Once upon a time...
2003-07-10, 1:16 p.m.

There was a woman who got divorced and dated all two of the single guys her friends knew and set her up with. She went out with Michael, who worshipped her, wanted to buy her, but did nothing for her in you know, THAT way, and she went out with Tommy, who did all kinds of things for her, but looked upon her as someone fun to go out with and sleep with when nothing better was going on.

OK, that's pretentious. Anyway, after several lonely months, I figured out that San Antonio is the worst city in the US for single people to meet each other, unless they are 22 years old and attending junior college. However, 35 year olds attending junior college, taking golf lessons, and guitar lessons tend to meet nice people with whom they would never in a million years go out in public.

So I shut my eyes as tightly as I could, pulled together every shred of courage, prepared myself for a loss of dignity, and went online to aol and yahoo to look at the personal ads, which I had only looked at as a source of amusement up until then.

I met Creepy John, Elusive Wade, Clingy Rob, and dated all three. As fate would have it, the one that even remotely interested me - the Elusive One - was flaky and difficult to pin down. The others were pains in the ass, and I had to drop them, because I had finally figured out that when a relationship ends, one of the people is going to get hurt, and it might as well not be me.

I also met Friendly John, indirectly, while on a date with Creepy John. The Friendly One's mother saw me at a bar, struck up a conversation, told me that she could tell I am a beautiful woman both inside and out, that I'd be perfect for her son, and begged me to give up my phone number. Which being up for all kinds of adventure, I did.

There were many entertaining phone calls and conversations that ensued, but the actual meeting was, well, blah.

In spite of the bumps along the road, I still consider Elusive Wade a friend, as he is an avid supporter of my work-related fundraising activities (had been all along - I just didn't know who he was), and would consider Friendly John a friend as well, except he dropped off the map.

So after finally cutting ties with Clingy Rob, shaking him off my leg and washing the sticky residue off my hands, I decided that dating was not worth the trouble. I would become the lady who works in the garden and lavishes all her attention on her son. I might even get me some cats, just to make the caricature complete. I gave up on ever finding the perfect person for me, but figured that I'd give aol one last try, and sent out 4 or 5 emails to unsuspecting prospects.

To be continued.