Thoughts on like and love: Part I

I find myself thinking about love (and its predecessor like) a lot these days. Maybe it's because Valentine's Day is around the corner and it's hard to avoid bombardment by images of "true love." Maybe it's because many of my single (or recent formerly single) girlfriends seem to be finding like and love of their own. Or maybe that's just where my head is.

There are, I believe, 7 days until Valentine's Day. And in honor of that, I'm committing those 7 days to blogs about love, like and relationships. No crabby rants about George Bush. No funny stories about children pooping (unless they did it for love). In keeping with the spirit of the day, I'm even going to try to refrain from ranting about love, like and relationships. Happy blogs, people. Or at least reflective blogs.

So with no further ado:

I have been on what feels like a million dates in the last three years. (It’s probably closer to fifty.) Some of those guys I’ve really liked; some were just alright. One or two I would be happy never to see again. Generally, I was glad when they called and happy to get e-mails from them. Generally, I had a good time when we went out. Generally, everything about those dates and those relationships was. . . . fine.

Fine. It’s a word that in my book ranks right up there with ‘nice’ as one of those neutral, positive-sounding words you use to describe something that frankly, you really don’t like that much but you can’t find any good reason to dislike it. And so you say that it seemed. . . . nice. They were really. . . nice. If all I can think to say is that you are ‘nice,’ that’s pretty much the kiss of death. You might as well be horrible or repulsive or obnoxious. At least then you’d be interesting.

Somewhere in all this dating, I had forgotten that there could be something other than ‘fine.’ Or maybe I’d just given up hope in finding something more than fine. In college, there were people I was excited about—people who made my stomach drop and my head spin. People who could reduce me to a giddy, goofy, inarticulate mess and whose every e-mail and phone call left me with an embarrassingly uncontrollable face-splitting smile that wouldn’t be wiped away, no matter how hard I tried to contain it.

But three years of blah dates had left me numb. I had gotten used to my bland dating diet of 'nice' guys and 'fine' dates. It's only just recently that I've realized how terrible--and unfulfilling--'fine' really is. 'Fine' is all too often what we put up with, what we settle for. But I'm finally realizing that holding out for someone that you're really excited about just might be worth it after all.