Required Reading for Adults

People in relationships love to try to get their single friends into relationships by introducing them to their other single friends. This is also known as a fix-up. Now I have been told more times than I would care to count, that a friend of mine is going to help me out and fix me up. So far this has never ended well.

A badly done fix-up is like required summer reading. When you are in school, as soon as a teacher assigns a book to the class that book immediately becomes unbearable. It didn't matter if the book was something I was dying to read, as soon as I was told I had to, it seemed as dull as toast. (No, even I don't really understand the analogy I just made, but please, go with it) The same is true with people. If I am told that someone is "perfect for me" I tend to be extremely wary about them and if anything even more critical. All of a sudden a perfectly normal, attractive, funny, confident guy becomes bizarre/arrogant/uncomfortable person I don't even want to share oxygen with.

These feelings probably stems from the idea that I don't want to believe someone else can pick out a mate for me better than I can myself. (In all reality, I am well aware of the fact that some of my friends know me better than I know myself and I really should just go with their judgement) Maybe it is also partly that I don't want to like the person because I won't be sure if I really do enjoy being around the guy or if I have convinced myself I have to become someone told me I would --- yes I know that sounds beyond stupid -- again go with it.

As soon as a friend of mine mentions the intended bf, my heart goes out to them as I know that they are doomed from the get go. By no means do I want you all to think that I am saying I am the best thing on the market these days. It is simply that I get a slight pang of guilt for any notches of confidence that I may have knocked off some guy in the past purely because I didn't want someone else to be right...

I guess the moral of the story is that fix-ups need to be subtle. By all means, please don't give up on me, but don't tell me what your doing. Let me think I found that guy all on my own :P

I will say that I actually have saved some of my college books with the hopes that now that it is me doing the choosing, they will be interesting and enjoyable. Maybe the same will be true for the guys that were dismissed before a proper introduction could even be made...