The Perils of Dating

The Perils of Dating

For you Spanish speakers out there, that means that dating is tan peligroso!

I don't know if I missed the memo on this topic, but how come I never knew about the perils of dating? Sure, I've dated in the past, but this never really happened to me before. Dating is kind of like a disease and causes bouts of euphoria, balanced out by episodes of hysteria. If I was living just a century earlier, someone might have given me a hysterectomy!

Dating wreaks havoc in your diet. I'm not talking dieting as in trying to lose weight or getting fit, but just in daily diet and intake of nutritions. There is a constant pendulum swinging, placing my mood in high anxiety and then anger, and then there's bouts of despondent depression, and during the peak points of these emotions, my appetite either sours or plummets, more so than the stock market. In the last few weeks, I've either had half a tub of ice cream or no junk food at all. There are nights were I barely pass things down my throat. I'm just not very hungry. Then the next day, I feel an urgent need to ravage my home and raid the fridge. Eating everything and anything. I should be banned from the kitchen.

Dating causes ADD. Seriously speaking, there are moments when I can't do anything to keep my mind on work. I fall into a daydream and can't get out of it. I was an avid TV watcher (I can never concentrate on one thing for over a long period of time, but I can do a marathon session with the TV without breaking a sweat -- must be the frequent commercial breaks that loosen me up) but now, even that skill and passion has deteriorated. I am thinking of other things when I am watching the Simpsons. This, for me, is a serious situation, because 2004 has been cataclysimic for me as far as TV-viewing goes; Sex and the City went down, then Friends, then Frasier, and the first season of the Apprentice left me just thirsting for the second season, which is still being made. There was a point where the Simpsons also could have gone off the air, due to the cast's strike, and there are news that the Sopranos will also blend into people's memories come next year.

It's not just TV. At work, I'll be on the phone with an activation department, and suddenly, I will have no clue what I had been doing and with whom I am speaking. It's scary. It's like losing your short term memory, or rather, have it violently ripped away from your brain. Like that movie Memento. The poor guy just couldn't remember, and that's all he wanted.

Dating makes you lose sleep. Also, lose want of sleep. I'm basically filming my own version of Sleepless in Seattle. Would it be bad to describe myself as Sleepless in Los Angeles when I call into the emergency psycho therapy hotline, or when I'm writing to Dear Abby? I know I've been saying that I'm still in my Final Exam mode, where I sleep late and rise early -- but it's been going on too long, and these days, I hardly miss the sleep. Normally I'll be sleeping in until noon on Sunday, but now, I'm up when the sun. I feel as though I don't really need the sleep either -- I'm not exactly walking around like a zombie, zoning out. It's a weird sensation, especially for me, because everytime I sleep less than 8 hrs a night, my body used to go haywire; all that is in the past.

Dating makes you anal. Now I just can't stand to have my phone be out of my sight. I can't lose touch with the outside world. I seem to understand why psycho-women sit by the phone, even growling at it. I used to think, gee, if they're so anxious to get that phone call, why don't they just call themselves? Well, now I know why. It can't be described or understood. It has to be experienced to be comprehended. It's crazy, I know. That's what I've become.

In the last few weeks, I've become crazy. Not so blatantly crazy that I need to be placed in a high-security ward, but just slightly. Ever so slightly that I occasionally scare a person or two. Dating makes you psycho. It really does. It makes the most rational of us irrational. It makes reasoning and logic jump out the window. It's chaos, destruction of order.

So what's my point? My point is... well, is there really a point in dating? I've had more to write about, because I'm gaining more human experiences. Which is great. I hate that it makes me become this monster, like Mr. Hyde, when I'm always like Mr. Jekyll, calm, rational, sweet, composed... It's horrific, but you know, it's not all bad. It's like what pregnant women say. It hurts like a bitch, you have to sweat and moan for hours, push a giant head out of a rather small orifice, a lot of blood involved, a lot of work and pain. But most women do it multiple times and seem to enjoy the fruits of their labor (so to speak). I think it is that way for me too. (not about having kids!) It's something to be experienced -- if for nothing else, just for the sake of its experience. I think I'm going to kick back and enjoy my insanity.