Susan

I have a friend who is constantly making jokes about how sad and lonely he is, and how it’s no wonder no woman will go out with him for x reasons. Well, duh. People can come up with plenty of reasons not to sleep with each other all on their own; you don’t have to help them out by telling them exactly why they shouldn’t sleep with YOU. 

Granted, I may not be the best person in the world to be dispensing advice on how to find the love of your life (the best hint I’ve got is, “Keep looking.” I know. I’m TOO specific), but I think I can be pretty confident that constantly ragging on yourself is not the way to go about it. Hey, I love self-deprecating humour as much as the next person – it’s a staple in my arsenal – but it’s great to not take yourself too seriously and be able to laugh at your own foibles. There’s a time to deploy it and also a time to can it and remind your audience that frankly, you’re pretty awesome, and there are plenty of good reasons to go out on a date with you.

One of the advantages of being single is the freedom to make major, life-changing decisions without consultation, much less regard for someone else's future or well-being.  Because If quitting your job and moving to another city is really only going to affect your life, the choice becomes that much easier. Even less ground-shaking possibilities, like the opportunity for a last minute vacation, are so much simpler to take advantage of if you are unattached.

The last wedding I attended was my aunt’s. It was 1991, I was eight, and I was a flower girl.  This may go without saying, but I did not get drunk and hit on groomsmen.

My useless friends have been sadly deficient when it comes to getting hitched. I was told that these were the years when I’d be attending weddings like crazy, and all of my spare cash would be eaten up by expensive presents and dresses, and all of my spare angsting time would go towards trying to ascertain if there would be enough single men there or if I should try and round up a date. Instead, all of my friends are either single or in no hurry to head down the aisle with their significant others. At this rate, the wedding-heavy years are going to bleed right into the time when I’m supposed to be making up original-sounding compliments for generic-looking newborns.

I’ve come to a decision: no more pity goodnight kisses.  I’m done; that’s it.  If I don’t want him to kiss me, it ain’t happening...No matter how empathetic or tired I am.

Every now and then, after a clearly unsatisfactory first date, there is an awkward moment when you can just tell he’s going to go for it.  This sinking feeling is compounded by the fact that it's usually accompanied by a guy who takes forever to work up the nerve to initiate.  So sometimes, out of my humanitarian heart, I just let him -- it’s to spare his feelings and also to expedite my departure.  Once, years ago, I even went as far as to go for it myself in order to get him to go home -- before you cast judgment, here's the context:

I recently informed a gay man that when a straight guy asks a girl what she does for fun, it means he’s totally into her.  We were debating which team this guy, whom we had met earlier, batted for (i.e. straight or gay); not only was I right about the guy being straight, but I was also right about him being into me.  My homosexual pal retorted that he’d asked me what I did on the weekend, and that it didn’t mean he wanted to fuck me. 

Gay men just don’t comprehend the hackneyed advances of your average straight male; it all comes down to that one question (and, you know, the fact that I’m a stone cold fox).  Sometimes I think guys should really give up any attempt to be subtle; most women over the age of 20 have their little strategies figured out.

Incidentally, I hate that question.  “What do you do for fun?”, to me, is like asking someone, “Do you like music?” Well, alright, it’s slightly more specific than that.  But seriously, I do the standard array of things for fun that most humans in my demographic (read: mid-20's, female, independent, savvy, sociable,