Kissing Frogs

"Did you used to dream about your wedding day?" ~ Friend tonight over supper

I finally got together with a friend after months of attempting to catch up on our lives. She had been through hell and is back in the game, as they say. We had dim sum and told our stories. Hers was in part of how she is dating again after her marriage fell apart.

She posed this question about dreaming of the perfect wedding to me. My response was nah, not me. Her neither, it turns out. Neither of us envisioned wedding dresses and ball-like fairy tale stories. In fact, I was never really sure I wanted to be married. I knew that I did not want to be a mother. It took me a long time to realize that I would have been a great parent. I was open to being married but it has never been something I have dwelled on.

Last year on the Alaskan cruise, I decided to ask for help during one of the workshops on how I might go about dating. My friend has been doing the Internet dating scene, which was the one stipulation that I was not open to on the cruise. She is having fun, as is another friend of mine who tried that route. I still am not quite convinced but my friend tonight said to call her when I was ready for that and she would give me some pointers.

I told her that the woman who led the workshops on the cruise sent an email about a week ago asking if I was still single and if I was would I be interested in trying something. She has her own radio program and will be interviewing a woman who has written a book about kissing a lot of frogs before meeting the prince and has a three-step program to finding lasting love. Would I be interested in reading the book and trying out her program? Yes, I replied. I would be. I would try to be open. In case this photo is not clear, it is a shot of hundreds of frogs at Blue Lake in British Columbia. There are a lot of frogs out there apparently.

I am currently reading the book, I told my Internet dating friend, and finding out interesting things about myself. Her question of envisioning the perfect wedding struck a chord in me. Some of my friends dreamed about weddings to the littlest details. Some have romantic notions about meeting “the one.” I honestly don’t spend a lot of time going there. I am an oddity I imagine. In reading this book, I found myself puzzled by the introductory chapter where the author describes an amazing experience and states that for the first time in her life she had someone else to share an extraordinary moment and how precious that was. My initial reaction? Really? I think I sort of get it but I have shared all sorts of powerful experiences and had a few all by myself where I was glad that I was alone. This person sounds like she has had similar life experiences to me and yet I could not relate one iota to her comment. I know this will sound very weird to people reading it but I felt sorry for her instead of me. I have always believed as a single person that my life is abundantly full and awesome. It never occurred to me to feel any other way for the most part. Sure there are times when I wish I did not have to drive to a party by myself or attend a wedding alone, but for the most part, I am so grateful for my life that I don’t know what I am missing apparently.

I am not sure yet what else this book will teach me but I am trying to remain open to it. Who knows, maybe at the end of it, I will decide to call up my friend and ask her to share her Internet dating tips. In the meantime, I am not sure I want to date a bunch of frogs when it took me this long to set up a dinner date with someone I care about and value in my life. I am willing to keep an open spirit though.

Peace,

Suzanne