A Dating Action Plan

Day 1: Ponder the last month’s inactivity in the romantic arena. Reflect on choices made and how those have come to leave one alone on a Saturday night eating Weight Watcher’s desserts and watching the sanitized version of Sex and the City on basic cable.

Day 2: In flurry of activity, rewrite on-line profile. Include works like “daring,” “adventurous,” “friends,” “dancing,” and “bacon.” Pause to reflect on this fabulous woman on the page. My, she is a fearsome, generic creature. Realize said woman really has nothing to do with beer-drinking, zombie-loving, classical-musical-loving, plan-making nerd of reality. Rewrite profile again with a decidedly angry feminist slant. Leave in “bacon.”

Day 3: Inbox full. Full of messages from 22 year old music students who love zombie movies, vegans admonishing love of bacon, 40 year old professors wanting to discuss Nabokov, and one fellow who while starting out with a discussion of Bach’s Brandenburg concertos takes a decidedly darker turn with talk of BSDM. Overwhelming response queues inability to formulate any response. Log off.

Day 4: Fearful of checking email and yet compelled to see what will grace inbox next. Today’s emails include a recipe for a sunchoke grilled cheese sandwich and a zombie movie recommendation. Realize though exceedingly picky, as of yet unwilling to compromise for sake of dating. Change profile picture to what could only be described as a true visage of “bitch face.” Might as well go for broke.

Day 5: Buy fancy underwear. You never know.

Day 6: Frolic down memory lane to land square in the middle of ex-sex land. No fancy underwear. That privilege is gone.

Day 7: Beat roommate’s ass at Tekken. Make pizza from scratch. Decorate new back porch. Completely forget singleness and sad-sack Saturday night.

Day 8: Slight senses of guilt for letting messages languish in inbox. (No guilt felt for ex.) Start conversation with peppy, slightly deranged man in passing. Entertained.

Day 9: Ex goes out of way to be nice. It is a trap. Bickering ensues. Timely reminder of why ex is ex.

Day 10: Hesitant to go on date with peppy, slightly deranged man. Less about him than possibility of being tortured by another terrible date. (See Red Flags.) Look forlornly at fancy underwear. What the hell. Make plans to tourist watch together on Saturday.

Day 11: Eat Cheez-Its while slurping down soy Frappaccino. Dichotomies abound in life. Instead of devising a new dating action plan, decide that it's okay in continuing on in the same vain as day 1 through 10. Date may be exceedingly fun or extraordinarily lame. In the meantime, will wear racy underwear every day. You know, just in case.

P.S. How hysterical is that book cover? I would have entitled it “When Good Clams Go Bad: How a Stock Photo of a Lovingly Embracing Couple About to Be Eaten by a Clam Makes Single Girls Appreciate Their Lives More.”