And it's an ALL SKATE....

Skateland was the name of my hometown's skating rink. I spent the better part of the 80's at this den of disco, hair rock and Ms. Pac Man. And I was certain to spend every birthday from the tender age of 6 to (the little too old) 12 with a Baskin and Robbins ice cream cake (topped with decorative skates, of course) a handful of pigtailed, rainbow-ed out girls and the random boy or two. The girl to guy ratio was always off but was pretty representative of my social circle at the time. It inevitably broke my heart when a slow song came on because that was the signal for the masses of kids to clear the floor to let the couples take over. I would wait with the rest of my girls, leaning up against the brown shag carpeted side walls and pretend to enjoy the Air Supply song stylings as I longingly stared at all the older kids and secretly wondered if I would ever be filled in on the mystery of love. My life would be saved the instant the schmaltzy song came to a close and the DJ would put the needle to Off the Wall and announce very slowly and close to the microphone....."And...it's....an...ALL SKATE!" Hurray!

I've since learned a thing or two about the sexes, love and men in general over the last 20 years or so since I retired my skates but sometimes I still feel like that girl leaning against the sweaty shag waiting for the slow song to end.

I'm surrounded by couples. All my close girlfriends are married, co-habiting or in serious relationships with someone. Not to mention the onslaught of baby appearances in just the last two years. The single guys I know don't count because most of them are single because they want to be and don't ever put any pressure on themselves to be otherwise. It's rare to find women as content with their singledom. I, for one, could count myself as such (content, that is) with my single status for this past year and a half.

It was pretty inconceivable to imagine myself going out on a date again after being out of the game for nearly five years. Dating in New York pretty much sounded to me like a slow torture that I wasn't willing to inflict on myself. I've read the statistics, the male to female ratio in New York. I've seen enough episodes of Sex And The City and known enough single girls that remain so and decide to move back to where they came from just to meet a fella. It's terrifying out there, right? I never thought I'd be back in this position. But here I am - not quite sure if I even believe in "the one" anymore or if marriage really can work for most people or if I even really want a boyfriend still. I just know that I have a pretty fulfilling life and I'm pretty ok company and I don't want to put too much work into it. That's where this internet dating thing comes into play......

I took some pictures recently for a girlfriend who is on two different dating sites and wanted some new, fresh, hot (but not too hot) pics to put up on her profile. She came over and we took some super cute shots and she uploaded them right then and there. A couple of days later I wanted to check out how they looked and couldn't get onto the site without creating a profile of my own. The next thing I knew, I was detailing what I was looking for in a man and editing down my I-pod collection of songs to make myself sound cool and diverse. I knew as soon as I stopped editing my profile, it would be sent out to the boy universe and I would get looked at and judged in a much more thorough way than a dimly lit bar. I didn't know how I felt about that. Needless to say, I ended at 4:30 am and was a bit punchy. That may actually account for how and why I decided to join the millions of other cyber-daters and dive headfirst into the modern dating pool....

That was four days ago. This is my profile activity since then:

Total views since 4/6/2007	233
Times in Hotlists in the past 30 days	24
Past 30 days
Matching Views	82
Winks	10

I responded to 5. Last night I went on my first date.