You can lead a woman to water… August 20, 2008

Friday afternoon, one of those sunny cool days when you wonder, “Why go back to work?” On the same block, there are two restaurants with outside porches. One has a patio full of women, sunglasses on, lemons in their water glasses, eating salads. The other is all men dinking beer and eating pizza. While looking back and forth, a thought occurred to me, I try to take the best of both worlds and end up in neither. This is why I’m single. You’re either on one patio or the other. You can’t have it both ways; pizza or salad, water or beer.
 
These small choices define how we are seen by the rest of the world. You’re either sophisticated or the standard. There is no salad and beer, water and pizza middle ground. Which is why as I date, I can never find the right combination. When I imagine that guy, he’s just a composition of things I like and don’t like in the men I’ve already met. Which is a fairly vague combination of makes me laugh, has more hair on his head than the rest of his appendages, actually asks how my day went, and is legally allowed to leave the state without the consent of a parole officer. Already we’re looking at salads. Pizza toppings are all over the place. It’s all mixed together with the water: sparkling, flat, flavored, vitamin, and then there’s the beer: domestic, international, microbrew. I’m overwhelmed.
 
It all comes back to the beer, water with lemon dichotomy. Here I am thinking, I want a nice water with lemon sort of guy. When in actuality, I would probably be more comfortable fighting over the last piece of pepperoni with beer guy. Which is why I’m mean to the men I date. If he’s water guy, he’s too soft. I’m constantly trying to push his buttons to see if he’ll crack. If he’s beer guy, I’m looking down on him for not being classy or romantic. Is there a guy that can do both, probably. Am I going to find him? Probably not. Because I’m too busy spending my time looking at water wishing it were beer (*I think we’ve all done this at some point…even Jesus can relate) and looking at beer wanting it to be like water. There is no mixing of the two. Which is why I will be alone until I either accept the softer tendencies of a water drinker or I admit that deep down I’m a beer and pizza sort of girl…water with lemon on the side.