I was at a comedy club on Saturday night with some friends, and as a certain guy caught my eye, my immediate first thought was this: “I wonder if he is taken, gay, or too far away?”
The answer? He was taken.
Lately, guys I’ve been attracted to seem to fall in to these categories. The taken is simple and an immediate showstopper. I don’t even give it a second thought – homey don’t play that way. The gay makes me wonder if they would be a good match for LC because heaven knows he’s not finding much on his own.
The “too far away” is the sticky one. I don’t like long-distance relationships. It’s too easy to talk on the phone or online and hide behind the mask of distance. Something under two hours is potentially doable although extremely dissatisfying for more impromptu courtship. In times gone by I might have thought, “Hey – if it was the right guy, I would totally move there.” In fact, been there, done that – it’s how I wound up in Charlotte in the first place.
But life is different now, and I find myself not really willing to move to a new town. I have roots here in Charlotte, something that has not really happened before. This has been a surprising yet comforting realization for me.
This means that I need to find someone who is either local or willing to relocate. The local is possible – although for being a big city, Charlotte often seems like a small town. The Geek community is fairly close-knit, and trying to find a Geek to date leads to some interesting crossover conversations. Dating someone outside of the Geek community feels like an episode of Breaking Amish – they don’t understand our culture and we don’t know how to reconcile theirs with ours. I’m open to both, just acknowledging the challenges.
Willing to relocate is also good – but that definitely means making some form of commitment or resorting to the long-distance thing while trying to figure it all out. This can put a lot of pressure on a relationship.
Of course, far away doesn’t always mean distance. Sometimes far away means that we are at different points in our lives. Often people who start dating don’t realize they aren’t really ready to date yet – they just don’t want to be alone. And that’s understandable. But it doesn’t really improve my batting average.
So then what? Nothing much changes. I’ll continue to put myself out there, hope to find someone who ticks enough of the right boxes, meet some nice guys, and see what happens.