The Cranky Professor

OK, so no one has asked me advice about dating, but since no one asks me to make snarky remarks about my workplace and I do it anyway, I’m just going  to go ahead and give you my dating advice.

One of my friends recently said that her shrink told her that women of my generation were raised with this idea that we need to be “picked.”  We generally have the attitude that some dude is going to pick us; we don’t do the picking.  I would say that this is generally true.  I know that I spent my 20s, really up to and before my first marriage, with the wrong attitude toward dating.  I guess I knew I was a pretty good catch — it wasn’t low self esteem or anything — I just didn’t think in terms of meeting a guy and evaluating all that he was bringing to the table.  I dated a series of fun guys.   Guys that made me laugh, were fun to be with, but not dudes that I was going to spend the rest of my life with.    And I guess that’s what your 20s are for.  You need to explore relationships and make your mistakes with the Mr.  Wrongs, so you know more about yourself and what you want when you meet Mr. Right.

Well, then I married one of those dudes of my 20s.  And I think the reason I did that was because I wasn’t quite sure what my goals were — I was flexible. (That’s probably why I couldn’t properly evaluate the men I was dating:  if you have that flexibility, almost any guy will work for you).  If I’d had some clarity in the goals department, I don’t think I would have married that guy.  I don’t blame the cloudy goal issue on why we divorced…we didn’t divorce over diverging life paths.  We divorced because he couldn’t keep it in his pants.  But I’m wondering if I would have picked him if I was the woman I was in my 30s.  Instead, I let myself get picked.

During my divorce I had to really look at what I wanted, which for me was being married with at least one kid.  So as soon as that became clear to me, I started dating, which is something I used to hate to do.  The second time around, I loved it.  I would meet a fella for coffee or whatever, and as soon as he did something annoying, that was it.  Move on to another guy.  Maybe he’d get another chance, but probably not.  Move on.  Another coffee and another guy.

By the time I found a guy that I could spend a weekend with and he didn’t  drive me crazy, I knew I’d found a real contender.  And I think that should be your goal:  find someone who doesn’t make you nuts.    Forget the other stuff.  Just find someone that doesn’t annoy the fuck out of you and then marry him if you want.