Bachelor #50

With such an auspicious number approaching, you'd think I'd make some effort to make sure #50 is a good one. Ah, hindsight...

Instead, I decided that, while I wait for Bachelor #49 to make time in his oh-so-busy schedule for our second date, I need to be my usual proactive self and get me some dates, damn it.

Bachelor #50 sounded respectable enough on paper: 44, 6"2, a 9-year-old daughter, works in the travel industry (read: free trips!) and his picture was surprisingly good. Good enough for a while-I-wait date.

When I walked into the restaurant, I saw a man I was pretty sure was him, sitting alone at a table in the corner. I thought, not bad for a filler date. He was nice looking, and nothing about his wardrobe screamed of another decade. I was actually feeling rather hopeful.

I joined him at the table, ordered a drink, and things weren't going badly at all. No awkward silences, no jokes left dangling. It's all sounding too good to be true, right?

Right.

Then I made the fatal mistake of asking how long he's been separated/divorced. The correct answer to this very simple question can be just about any number, but the correct unit of measurement is YEARS. Not months, and certainly not WEEKS. Bachelor #50's answer? "About 15 weeks now."

I was tempted to get up and leave on the spot. I have been doing this way too long to be someone's rebound girl. But I stuck around, and it's a good thing, because it only got better. He went on to tell me how very much fun he's having with this online dating thing. You meet SO MANY women this way! He's got dates lined up every night of the week! He's having the time of his life!

You see, after being in a bad marriage, it's just so great to know that women still find him attractive. Now, I can certainly understand feeling that way. Hell, I was in the same place when my marriage ended ELEVEN YEARS AGO (minus the online thing -- somehow men just fell from the sky back then. But that's not really the point here.) Now, however, I am not in that place. Not even close. I am not excited about the notion of dating a different man every night of the week. I consider that the worst case scenario, not a dream come true. And I certainly have no interest in going out with a man who's unapologetically dating for sport.

Bachelor #50 was puzzled by my reaction to all of this. He was just being honest, after all. Why couldn't I just be his Monday night girl?

Next.