Never Give Up

"Never give up..." most believe this is a quote from Winston Churchill. However, he really said, "Never give in..." I believe both thoughts are true. It's why I am still here doing this dating thing. I'm not giving up.

I have been told by several people that I am absolutely nuts to continue this on especially because of the outcome of my last few dates. Lately, I have had some really great first dates with interesting men only to be asked a different version of the same question the next day.

"What do you like?" meaning sexually.

I am baffled and disappointed.

Part of me wonders if men encounter so many prudish women that they live in fear of every woman being prudish that maybe they ask to know up front. Yet I am utterly uncomfortable to answer that question from a stranger. It is intimate and private and something to be explored by lovers. It isn't prudish to say, "I don't know you well enough to talk of such things."

I feel I might have a knack at magic because then that man suddenly disappears. Ta da!

It's okay. At least I know right then that we are not a match. It is one step closer to the man I will be a match to.

I keep getting the same advice from family and friends, "Give up on the online dating thing. Try to meet someone at the grocery store or the library or church. Have friends set you up..."

My job takes me to the grocery store several times a week. I am there so much all of the employees know me by name. The produce man, Patrick, hugs me every week. We chat about his upcoming move to Vegas. The check out lady, Yvonne, asks how the kids are and what I've been up to. I am in the grocery store constantly. I have had several inebriated men hit on my in the aisles of the grocery store. I even had an old drunk man climb into the bin of watermelons to pick me the perfect one ( it actually was perfect). Yet, I haven't met the man of my dreams but I am open to it if he shows up there in the middle of the frozen foods section.

All of my friends are in relationships or married. I am the single one. The fifth wheel, the one who messes up the dinner party. Nobody seems to know anyone male who is single. So unless I am being set up with the invisible man...it ain't gonna work.

"It'll happen when you are not looking..."

That to me is the painful one. I don't know how to not look. Does that mean it will never happen? I don't intend to imply that I am desperately running through the streets with a wild look in my eyes, whispering under my breath, "Please, please...somebody pick me." Because I'm not. I just can't pretend that I have no concern with ever having someone to share my life with. Because I do. It's why I'm here and not giving up on any part of it, not on the good and not in the midst of the bad.

I am not giving in to the thoughts I sometimes have of, "How can this possibly be worth it?" or of , "Why am I doing this to myself?" and I refuse to believe that even most men are so ill mannered to want to know my every sexual desire without ever knowing me. They are not.

On I go, plugging away, meeting interesting people I may never see again. Stepping one step closer to maybe finding one of the ones who is stepping one step closer to finding me.

Monika M. Basile