Dating Hiatus: Day Three

I’ve been perched in front of a dating slot machine this past year; pulling the lever over and over again, encouraging myself to keep going out because I might be just one spin away from the jackpot. A “win” for me would be to meet someone who I want to spend two or three nights a week with. I’m not looking to get married or preggo or even split my rent.

I want a regular Saturday night dude and an occasional weeknight sleepover.

I want to put a boy in my iPhone favorites to call for a spontaneous celebration when I get great news. I want him to answer when I’ve had a bad day, and suggest that we take a bottle of wine to the Hudson River Park and lie in the grass and make each other laugh until I forget what I was angry about. I want to offer the same to him in return.

I want this boy to be motivated, interesting, intelligent, successful, affectionate, good in bed, optimistic, and funny. I don’t want him to be a picky eater, addicted to anything (drugs, alcohol or work), obsessed with sports, video games or his pet.

I haven’t found anyone like this, but I have been entertained by my dates nonetheless. I love meeting new people, asking them questions, and hearing a fresh perspective. I appreciate being shown a new way of looking at things through someone else’s point of view. I always walk away with either a good experience or at least a good story to entertain my friends with.

Lately, though, I’ve started to feel a little frayed around the edges. Suddenly I’m tired of asking these dudes questions, and definitely tired of being asked the same questions by my friends, starting with “How was your date last night?”

So I’ve decided to take a month long dating hiatus. I’m on Day 3. I’d like to accomplish a few things in this period:

• Get more than four hours of sleep every night.
• Go straight home from work at least two nights a week, thus reducing my budget and my alcohol intake.
• Watch some of this new fall TV I keep hearing about. My cable bill is too high to justify my current usage – playing Law & Order while I fall asleep.
• Run three nights a week, which will be so much easier now that I’m not drunk and sleep deprived (see first two points).

I spent Day 1 dining and drinking with friends. None of my four objectives were addressed. I feel it’s best to ease slowly into a new schedule.

On Day 2, I went to Trader Joe’s because doing this straight-home-from-work thing means no waiters bringing me food. There were cute boys in there. Does that always happen in grocery stores? I tried to focus on the merchandise on the shelves, not in the aisles. I had a brief fantasy involving organic quinoa and a man dressed oddly in a fancy suit but dirty Converse sneakers. I grabbed some peanut noodles and spent the night talking to friends on the phone. Somehow I was still awake at 2 a.m. But I didn’t drink a drop, so there’s that.

Day 3. I didn’t buy enough groceries last night but Trader Joe’s is clearly a hotbed of sexual tension that I should avoid. I caved and logged into OK Cupid. I went running to burn off some of my, shall we say, frustration and there were hot, shirtless men everywhere. This boy break may be harder to stick to than I realized.