Dating: It's Not A Game

Tonight I attended an event called Love Is Blind that not only featured a male dancer who stripped down to his goggles, snorkel and swim trunks, but also several rounds of the Dating Game, complete with three contestants and bachelor/bachelorette mysteriously hidden behind a curtain.  Alas, my raffle ticket was not selected, which would have enabled me to participate, a fact that is most unfortunate not only because I therefore did not win a fabulous date with a handsome man, but also because this blog entry would be far more exciting had I been chosen.  However, watching the others on stage answer the questions posed to them by the men/women searching for love made me contemplate what three questions I would ask a potential suitor, had I only three questions to ask.  At first it seemed quite obvious, as there are three major things I look for when dating:

1.  Do you smoke?

2.  What is your political affiliation?

3.  Are you religious?

I won’t tell you what the “correct” answers to these questions are, but I can tell you that they are my only deal-breakers.  And #3 is open to some debate depending on ethnicity vs. moral obligation.  These questions, however, would not make for a particularly entertaining dating game.  While the answers to these questions remain of importance to me, there are three additional questions that would not only go over far better within the Dating game scenario, but also have answers that would honestly make a difference to me:

1.  If you were a word, what word would you be and why?

2. What is the weirdest tradition in which your family participates?

3. Name one child that has had a positive impact on your life.

And now, allow me to explain.   First of all, the word “love” or “hope” will not gain you any points here.  Please.  There are so many remarkable words in the English language.  What about “menagerie” or “waffle” or “placenta?”  Just feel the way those words roll of the tongue.  I don’t care if the word is selected simply because it’s fun to say; that is a far better reason than the Miss America response of, “because it’s a beautiful thing and what we all live for blah blah blah.”  Men give those answers to because they think it’s what we want to hear.  They are wrong.

As for question number 2… loving your family and bonding with your family is important to me.  Maybe you grew up in a dysfunctional family but turned out okay.  There still has to be some kind of tradition your family adheres to, even if it’s chasing each other around with the butcher knife every Thanksgiving.  Let’s keep it exciting, people!  My answer to this question would either be Drunken Boardgame Fest with my cousins or the Ceremonial Passing of the Collared Pecary.

And lastly, children.  I do not want a child today or tomorrow or even in the next several years.  But I want a child some day.  I know plenty of people who have not had an abundance of children in their lives, but I feel it’s impossible to have never had your heart melted by a child.  Did a baby ever smile at you on the subway?  Did a little girl or boy in a film ever move you in the slightest?  A child somewhere must have had an impact on you at some point, one way or another, no matter how small.  Three years ago, this would not have seemed important to me, but since then I have dated far too many men who, in their 20s, were already contemplating Vasectomies.  Seriously?  You’re not even 30 years old and you want to get snipped?  Preposterous.  I need to at least know there is the possibility of children at some point in the future.

I don’t think it’s any secret that I’m pretty fed up with the whole dating scene and ready to find someone with whom I see a future.  And who sees me in his future.  I don’t date for fun.  Of all the things that dating is, “fun” is not one of them.   I have kept an open mind and dated smokers, dated men who voted opposite what I voted in the 2008 election, dated men who were estranged from their families.  And you know what?  I have not fared well.  I know that relationships are all about compromise, but one should not have to compromise her/his ideals.  Yes, relationships require sacrifice, but likewise they cannot exist in the first place without harmony.

What if the Dating Game consisted of the questions people really wanted to ask?  Oh, Jim Lange would have been in for such a treat!  Though I much prefer Chuck Woolery.  I wonder if he’s single… and how he would answer my questions.