As I mentioned earlier, nobody wants their friend to be #24 in this dating prescription, so when I found out that my friends did not know about my blog, I decided I needed to tell them. I learned my lesson after The Blues Man, and I’m not willing to sacrifice my friendships for a little online storytelling and dating humor. I explained to my friend how the whole thing got started, and emailed her links to  the first post, Confessions of a Serial Dater, and Man #11, Il Mio Nonno Italiano so she could get an idea of what the blog was about.

I don’t know if she ever read them, but she knew enough about it that the next time I saw her she said, “If you and Man #24 (not his real name) go out, you could stop at #24, couldn’t you?”

“Well, I suppose, if things went really well, yeah. I’ve said all along that if I meet someone halfway through who is really good for me and is someone who wants a committed relationship, I certainly wouldn’t turn him away.”

The last part of this statement, however, always seems to be the kicker. Just as friends don’t want to be #24, it seems that men don’t like to knowingly be in a perceived competition with other men. It’s ok if THEY date this way, going out with multiple women, mind you, but rarely have I found that guys are ok with the  idea that the woman they are dating is dating other men. I know there are exceptions, but a lot of men seem to try and avoid this kind of situation.

Not that my dating prescription is even a competition. Some might say that I’m “dating like a guy,” but I don’t even think that’s the case, because, typically, that involves dating and sleeping with more than one woman just to have a good time, and we all know that I haven’t had any in a while! Therefore, I don’t think what I’m doing qualifies as dating like a guy.

The way I see it, I am simply dating without settling, and I will continue to date in this way until I meet someone who…

1. I want to go out with again and again.
2. wants to go out with me again and again.
3. asks me for a committed, monogomous relationship.

Until all three of these parameters are satisfied, I see absolutely no reason to limit myself to one guy. Enough said.

And with that, to illustrate my point, my next post will be on the game theory of dating.