The reason life is like dating is if everything went smoothly, just as we plan, all the time – no awkward experiences, no “get me outa here!” moments – it would be much harder to appreciate the pleasant moments. Life can be like people we may date: Awkward, odd, horrifying… but then, along comes a good one. After all the bad dates, you appreciate him/her all the more.
Here’s one blind date I experienced:
Right when we met and got into his car, the guy started making goo-goo eyes at me, trying to hold my hand, not taking the hint from my don’t-touch-me body language – arms folded over my chest, body pressed into the passenger door, and nervous laughter. At a stop light, he stared at me for an uncomfortably long time and said, “You remind me SO much of my dead sister.”
Nooooooooooo!
Oh, and it only got worse. The entire night he stared at me with a creepy reverence, as if I were an angel whom he’d never let go. Hence my physically wrestling him all night until I finally fled.
Still talking to myself on this blog, but if you happen to read this share one of your “date from hell” stories. I’m not the only one, right? We’ve all endured crappy dates. I know. Tell me about it.
Ooh. “Still talking to myself”- haha. You mean no comments yet? It’s really really hard to get comments – the “dirty” secret of blogging is that it is a multi-year effort – I think it takes a kind of obsession to make it work (I’ve been doing it since 2007 and hit a speed bump around 2015) .When I started writing my blog, my main goal was to become an expert in my topic, in my case memoir writing. Is there a niche that you love, and feel authoritative about – or even a niche that you want to develop? I suspect that you will find a lot of company with a blog about bad dates, but probably also a lot of competition – it’s shocking how many of these stories I’ve heard – One of the first memoirs I ever read was all about them – Match Dot Bomb by Francine Pappadis Friedman https://memorywritersnetwork.com/blog/5-more-memoir-reviews/
Jerry Waxler
Author of Memoir Revolution
Hi Jerry,
You’re right. It seems to take even longer these days. I started a blog back in about 2004 – just a fun place to post my thoughts and photos. My focus was my life in the San Fernando Valley: http://aprilbaby.typepad.com/a_california_life/san_fernando_valley/. I didn’t think anyone would read it, but after a bit of time I had quite a few regulars.
I have to admit I haven’t posted to this blog very often. It does take commitment to build an audience: Time, interesting material, etc. Now that so many more people are blogging and there’s Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, I suppose it’s even more of a commitment to get people to stick around.
I appreciate your advice. Thank you for stopping by and commenting. Now I’m not talking to myself.
Michele