Life, Love and Online Dating

In the book  Marry Him, Lori Gottlieb outlines her theory on why women in their 20’s and 30’s think they’re too good for most men.  Actually, her claim is that many women feel that there’s something wrong with the men they date that makes them not good enough to marry.  Women tend to be too picky and will dismiss a perfectly good man because he’s too hairy, too bald, too short,  too serious or not serious enough.  They become so afraid of settling for someone who is not their perfect match that they end up forty-something and still single.  Then, after years of being too picky, they realize that when they come home to an empty house, the sound of loneliness is deafening.

Now, the journey from being a hot commodity in the dating world to becoming the cautionary tale of that crazy old lady with 30 cats and not a single suitor begins with a puppy. You see, when no man is good enough to settle down with but you still can’t stand the thought of being alone, a puppy is clearly the answer to all of your problems.  Unfortunately, you still have to go to work and you can’t just leave the puppy home alone because he would be lonely. So, you start collecting cats. Two at first but then those cats make kittens that you simply can’t bring yourself to get rid of because, “the more the merrier”. So, now you have six cats, a dog and a ferret that you bought just to keep yourself company while the cats were pregnant and you were waiting for the pet store to get another chinchilla in. By the way, the pet store called and you can pick up the chinchilla next Tuesday.

Now, when it’s still too quiet around the house, you’ll go out and buy a pair of birds and a couple of fish. Not that fish make any noise but they’re something for the Iguana to look at so he keeps his eyes off the hamster. Before you know it, you have an entire pet store in your house and you’re no longer looking for a boyfriend, you’re looking for a zookeeper.  The problem is that every guy who was too short, too bald, too hairy or too serious is now too married to date.  Which doesn’t really matter because you’ve gone from being too picky to being too busy buying pet food and scooping litter boxes to even entertain the thought of going on a date.

Photo courtesy Olkaprill@sxc.hu

Tags: choices, dating, marriage