I used to kid a lot about the desperation of dating. I think I once said that my mother placed an ad in the local paper to get me a date for the prom. Got a big laugh.
But that was before we gave birth to a generation who played first and panicked later. The high school and college years for us were the turf where the ritual mating dances were conducted. This generation? They didn't mate. They just danced.I hear the cry from my own grown children. Where do you go to meet men/women seeking a lasting relationship? In a supermarket? Bars? Church socials? Night classes? Traffic school? Recovery meetings? Salad bars? Garages for car repair? A fair amount of them are bored with the game of Cute Pursuit. They've gone public.
Some have put their future in the hands of video humiliation such as "Love Connection" and "Studs," where you not only have a limited choice of dates, you are also rejected in front of the entire world.
Dating services have sprung up like traffic signs, most of them computer-geared. The "in" columnists are the ones writing about how to market oneself, be competitive and make compromises as a single.
A few weeks ago I opened my paper to find out that my prom-date threat had materialized. By calling a 900 number a MSF (male seeking female) or FSM (female seeking male) has two lines and four days to sell themselves to a prospective date. If they want more linage, the newspaper will charge them $7 for each additional line.
It has all the romance of selling a used car. After I strained to figure out the abbreviations - NS, no smoking; ND, no drugs; DM, divorced male; DF, divorced female - there were patterns to be noted. Most of the ad takers were men. They far outnumbered the women. The men described themselves as FL (fun loving). They all mentioned they loved to dance.
A retired military officer said he sought attractive, "stable homebody" - an oxymoron if I ever heard one. Another wanted someone to run outdoors with him and enjoy a quiet country life. (Why doesn't he buy a dog?)
The SFW (single female women) described themselves as full-figured. One said she had a sense of humor and was "relatively normal" (whatever that means). Nearly all specified wanting someone who could dance.
I married a MSF 43 years ago. He was FL too. He was also ND and NS. He quit dancing 15 minutes after I married him.
1992 Erma Bombeck
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