A Triple Header???
I’ve inadvertently scheduled myself a triple header for this weekend. I’m going camping and my companions shall comprise entirely of men—now this is my kind of camping. My brother is coming too so it will be the two of us plus three 20-something year olds from the hiking group I’ve recently joined. (I actually discovered said hiking group while I was conducting my usual Google-stalking detective work on Date #9; when I typed his name into the search engine, the hiking group popped up and I thought to myself, “Well now, that looks like fun!” Fortunately Date #9’s name is not amongst the list RSVPs for this weekend because that might have been a bit awkward. Especially if it were to start raining).
Image via Wikipedia
Anyway, I figured that if I end up hiking with Man A, then foraging for firewood with Man B and finally roasting ‘smores with Man C, I could conceivably date my way from 24 first dates to 27 in less than 24 hours, hence the triple header. But then I remembered my reaction to Jennifer Cox’s hiking trip in her book Around the World in 80 Dates.
She hit the trail with a group of approximately two dozen lesbians and counted all 24 of them towards her grand total. Granted, she had already met The One so I’m sure she was eager to stop dating and start doing whatever it is that people do when they’re not traveling around the world in search of Mr. Right, but still—it struck me as a bit of a cop out.
So I’m not going to count my hiking companions as dates. Unless of course if one of them happens to be absolutely gorgeous (more gorgeous, say, than the man I met in Marshalls) and we accidentally get “lost” whilst foraging for firewood together. Then all bets are off. But it seems wrong to count every man I encounter as a date. (I sat next to a man on the bus today! That’s 25! My boss let me borrow his stapler for my new bulletin board. 26!) It also seems a bit wrong to go around evaluating every man I meet for his Boyfriend Potential but I can’t help myself. It’s already October. I need to find myself a date for the annual Hooper’s Island Black Friday Martini Bar Soiree.
Unfortunately, thanks to this weekend’s hiking trip, I won’t be seeing the man I met in Marshalls until Sunday. This means I’ll have two entire days to stress about it but I’m trying to play it cool. I’ve learned, over the past two months, that the amount of time I put into getting ready for a date is inversely proportional to my actual enjoyment of said date. This was particularly true in the case of my fifth and final date with Date #4, and in that of last week’s dinner with Date #9. (I’ve not heard from him since, by the way, and it’s been a week, so I think it’s safe to say that I have moved on.)
And so, if I might condense the shenanigans of the past two months into a bit of useful advice for my female readers, I would say that less really is more. And on that note, I’m going to go try on coffee-date outfits (but I’ll be very quick about it because I don’t want to jinx things with the man I met in Marshalls).
Fieldwork in Stilettos 
8 Responses to “A Triple Header???”
If only you were in West Virginia, cuz then you could totally count your brother as Date #28….
Dennis, that is the funniest thing I have read all day!! 😀
Thanks! You must not be from West Virginia then. Cuz them’s could be fightin’ words if you were…. 😉
Or luvin’ words, as it were….
Living in the country I find a hiking group strange. I can walk out my door and go hiking haha
Sigh, us city slickers aren’t that lucky 🙂
So being a West Coast girl myself, I’m not entirely aware of the topography and landscape of your camping situation, but I wanted to offer the following tidbit: avoid poison ivy. And fire ants. And spiders with tiny fangs.
The set-up here just sounds eerily close to multiple screenplays starring the likes of Kristen Bell and Cameron Diaz.
Though I’m sure Marshalls guy would be understanding, and maybe even sympathetic. 😉
I already have my date for the annual Hooper’s Island Black Friday Martini Bar Soiree. Of course, Ive been married to my date for almost 26 years . . . .
You’re killin’ me MaryLynn!