The ratio of friends leaving town versus moving back to the city is at 2-to-1 on a good day — more like 5-to-1 or some equally heinous ratio. I got word that one friend is thinking about coming back, and then I learn that we’re losing another two to four in the next month or so.
Humph.
I was speaking with one of my lovelies, who lamented the fact that it’s just downright impossible to meet a good man in good ole D.C. I had read an article on Forbes.com that listed our fair capital city as one of the most lustful in the country based on condom purchases, but that speaks more to getting screwed than making love, IMHO. (I hear there’s a difference.)
Anywho, my friend said it’s disheartening — to be part of an amazing circle of beautiful, intelligent, educated and outgoing women who have no luck whatsoever in the dating game. And that it’s a gaggle of eligible women who are either settling or going without finding even so much as an imperfect mate, she rationalizes that it’s the city — NOT the women — that has something wrong with it.
I couldn’t agree more.
I say this because I was at the ballpark the other day — a natural habitat of the ever-elusive male species. I’m no dummy — I don’t expect to meet ’em at shoe stores or chick flicks. Nah, I’ve learned that an appreciation of sports and even having a favorite team or two can go a long way.
Anyway, I ran into someone I had a couple of dates with toward the end of last year — nothing exotic. I mean, nice guy but nothing clicked. It happens … er, rather, sometimes nothing happens and it’s cool. Sure, you go through that phase of “Is it me? Why doesn’t he like me?” until you realize that “Hey, wait a minute. I wasn’t into HIM, either!”
Or maybe you knew you weren’t into him but you were also willing to hang in there and see what transpired because — again — see “no eligible men in D.C.”
Standards? What standards? Oh, right, those things I’ve started tripping on. *headslam*
Anyway, I met the latest (I’m sure) replacement. It was nice to see him and slightly horrifying to meet the new girl and to act like I was never a girl who came before her. (Heh. I made a funny.) I am content being a “friend from a past life.”
No need to make anyone uncomfortable — besides, women will presume that other women in their male companions’ lives were either bedded or he WANTED to get down and dirty with them. And while I’ve had/have platonic male friends, well, desperate times plus desperate people blah blah blah you know where that all goes.
But I had one of those oddly triumphant moments in which I realized that those two? Are a perfect couple. Really. I say it as a compliment but maybe it’s a backhanded one. (And it’s just between you and me, Internet. And you’re not going to tell anybody, right?)
I had struggled to figure out why he didn’t seem to be all that into me — despite my having a lack of interest in him — for that very reason. This wasn’t George Clooney or Brad Pitt (not that they’re my type, but I digress because I’m hardly starstruck by anyone) or anything like that.
It’s not that I WANTED him to like me, but — and I mean this as nicely as possible — I was clearly out of his league. He was obviously into New Chick, and from her absolute, uh, non-descriptness, I say if that’s what floats your boat, then no wonder two or three dates with me didn’t turn into anything else.
Seeing them together at the ballpark reminded me of a simple phrase: pot: meet lid.
And it was an important lesson for me, one that I shared with my delightful-yet-disillusioned friend: We are better than what we get.
Or, more accurately when it comes to the men my friends and I are meeting: Calphalon, meet dollar-store cookware. Not only do these lines not complement each other together aesthetically, but they don’t function together very well.
I shared this theory with a male friend, too, and I think a lot of us are on this same sinking ship:
Most of us have big personalities. We are the PRESENCE in the room. We are dynamic, well-versed, confident, successful and downright magnanimous. And to some extent, we already expect that we will be the bigger personality in the relationship.
But …
Are the people we’re seeking out/dating simply lackluster in comparison to us, or are they simply, well, just lackluster?
My friend is contemplating going back to a city where she had no trouble picking up men. But what about me — I had no trouble in my motherland, but I’m in the city I want to be in. I have no concrete plans to draw up anchor and start sailing away in the next couple of years.
Why do I have to choose between a city with excellent dating prospects and a city with excellent career opportunities? Why can’t I find both in the same/neighboring zip codes?
One of my guy friends joked that he’s lowered his standards substantially, and he hopes to meet a woman with equally lowered standards, so they can date either happily ever after or at least until they want to kill each other.
And in that, is the perfect summation of “Dating in D.C.” Here’s to hoping that whomever gets elected brings some awesomely hot fresh meat blood to town to shake up the dating pool a bit. That’s always the good news — 9 times out of 10, the people you dated leave and you never have to see them again.
Too bad, though, that the nature of this town also sends the GOOD people on their way to less-expensive, lower-velocity, higher-dating-pool-quality areas, too. *sigh* Good luck to all my lovely lady friends who are seeking the important things in life elsewhere.
And better luck to the rest of us who are going to continue looking for that proverbial needle in the haystack while sorting through all the other pricks in the process. …