Regrets and mistakes, they are memories made.

I am going to talk about something I'm not usually comfortable with putting out there in such broad terms as this, especially on the internet, but I'm attempting to break out of my comfort bubble here just a little bit.

Dating is HARD.

I have never really dated before.  Yes, I have had boyfriends.  I have been madly and deeply in love.  I have been obsessive and obnoxiously in love.  I have been mildly un-attracted to, but continued to remain with, a man who claimed he loved me.  I have loved men I shouldn't, went out with men my mother hated, and ditched friends for a man I thought I was supposed to be with forever.

However, I have never just dated.  Never went out with a different man on a different day of the week than the one I went out with two days previously. 

It's like constantly playing 20 questions with a new person.  Trying to keep all of the information straight, trying to remember what you've told one person about yourself that you haven't told another.  Do not get me wrong, I'm not dating half the town, but trying to keep everything straight is pretty taxing on this single working mother of one.

I have been taking a new dating approach than the one I had lived with in the past.  (Sulk around until a man shows interest in you, get giddy and clingy, eventually man runs away quickly in the other direction.)  I am also someone who tends to have fairly calm breakups and I have managed to remain friends with pretty much every boy in this world that I have laid my lips upon, other than two.  Now, I am simply being me.  Apologizing for nothing, and if they don't like me for who I am, than they're not worth it in the first place.

Since this dating adventure of mine began nearly two years ago, after spending over 6 years of my life totally and completely single, I have met men in every type and size and character.  I met a man who treated me how I should have been requiring men to treat me, but who I wasn't attracted to.  I met a man who was looking for someone to marry, and was WAY too young for me.  I went out with a man who was too cheap to buy two meals and made me split mine with him, and then made a lame joke about chopping me into pieces and putting them in his basement walls.  I dated for a short while, a man who was 13 years older than me.  I met a man who I believed to be "the one" who I quickly discovered was not in any place to be dating anyone, which broke my heart.  I met a farmer, a restaurant manager, a writer.  I met a student, and fathers, and hard workers.

I enjoy meeting new people.  I feel as though I'm at a place in my life where I have never been MORE myself.  I know who I am, I don't necessarily know what I want, but I do know the things I absolutely will not put up with.  I'm not looking for someone to fill some void in my life, because my life has no voids, it is complete right now, without a man in it (other than the shining star of a seven year old that lives in the next bedroom.)

Even with all of the stress of the last six months, I am at a very happy place right now.  My friends and my family continue to be terrific.  I'm enjoying my summer, and hoping that this one just may be the one where I'm finally lucky in love.  But who am I kidding?  Love is just in the movies, right?