Navigating Through the Dating Hurricane

Life is made up of hundreds upon thousands of little moments of connection one has on any given day. Those connections can take the form of a smile, or a glance. A knowing look, a conversation, a kiss, or a f**k, or a punch, or any other way that one person interacts with the world around them. Some connections last more than mere moments. They last for an entire beer, or for the length of a song, or the entirety of a party. And here's the bad news, sometimes those connections aren't meant to last longer than those brief initial bits of time. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, I can not speculate. But it's the truth of a matter that we often forget in the hazy aftermath of blackballing a girl from our life. We forget the simple idea that maybe, just maybe, the time we spend with a girl at a party, or at a coffee shop, et al, is all the time we are meant to spend. And any more time is just taking away from the harmony that was created during that first meeting. After all, there's a reason it's called a "Meet Cute". And there's a reason that right after that, boy usually loses girl.

For six months I went around only giving out my number, and never asking for one. And they never called. And I had no control over the situation. I put it in their hands, giving them a perfect opportunity to rip my number up like Trent and the business class lay-up. And that's what they did. Who knows why they never called? More to the point, who cares?

After the first few no-goes, I adopted a vanish policy. The second I turn, or she walks away, they vanish from my life. Completely. I forget what they look like. I forget the shit we talked about. Hell, sometimes I forget their damn name. This way, I don't get caught up in wondering if they're gonna call or not. Cause they might as well not exist.

We men are not gonna be able to get around the simple fact that liking a girl that doesn't like you back, sucks. Period. End of discussion. She doesn't feel the flow, and we just gotta deal. Her number, my number, what difference does it make? In the end, the ones that do like us are gonna erase the bad taste of the ones who weren't worth it. I gotta believe that. I gotta lean on it. Because I love women. I love the way they make me feel. I love the chase, the thump, the glide, the tingle, the chills, the butterflies. The indescribable feeling you get right before your lips meet for the first time. The way she makes your knees go weak with just a smile. The awe you get when she steps out of her apartment and walks towards you. Did you forget just how beautiful she was? …I love it all. So I'm gonna keep going.

What else can we do? Girls are nuts, but so are we. We lead girls on, too. How often have we strung along a girl we only kinda sorta dig, because she puts out? She wants a relationship and you just wanna keep having sex. It sucks and you know it. But we men don't wanna look like the bad guy. God forbid! So we thread her out till she gets frustrated and drops our shit; an even slimier way to go. Men and women are equal opportunity awful.

The key, in the end, is honesty. But it's a type of honesty we don't get around to until after the fact. Take a situation where you aren't meant to have a girl in your life beyond the night you meet her. If you could see in advance that the one night is all you had, you'd go about things differently. Treat her uniquely. Take from her something that might be worthwhile, or pure, or good. Whatever that may be… But you wouldn't be thinking about the digits, or the first date, or all the rest of that nonsense. You'd just be appreciating the moment. And when the moment ended, you could reflect upon it, and be thankful you had the chance to spend a moment with someone you had a connection with. Fuck if they don't call. You had a good time, why spoil it? Why pollute the dream? Let her be fiction. We'll all be better off.

The world is made up of hundreds upon thousands of connections. Give us the end time for any or all of them, and I'm not here writing this column. You aren't reading this piece. We're out there doing our thing, living our life without fear of rejection. Without fear that the next girl around the corner will or will not be "the one". Without fear that Friday night will produce only frustration and blue balls. Instead, we could focus on what makes us happy. Or what makes us smile. The bottom line, is that I'm just not gonna get caught up with the worry of the possibility that things will turn sour. Because I love women. I love the women I know, and I love the women I've yet to meet. And I'll be damn sure that nothing as stupid as "flaky girls" is gonna stand in my way of finding the one I love. Or the one that I love for a moment.