The Math of Not Dating

My friend Eric is a funny guy. He's the kind of guy you would want to sit down and have a micro brew with. If you were stranded on the side of the road with a flat tire you'd want Eric there to keep you company and entertained. He's a good arguer, too. We have fairly opposing viewpoints on a plethora of topics; I am the flaming liberal to his mildly conservative. He's also a pretty decent writer. He has an easygoing style reminescent of Chuck Klosterman. His writing is often thought provoking and almost always laugh inducing. Naturally, I do not always agree with what he has to say, but I appreciate his point of view.

Eric recently wrote a blog entry taking a musical trip down the memory lane of his ex-girlfriends, and their numbers are many. It seems there would be enough musical nostalgia to make an anthology rather than a single album release. I can relate to this concept. I can hardly listen to Damian Rice's "O" without being transported to various London locales with a specific boy. My first (and only) boyfriend in high school introduced me to Coldplay and while I don't listen to them much these days, I do find myself thinking of him when I do (this is generally shorted lived though as I hated high school and rarely allow myself the time to be nostalgic about it). There are more songs than I can recount here that have meaning for me directly related to the various boys I've been involved with. But this is not the point of my diatribe.

My point it related to a brief statement Eric made at the end of his post, "dating is important". I could not disagree more and my reasons mostly boil down to simple mathematics.

Let's say my time is limited and I only have 24 hours per day. Straight away at least 7 hours of that day need to go to sleep if I'm going to be able to function like a normal human being. That leaves with me 17 hours, and 2 of those are usually dedicated to the gym/yoga/running/me keeping myself sane time. So for those of you following along at home, we're down to 15 hours. Now, on any given day I have any combination of internship, work and school taking anywhere from 5 to 10 hours of my day. This leaves me with a mere 5 to 10 hours for studying, reading, socializing and being a pet parent. That isn't much and if I have a minimum of 10 hours a week in reading/school work that means socializing gets a very small percentage of my time (I'm not real good with math so I can't give you exact numbers). So say I have a minimum of five friends in Portland that I try to see on a regular basis, a minimum of five friends I try to keep in touch with via phone or internet on a regular basis and two parents I call once a week. That, my friends, equals all of my time. Gone.

Now I know what you're going to say, "why don't you just take time away from one area in order to make time for dating?". I will tell you why, and it again relates to simple mathematics. In order to graduate from school and get a job to pay back all of my student loans I need to put 100% of the time I've alloted to school work to school work. Moreover, I need to give it 100%. To meet the requirements for graduation I need to spend 20 hours per week at my internship site. No wiggle room there. In order to live and afford a social life I need to work a minimum of 15 hours per week. So? Why not spend less times with friends? As it is, they are not exactly getting a ton of my time and at the most basic level if comes back down to percentages. If I am spending time with friends there is at a 75 -90% chance that I will have a good time. Sure, I could have just as good of a time on a date and maybe even meet the man of my dreams (probably not though since I don't even know what that means), but let's be honest, at best the odds are 50-50. And I am just not a gambler. I'll take the sure thing every time.

Excessively Sentimental Yearning

Last night I had a dream about a boy I had a crush on my freshman year of college. This came as no surprise to me as I have been exceedingly nostalgic as of late. That, and I am still Facebook friends with this guy and he's still pretty hot. However, that is beside the point right now.

Last week at work they seemed to be playing the greatest hits of Edward's Bootlycious Night. At first I was impervious to these lyrical throwbacks, but as the days went by the songs began to take me back to the days of bopping around without a care in the world. Except that isn't the truth at all, I had plenty of cares. But it is not the bopping around that I miss, it's the excitement.

When I was in college (and those few years just after) I made a lot of bad decisions. I thought doing stupid things made me more interesting. I stayed out too late, I drank too much and I wasted too much time with boys who treated me badly. I thought I was exciting and that this drama I surrounded myself with made my life more exciting too. I was wrong, I know that, but I still miss the hell out of it. I do not miss the drama, but I do miss the excitement that always seemed to accompany it.

I miss having crushes and wondering if a boy with call or text me. I long for the days when the thought of sitting at home on a Friday night made me cringe. I miss being able to make bad decisions and not worry about the long term consequences. Shoot, I just miss making bad decisions. I miss not feeling like I'm too old for something.

On a perhaps kismet related note, I looked up the definition for nostalgia on Merriam Webster and one of the entries was as follows: He was filled with nostalgia for his college days.

Not a New Year's Resolution

I am fundamentally opposed to New Year's resolutions. The idea that somehow because it is a new year on the calendar you will change behaviors that have previously been problematic is preposterous to me. Does is being 2011 instead of 2010 really make a difference when it comes to how many times you'll hit the gym this year? or how many cigarettes you smoke? or how often you call your mother? Be honest. No, it doesn't.

I gave up on New Year's resolutions years ago.

This year will be no exception, but upon reflecting on 2010 I realized that there has been one area of my life that is in desperate need of repair. While I know most of you are anticipating that I'm going to say my love life, you're wrong. (That will continue to maintain its position on the back burner of my life.) However, it is my relationships that are lacking and this is predominantly due to my seeming lack of ability to communicate. It is hard to admit this, but it is true. I have done a crap job of keeping in touch with far too many friends and family members this year, and the old excuse of being too busy just does not fly.

If you make the time you'll have the time and I simply have not made the time. Too often I sat on the couch thinking "oh, I should call so and so" and did not or spent too much time on Facebook neglecting to respond to all of those messages piling up. While I pushed myself physically to be my best, I let myself become emotionally lazy and neglectful. I let too many lines of communication grow silent.

For someone who has always prided herself on being a good friend, this realization has come like a slap to the face with a cold hand. How did I not see it coming? I suppose the how it is not important now, it has happened and all that I can do now is shake off the pain, hold my head up high and pick up the telephone. And hope that the person at the other end answers.