe Girl: I Should Probably Explain...

February 5, 2011

I Should Probably Explain...

... my last post.

I'm not sad about dating, I'm not heartbroken by any stretch of the imagination. I have not actually been seeing anyone, ergo, I have not been broken up with.

That picture, of that little Asian girl's silent scream is about frustration. Pure, unadulterated frustration. I am frustrated with dating. Frustrated with what seems like a cycle of no one getting what they want. Not the women, and not the men. We are looking around at who's available to us, and for some reason, nothing is appealing to us. Ergo, we do not date. Or if we do, we do so half-heartedly and bail at the first given sign of trouble. Or we date the ones we know we don't have a future with. Or, we think we can do better... always better....

I hear women complaining. But I also hear men complaining. And it's almost always the same whether you are a man or a woman - the other person is too shallow, too picky, too uncommunicative, too dishonest, too uptight, too loose... Whatever a woman has complained about, a man has complained about something similar. It seems, men and women want the same things...or SAY they want the same things, at least, but no one is finding these things they want in the person of the opposite sex.

And eventually, I turn this inability to find someone even CLOSE to what I say I want, into a question about myself. Is there something wrong with me? Is that WHY it's been so difficult. Turns out, I'm not alone in this either. Just google "Island of Misfit Toys" and "dating" and you'll find a whole list of blog posts, discussion boards, and comments about how we feel like there's something wrong with us, or something wrong with someone else, and that's why we're not asking, or being asked out. And guess what, it's not just disgruntled women claiming that men are shallow... guys are saying the same thing too. Everyone is feeling like there's something seriously wrong with the singletons out there.

So if we women don't like what's out there, and you men ALSO don't like what's out there.... and yet, for centuries, decades, and even as recently as last month, people somehow figure out a way to get together, be married, and make it work (sort of). What exactly is the problem here? Did EVERY married person lower their standards? Really? I don't think so. What is it that keeps us, men and women alike, from moving closer to what we want. since apparently, we all want the same things?

This, I'd really like to know.




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