Counting up

There are people who contend that finding The One is just a numbers game.

Someone told me a long time ago that you have to keep going out, keep meeting people, and at some point, one of them will be right. I still don't know if this is how to think about it, but figured it couldn't hurt, just in case.

So the other day I started trying to count up the number of first dates I went on in the couple of mega-dating years I had before meeting Nick.

There are a lot of dates I can't remember - because they were completely unmemorable. But I think a not-unreasonable estimate would be somewhere around 50.

This includes brief stints of only dating one person. So the periods where I was dating a lot - I was dating a lot.

I had weeks - early in my date-o-rama period - where I had four dates a week (one with four different lawyers). I had days where I juggled two dates - coffee and then drinks, or drinks and then dinner.

I had weeks where I just had too many dates scheduled, and so by the time I went out with the last guy of the week I was tired and resentful that I had to be out. When it was my choice.

After a while, I got tired. I slowed down the dates per week. But even then, I went on enough to show up for a date with a guy whose name I'd forgotten entirely. If I were to do it over again, I'd have spaced dates out a bit more from the very beginning.

There were people I didn't really give a fair chance to, who I probably should've gone on a second date with. Then again, there were guys who never asked me out again. It wasn't all me.

But for a long while, I didn't stop long enough to really consider people.

But maybe that just doesn't matter, and it would've all gone the same way anyway. For a chunk of that time I can look back and say I was not in the right place. I wanted to keep busy, have fun, prove my desirability. I wasn't in a space to fall for any of them.

But to be fair, there were guys who weren't people I'd have ever fallen for anyway. The arrogant journalist who wanted to know what was wrong with me for being single. The guy who couldn't even talk about the weather.

Then there were times that you could or could not count as a date, depending on how you look at it. The best example would be the time I had drinks with Tej in the bar in our office building and then met that guy. And we went out for dinner and I and smeared butter on his nose. A date?

I hardly think that one counts.