Goldfish

Have you ever lost a goldfish? You’re right, it seems pretty improbable. That’s what I thought too, until I was looking after my room-mate’s fish and couldn’t find him in the tank one morning. I thought he must be hiding in the green stuff floating around at the top of the tank. Wrong. I finally found him hiding on the kitchen counter behind the bowl. Huh? How did he get there (without the help of a cat)? After I’d apologised profusely to my room-mate for not keeping a closer eye on her fish (?!), I found out that sometimes fish do this-fling themselves out of the bowl, supposedly because the oxygen level in the water is too low. How this is supposed to improve their situation I’m not sure, but they’re not big thinkers. The moral of the story, I guess, is always change the water in your fish bowl. Or at least make sure there’s a tight lid on it.
So, am I really going to waste your time telling you about suicidal fish? Tempting as that is…….no. My interest is in a much wider, but more shallow body of water: the dating pool. I think it needs oxygen, or a tighter lid because men are flinging themselves out of the pool. Unlike the goldfish, this is not a terminal situation for them, (although I suspect just as much thought went into it). They can actually survive quite happily at the edge for a long time, occasionally dipping their toe back in to see if it’s become more favorable.
In some ways I don’t blame them. It ‘aint much fun in there at the best of times, but at least there’s hope of something worthwhile if you keep swimming long enough. But for some reason, in my years of observation guys have become less and less inclined to swim around, or even tread water. I know that guys are thought to be “commitment phobic”. But, that used to mean the perpetual engagement without any hope of making it down the aisle. Now more than one date is an oppressive commitment. There’s flirting going on here, there and everywhere, so I’m pretty sure the hormones are still alive. If we’re really lucky we might even get one “date”. But don’t call it a date!! Yikes. Let’s just hang out. As one of my wise friends put it recently, “Single men your age are “scared s***less”).
The single ladies (my age) wish we knew what to do about it. We try not to be too scary. We try not to pull guys towards jewelry store windows on our first (and only) “date”. We don’t talk about bridesmaids’ dresses and white picket fences. We would just be happy with a date or two and a little eye contact, to reassure ourselves we are really XX and not XY.
I’m going to conclude with a request: can you lovely, happily married people look around you at the single guys, pull them to one side and ask them what their apparent terror is all about? We girls would pay good money to find out the answer, but we can’t ask them ourselves because of our ulterior motives and the danger of becoming even more terrifying and confirming all their fears.

And assuming that their answer makes no sense whatsoever (wild guess) can you follow up by beating some sense into them?

Thank you very much.

Philomena

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Comments

[Thomas More]

Hilarious! Well said. I'll see if I can find a lid for you, and start pounding some sense into the guys.

[Philomena]

Thanks Thomas!

[Portia]

Girl, you are not alone in your quandary. :) Well said.

And if you haven't seen it yet, Amelie has a hilarious rendition of your goldfish story in the first couple of scenes in the movie. (Viewer warning: It's a French film, with French artistic flair. That's my "in so many words" warning:)