I’m busy.
Okay, that’s not the answer some people would want to hear. And by “some people” I mean Mom and some of my married female friends. They want to see me married someday, and figure a Christian college provides me with the perfect dating pool. I joke, “Misery loves company,” and go on with doing what I’m doing.
But joking aside, there are no prospects here anyway.
I date women. I don’t date girls. The difference between the two—same as the difference between men and boys—is maturity level. You don’t get maturity by turning 18, going to college, or making a few adult-like decisions. You get it by accepting the full responsibility for the things you’re in charge of, including the things you neither started nor caused. Using that definition, we may have very few adults in our society, but that’s the one I’m going with.
There are lots of boys and girls on this campus. The school actually delays their maturity by taking responsibility for them, in the form of Resident Advisers and Resident Directors and other faculty. Thus Bethany University resembles a giant summer camp, and it’s no wonder the seniors don’t wish to leave. I have zero interest in girls. They remind me too much of the junior high school students I used to teach. (Some of them are the same age as the first junior high school students I ever taught. Ewww.)
One of the factors (which actually works in my favor) is that girls don’t ask anyone out, because they don’t have the guts to, and even claim the bible prohibits it. But that’s another rant.
I should point out here that I’m no prize anyway; I still have a lot of selfish behaviors that I’m trying to remove, and anyone who dates me would have to be very patient with them. And one of these selfish behaviors is that school and work are priorities right now. Like I said, I’m busy.
I bring this up because a married woman of my acquaintance—like I said, misery loves company—offered to “hook me up” with someone. I don’t care to be “hooked up” by people, especially people that really don’t know me all that well. In most cases such people are actually consolidating friends: Instead of having to make time for two individual people, they bunch their friends together into couples. Never mind the fact that the couples may not get along well—or, in the case of a blind date I once went on, might really dislike one another—it’s a time-saver!
“I’m not looking to start dating right now,” I said, “but then again, when I first started dating my last girlfriend, I wasn’t looking then either. I’m not going to say absolutely no. But I’m not looking.”
“So that’s a yellow light,” she said, “not a green one.”
“Okay, call it that,” I said. “Just don’t go picking people because ‘she’s a friend and he’s a friend and they could be our friends together.’ Or ‘she’s lonely and he’s single and he’ll cheer her up.’ Or….” I may rant about the others another time. Right now I’m annoyed with them.
The problem is that even a “yellow light” gets my mother’s hopes up, and she starts thinking of more grandchildren, and the only real way to balance out her mania is to tell her I won’t get married until after she dies. Which is cruel, but sometimes you gotta be cruel to be kind.