100 Coffees

While at work today, I read an interesting article featured on MSN about a woman who took up a challenge made by her friend to have 100 coffee dates with 100 different guys.  The friend had met her husband this way, and the author (a divorcee) hadn't had a date in 3 years.

This 100 coffee date idea is an interesting one.  The dates can be quick and less painful, like  ripping off a band-aid. It smarts for a second, but then the pain is gone. Additionally, it is cheaper than dinner, but you still have the opportunity to talk and get to know the person some. It also helps a newly single person reacquaint themselves with the entire dating process, and hopefully builds self-confidence.

She also talks about the pity she receives from her happily married friends, a feeling that I can understand.  Since becoming single again, I have noticed and felt two main reactions from people when they find out that I am getting divorced--sympathy or puzzlement bordering on condemnation. 

The author writes, "My friends are married people and stunned. "Why are you doing this?" "I could never do it." We say this same thing about tragedy, as though we have a choice. About wheelchairs and Down syndrome babies and cancer and missing limbs. Looking for love isn't a tragedy or a defect. It's a situation."

I am struck by the final two sentences in this quote..."Looking for love isn't a tragedy or a defect. It's a situation." I would alter this quote slightly, "Losing love and a relationship isn't necessarily a tragedy or a defect. It's a situation."

The author did find someone with whom she had a brief relationship.  Of this she writes, "It's very distracting, a loved person, and it makes the planet manageable. The planet, which is so large and lonely and blue, and also hurtling through dark empty space. All of which you can feel when you are alone. I'm not un-whole. I'm not half a person. But being with someone is energizing and relaxing." I could not say it any better myself.

In my last post, I said that I wasn't saying that I would never remarry.  Let me state unequiviocally that I am not saying that I will remarry. I am saying, however, that I am open to the possibilities that life may present, even if all life offers is a coffee date.