The dating game

One of my closest friend Miss X called me up the other day, depressed. Her mum and aunt are trying to set her up with a guy, basically get her to go on blind date with him. Her aunt mailed her a picture of him. He's 37 which is not a bad age for a guy but when I asked Miss X what she thought of how he looked.

"You know how some guys who are about that age..say like Mr. Stupid (who btw is 36 this year) but don't look it? Well, he's not one of them. He actually looks 37, " she said.

"But how is a 37 year-old supposed to look like?" I asked.

"I don't know! But we go after men who look like guys not men who look like MEN," she said. "And this one looks scarily like a MAN! He's got glasses, wearing one of those silky shirts and looks serious. Basically he looks like a 37 year-old man not a 37 year-old guy."

"But that's not all" she continued "The date on the photo was 2004, which means he looked like this when he was freaking 31!"

I had to laugh but I didn't know what to say to that. Thinking about it now however, I'd day how do you trust someone who shares a picture of himself (and I'm sure to their best interest they would want to share the best picture they've got) which is 6 years old? So what, he hasn't taken a decent picture of himself since? That's a huge flapping red flag if you ask me.

But anyway, I digress. The point I'm trying to make is... 3 maybe even 2 years ago, Miss X and me, we would not have been so obliging to our mums setting us up this way. In fact, we would have been downright hostile. But here we were, a bunch of 30 year olds, actually succumbing to the pressures of society or rather pressures of family, specifically, our terrified mums.

Not to mention certain aunts who, despite their best intentions, make us feel like total crap when they tell us how small the pool is for girls over the age of 30.

But is it just about the age? Is there really a stigma attached to someone like me, who's touched the big 30 with no man in sight? Or are our mums and aunts over-dramatising their concern? And when they convey their concerns, it seems to me, everything is so black and white. You meet a guy. You like him. He likes you. You get married. Happily ever after.

But most of the time, I'm stuck in grey. For example...

Scenario 1
I meet guy. I like guy. Guy seems to like me but guy is commitment phobic and runs the 100m dash (in the opposite direction) when I tell him I like him.

Scenario 2
I meet guy. I like guy. Guy likes me. We kiss and make-out a couple of times. Find out guy also likes 5 other girls.

Scenario 3
I meet guy. I like guy. Guy seems to like me. We go on a date. Then guy never calls.

Scenario 4
I meet guy. I don't like guy. But guy likes me. Guy calls me everyday. And when I don't answer guy texts incessantly till I call guy a psycho and ask him to bugger off.

And so on and so on.

Okay, I'm going way off tangent here. What I'm trying to say, I think, is, "Mum, I know I've turned 30 way faster than you wanted me to. And as much as you want me married and start making babies.. it does look rather bleak right now, and you may have to wait a while before it even remotely starts looking possible.."

Right. If only I could gather the nerve to tell my mum that to her face.

I'm being set-up

My mum is setting me up on a date.

I cannot believe I've reached a point in my life where my mum thinks she needs to interfere with her daughters dating life for fear of having her daughter become a middle aged woman without a man in tow. She's obviously fearing the fact that having touched the big 30, I'm still without a husband prospect in sight. 30 is ancient in her books to be without a man and to top that she's gone beyond hinting that she'd like to be a grandmother.... soon.

I love my mum. But I am glad I live a whole 2 hour distance away from her, thus limiting our face to face confrontations about my love life. She manages to get her messages across over the phone though. Its maddening when I've had a perfect Saturday all to myself, lazing in bed with the nicest book and even nicer music in the background, only to have the magic broken with a call from my mum exclaiming "What? You've been in bed the whole day?" like its the worst sin in the world before adding "How are you expecting to meet men if you lie in bed all day like this?".

Anyway, I got a call from her yesterday telling me that she got a call from an aunt of mine about a 'nice' and 'handsome' boy who is a son of a friend of hers who just started working around my area. He's apparently looking to meet new 'friends' and my mum and my aunt have decided that I should do lunch or dinner with him. I retorted saying if he was so 'nice' and 'handsome' why did he need help making 'friends'. My mum told me to not be rude.

Firstly, I don't trust this particular aunt's judgement in men. Secondly and more importantly, why would a grown up man need help from his mum to set him up? Is he so lazy that he couldn't be bothered to make his own efforts to finding a date and would rather rely on his mum to get him one? That or he is really ugly.

I'm not in the least bit intrigued. But you try saying no to my mum. Suffice to say, I've agreed to meet him... but only for coffee next week. I'm not going to suffer through a meal on a date set up by conspiring aunts and mums. My mum agreed reluctantly saying dinner would be much nicer though. But I stood my ground - its coffee or nothing at all- and the tiny win did placate me a little bit. Anyway, I'm thinking, if anything, this might give me some material to blog about.