The other reason/excuse is my love/hate relationship with writing, and I've been leaning toward the latter lately. The last magazine hit the streets a month late, and I did every bit of writing except for two of the 20 or so stories, so I was about sick of it. And then another magazine has come up, and again, I have no help with the writing. Guess $200 a story isn't acceptable, even in this buyers' market of an economy. So I really don't care much for writing professionally, let alone as a hobby, and I daydream of finding a nice widget factory in need of an overeducated widget maker for $10 an hour.
It looks like I'm back on the market again, if I was off the market in the first place. Second straight relationship where it seems I was taking it more seriously than she was. Live and learn, eh? Long-distance isn't for everyone, no doubt about that, and apparently it wasn't for her. I was willing to give it a shot but I respect her feelings and won't press the issue.
Finally, I offer my thesis on a mid-30s man dating in a college town. Basically, it's impossible, and here's why:
• First, let's rule out the coeds. They're batshit crazy, and I'd seriously question the psychological makeup of an 18-22-year-old woman who wants to get down with a 36-year-old man. There's no amount of agreement about the, uh, nature of the relationship that would clear things up, so there's no point in even trying. I'm sure Steve McNair would confirm my theory but he's not around anymore, thanks to... a 20-year-old woman who offed herself after sending him to the great gig in the sky.
• The next group of women to rule out is the post-grads (post-docs, grad students, professors). But first, an anecdote. A friend of mine living in Lawrence, Kan., was dating this guy she'd met at the campus there, and after five months together he got in to law school at the University of Michigan. She told me, in so few words, that she was not moving from her home state unless there was a ring. I told her to be careful what she wished for, because she might get it. Sure enough, she got her ring, they went to A-squared, and lived happily ever after.
The point here is that no one comes to Laramie for post-graduate studies without a significant other because everyone knows what I know — it's a dating wasteland, unless you swim in the university pool, which might or might not be the best idea. Men can't bring their significant others without a permanent arrangement, and women won't come here without a dude in tow, whether permanently arranged or not; a smart guy will follow a smart girl anywhere, regardless of his own prospects for employment.
• So that leaves the townies. Like most small, rural, college towns in red states, there's a bit of resentment toward the campus among the townies, never mind what the campus means to the town in terms of culture, population, and economy. So even if I did chat up a townie woman in some situation, she'd probably bolt upon finding out I work at the university.
Further, at my age single women tend to have kids, and I'm not raising someone else's kid. In small towns like this one, there's something wrong with you if you haven't married by 25 (maybe younger here in sort-of Mormon country) and procreated by 30, so the woman do those before realizing the lack of wisdom in that course of action. Anyway, in my experience the "real" dad is not too far off, and I want nothing to do with that drama. Single moms are tough, admirable, courageous people, and I have nothing but respect for that path, but I wouldn't go that way myself.
So there you have it. I've pondered this quite a bit on many a run and ride (or walk home from work in the dark), and this is the first chance I've taken to put it on a screen. Really, it doesn't concern me that I've iced my love life in the name of a (sigh) decent job, but if I had any desire for a love life I wouldn't have moved here because I knew what I was getting in to, notwithstanding my friends' imagery of "all that young college-girl [action]." Half-Acre Gym is indeed like a museum — nice to look at what's there, but touch at your own risk."
