One of the hundreds of things I love about New York is how sometimes you just bump into people you haven’t seen in a while. Sure it’s a big city, but it’s also a collection of neighborhoods. The other day I was out running errands and I bumped into a friend of a friend who I haven’t seen in ages. We stopped there on the sidewalk and took five minutes to talk and play catch up.
She started to laugh when I told her I had a dating blog. She practically doubled over. And then I explained that I wasn’t trying to give advice, far from it. Just telling people about my dating life, my actual experiences, and trying to make sense of it. And that sometimes it was funny and sometimes it was a little sad and maybe even pathetic. Like real dating. She got it and stopped laughing (and asked me to email her the link).
I’ve been keeping my blog now for about 9 months. It’s called Sex, Lies and Dating in the City and it’s nothing like Sex in the City and I am not ‘the real Carrie Bradshaw’ – let’s get that out of the way, right now. Sorry, it’s a sore spot.
And now I get to write here, at the Ignighter Magazine, too. This makes me all kinds of happy. I’d been aware of Ignighter.com for a while, and had checked out the website several times to see if there were any groups with members my age because I really wanted to join. I love the idea of group dating and how it takes so much of the pressure and anxiety out of the first date equation.
It’s funny. I’ve been dating for over two decades. Well, not constantly. I have actually had a few relationships. But I’ve never been married and I’ve never lived with a guy and so it feels like I’ve always been single. And even after all these years of being single, I can still get anxious before a date. Not always. Truthfully, I’ve become pretty matter of a fact about it most of the time. But sometimes it can be pretty stressful. And embarrassing. Like when you know within the first two minutes that you don’t like a guy, but you’re there and he’s there and you have to try to make the best of it. If we were both part of groups, it wouldn’t be that bad. That’s what I think, anyway. I can’t wait to try it and see how it actually works out for me.
