I have the best friends in the world. I truly do. For my birthday last year, my friend Jay colluded to get 22 people, including my brother and sister, to all chip in to buy me an iPod. I had mentioned to him in passing one day that I wanted to save up for one. Every time I listen to it, I realize how fortunate I am.

My wonderful, giving, supportive friends, however, are not always the best in giving dating advice. I am slowly becoming the minority among my friends as they all are pairing off. They all swear up and down they are going to set me up with someone, despite the fact that all their friends are in a relationship or gay. They give me insightful advice:

i’m sure, if you make your self truly available, that a good relationship is around the corner.

my response:

How do I make myself “truly available?” Does that involve standing on the street, naked, shouting “are there any normal, non-committment-phobic, straight men over the age of 30 in this godforsaken city?” I’m not sure I’m ready for that at the moment.

Okay, okay, that’s a little unfair. They all mean well, but it doesn’t get me any closer to finding a healthy, stable relationship with a cute, smart, funny, outgoing guy with solid values. Where are these people hiding? Certainly not online. I’m done with that. My dad suggested “trying new activities.” Well, the two activities that have taken up most of my time in the past few years are cycling — primarily AIDS Rides — and self-defense. So I have met great gay men and straight women, none of whom seem to have any appropriate straight male friends.

Where does this leave me? I will keep trying. I will persevere. I will NOT give up.

I am, however, making a long reading list and finding projects for the winter that I can complete while never leaving my apartment, just in case . . .

I have the best friends in the world. I truly do. For my birthday last year, my friend Jay colluded to get 22 people, including my brother and sister, to all chip in to buy me an iPod. I had mentioned to him in passing one day that I wanted to save up for one. Every time I listen to it, I realize how fortunate I am.

My wonderful, giving, supportive friends, however, are not always the best in giving dating advice. I am slowly becoming the minority among my friends as they all are pairing off. They all swear up and down they are going to set me up with someone, despite the fact that all their friends are in a relationship or gay. They give me insightful advice:

i’m sure, if you make your self truly available, that a good relationship is around the corner.

my response:

How do I make myself “truly available?” Does that involve standing on the street, naked, shouting “are there any normal, non-committment-phobic, straight men over the age of 30 in this godforsaken city?” I’m not sure I’m ready for that at the moment.

Okay, okay, that’s a little unfair. They all mean well, but it doesn’t get me any closer to finding a healthy, stable relationship with a cute, smart, funny, outgoing guy with solid values. Where are these people hiding? Certainly not online. I’m done with that. My dad suggested “trying new activities.” Well, the two activities that have taken up most of my time in the past few years are cycling — primarily AIDS Rides — and self-defense. So I have met great gay men and straight women, none of whom seem to have any appropriate straight male friends.

Where does this leave me? I will keep trying. I will persevere. I will NOT give up.

I am, however, making a long reading list and finding projects for the winter that I can complete while never leaving my apartment, just in case . . .

That always makes me think of ads I used to hear on the radio for monster truck rallies. “sunday, SUNDAY, SUNDAY, two thousand tons of pure testosterone, at the monster truck rally at Nassau Colliseum!”

Sundays, especially sunny ones, present me with the age-old dilemma — lounge around all day, or take advantage of the sunshine. Thankfully, last night I took it easy — went and saw Ghostbusters in Central Park (which was tons of fun, by the way) –so I was able to do both.

I love getting the Sunday NYT delivered. Read all kinds of great stuff as I stretched out on the couch. Finally, around 1pm, I went for a bike ride up the West Side bike path — up to 125th street and back. Damn — it’s pathetic how little I’ve been biking this year. That’s what you get when you dated a bartender all summer.

And speaking of dating, I went on a date after my bike ride — the guy from Nerve who did Midnight Madness. Nice enough, but zero interest. I think I’m done with the blind/internet dating thing — I keep ending up meeting people and having no spark whatsoever. Time to let nature take its course. Of course nature keeps fucking me over and making me interested in unavailable men . . . apparently Mother Nature has been smoking too much crack in her spare time.

Damn.

That always makes me think of ads I used to hear on the radio for monster truck rallies. “sunday, SUNDAY, SUNDAY, two thousand tons of pure testosterone, at the monster truck rally at Nassau Colliseum!”

Sundays, especially sunny ones, present me with the age-old dilemma — lounge around all day, or take advantage of the sunshine. Thankfully, last night I took it easy — went and saw Ghostbusters in Central Park (which was tons of fun, by the way) –so I was able to do both.

I love getting the Sunday NYT delivered. Read all kinds of great stuff as I stretched out on the couch. Finally, around 1pm, I went for a bike ride up the West Side bike path — up to 125th street and back. Damn — it’s pathetic how little I’ve been biking this year. That’s what you get when you dated a bartender all summer.

And speaking of dating, I went on a date after my bike ride — the guy from Nerve who did Midnight Madness. Nice enough, but zero interest. I think I’m done with the blind/internet dating thing — I keep ending up meeting people and having no spark whatsoever. Time to let nature take its course. Of course nature keeps fucking me over and making me interested in unavailable men . . . apparently Mother Nature has been smoking too much crack in her spare time.

Damn.