Fear and Loathing in New York

Why dating in the city has lost its fun By [Baccus G"ues] It was a cold winter"s day in New York and I was behind a bar in the heart of the Upper East Side, serving bloody Marys and Bud Light drafts to men in their mid- to late-twenties as they watched football and talked shop, belching and bragging about which girl they had hooked up with the night before. Freshly plunged back into the dating game, it was all I could do to not jump across the bar and take them by their unshowered necks and shake some gentlemanly-ness (and proper tipping etiquette) into them. And this was just one of many reasons why I was both fearing and loathing jumping back into the dating â??game of New York. I sauntered to the end of the bar where two of my regulars sat, sipping Magners on ice. â??Not looking like a good prospecting day here, huh ladies? I observed, nodding towards the rest of the bar where the men were high-fiving and fist-pumping in response to a Jets touchdown. Betty and Bibi looked at each other, sized up the groups of â??prospects one last time, and then nodded in agreement. So what was the problem? We were three good-looking women, surrounded by men and disgusted and deterred by each and every one. Betty and Bibi and I were educated, self-sufficient, had great senses of humor and were fun loving's the list goes on (if I do say so myself). What on earth were three seemingly great catches doing single on a Sunday watching football in a dive bar? â??I met a guy last night, but I can already tell he"s a complete weirdo, as well as self-obsessed, based on the text messages he sent this morning, Betty shared with us. â??I just wish I could wake up tomorrow and have a boyfriend of six months and not have to deal with this. Is he going to call? Is he normal? Is he a serial killer? Does he collect dolls? It"s so frustrating! â??I wish I could fall in love with my best friend and we could live happily ever after. Then I wouldn"t have to worry about the whole getting-to-know-you crap, Bibi declared. Considering that the â??getting-to-know-you crap Bibi spoke of more often than not resulted in coming to realize that your new beau is a scumbag (or just not â??the one ), I totally understood her point. I went home that night thankful that I wasn"t the only single gal in the city dreading the dating game. But I wanted to understand why we were all aboard this sinking ship of negativity in a sea of single men. I sat down with a pen, paper and a cup of peppermint tea to sort out the key hindrances of dating in New York City's why were we so fearful of dating? I decided that the dating game consisted of four quarters, and we had to play (and conquer) all of them when dating someone new in order to build a lasting, successful relationship. To begin, there was the introduction quarter; next, the uncertainty quarter; third, the first-steps quarter; and lastly, the fork-in-the-road quarter. As if that wasn"t enough, there was the everlasting search for perfection that we as New Yorkers subject ourselves to (in every aspect of our lives), which would have to be overcome as well. In this game, there are no shortcuts; there is no beating the clock. And often, you won"t even get to play all four quarters before losing the game. But this is a pay-to-play circumstance that we have to accept's more often than not, this is a losing game. So why do we voluntarily choose to play a game that the vast majority of us dread? Quite simply, in a city of eight million people, in apartment buildings with walls so thin that you can hear your neighbor sneeze, we don"t want to end up alone. Next week I address each phase of the dating game. I think it"s about time we overcame our fear and loathing of dating in New York. _ Bacchus G"ues drinks, dates and dwells on the Upper East Side.