The Girl Date

When I threw out my dating books last month, I also threw out the extreme desire to date. Dating is too exhausting.

Instead, I embraced the idea of making new male and female friends to endure the seemingly endless dating path of singledom that I'm on. I started a dining out group called "Foodventure", began traveling solo and now write about everything. In the process I've collided with lots of people. Here's the funny part, a new phenomenon has emerged in my singledom - the girl date. Before you get any ideas about me having changed teams etc. let me explain. I've found myself recently pursuing and being pursued by other women in search of new gal pals. Essentially this is ocurruing because all their existing pals are otherwise preoccupied with their marriages and children. So while at various social events, we'll meet another interesting girl and then we're forced to either ask for her number, locate her email address or hope to run into her again. In the last couple months, I've found myself sitting across from a few different women having either coffee, brunch or dinner. We've made the typical date conversation such as: "where do you live?" or "what do you do for a living?" and then as the moments materialize we begin wondering if we're meant to be friends. I can't tell you how many times after these "dates" I'm left wondering if I talked too much (I usually always do) or wondering if I asked enough questions about the other person. As the time comes to a close, I drive home wondering when it's appropriate to contact her again and if she wants to be my friend. It's absolutely hilarious because this same introspection occurs in dating, job searching and networking.

This new type of date, the kind where we're auditioning to be friends has quite intrigued me. It's intrigued me because I'm learning that every potential relationship begins with chemistry, then progresses to an audition and eventually leads to both parties exploring the level of connection. Like I stated earlier, this occurs not only in romantic dating but also on job interviews, when meeting new friends and networking. I thought understanding this concept would take the bite out of dating but instead it's revealed a fascinating something. That something is that every relationship develops in the same manner and each new contact holds the promise of something or nothing.