The Curse of the Social Butterfly

When you are single, your social life can be pretty important. It's the difference between catching up on TV shows most nights or having 2 sided interactions with real live people in the real world. And let's be honest, apart from the pool of men you are finding online you won't find a parade of eligible bachelors walking through your living room while you're watching Grey's Anatomy. So you should get out there and be social! It's good for you! Easy enough, right? Except who do you go out with? What if all of your friends are already married with small children and all they want to do is meet up for an early dinner and share their potty training horror stories, all while telling you how lucky you are to be single and carefree? Therein lies the conundrum. You want to go out but your friends want to monopolize your time with mommy war stories until it's time to call it a night at 9:00 PM. And you're a good friend, so you actively listen and don't even scan the room for potential suitors during this quality time. Don't get me wrong, I'm not some boy crazed savage that has to be on the hunt scoping out game every minute of every outing but if we could steal maybe a minute or 2 to gauge the room, that would suffice.
Maybe it's time to expand your friend pool? However, once you start making new friends there is one thing that you should keep in mind: You must say "yes" more than you say "no" or people will stop inviting you. I used to say "no" all the time. "No, it's a work night and I've got laundry to do."...and I have 2 hours of DVR to watch. "No, I can't make it on Friday."...because I don't want to go there by myself, even though I'm meeting up with people there. People can only handle so much rejection before they mentally tag you as a "no" or don't even think to include you in their plans at all. How do you fix this? Say "YES!"! Say "yes" to everything, well almost everything. "Yes, I would like to go to that play in a theater that I've never heard of!"..."Yes, I will go watch a live version of Mystery Science Theater in that dodgy neighborhood!". Yes, I did actually do those things. Say "yes" often enough that when the next thing comes up they will say "Don't forget to invite Miss Belle...remember when she sang that version of 'When I was Your Man' at karaoke?!" Nowadays, on an early night I get home around 8:00 but most nights by the time I get home it's time for bed. It's exhausting. It's not all partying though. I'm trying to lead a more active lifestyle, so sometimes it's hikes or yoga and sometimes it's charity events. I even went on a blind date last weekend. Prefaced with "He's nice but he has bad breath...". Great. I still went on the double date with the bad breath guy and we talked about music and movies and that was cool (and his breath wasn't that bad). If you're out of practice when it comes to dating it is equally important for you to say "yes" to going out on dates. Especially when you know it won't work out. With less riding on it, it takes the pressure off. Then you can recall this "cooler and more aloof" version of yourself the next time you find yourself out on a date that you're hoping counts. I haven't caught up on DVR in over 1 week but I'm off to an event benefiting children from the foster care system tonight, so I'm not too torn up about it.