While we were growing up Mom used  certain proverbs in an attempt to guide and advise my sisters and me.  Some were repeated often, apparently so they would become ingrained in our psyches.  "Why buy the cow if the milk is free?" was one of her favorites, borrowed, I think, from Ann Landers.  My sisters and I decided the follow-up response should be "Why buy the bull, if all you want is a piece of sausage?" but we didn't say that to our Catholic mom.

This weekend when I'm home alone and thinking I'd like to go to the fair with someone who might hold my hand,  I hear her  voice in my head saying, "Anybody can have a boyfriend if they set their standards low enough."   That was that line she used when we were in high school and worried about not having boyfriends.  But at 51, it has taken on a different meaning than it had when I was 17.

At this stage I prefer  spending time  with my cat and dog and a good book or favorite radio show to being out with someone who doesn't get my jokes and with whom I feel no connection whatsoever.  On the other hand,  I'm missing the boyfriend who was around not too long ago, , so I started thinking about  how I might find someone to fill that role without having to endure the ordeal that is *dating*.   I was unemployed for several months last year. Dating reminds me and is about as much fun as going to job interviews.  

I don't think I heard "Before you meet your handsome prince you have to kiss a lot of frogs" from Mom, but I do remember it during the high school or college years.  When my younger self was figuring out who I was and what was important to me and what sort of partner I wanted, kissing frogs was part of that  discovery process.  The biggest difference between my 20-something self and the current version is that now I mostly know and like myself.  I also know what's important to me, what I can and won't put up with, and what I'd like in a partner.  And I don't need to risk getting warts  in order to not be alone.  The last three years  of my marriage were much lonelier than the six years since my divorce. 

I have tried internet dating twice, with some success, if measured by meeting a guy I dated for five months and the last one who was around for  a year-and-a-half. But there were other coffees and meetings and movies when I realized I would rather have been home spending my evening with with Bill Moyers or  the gang from The Office or a good book. I'm less patient about spending time and energy on bad dates to find the good ones.  If it were a  cost- benefit analysis,  I'm unwilling to pay the cost or make the effort when the outcome is so uncertain.  I want the right one to just "show up."  It doesn't work that way?  Darn.  

Another piece of wisdom that Mom tried to impart was "It's just as easy to marry a rich man as it is a poor one."  Which, when I was in college, was followed by, "You always fall for musicians -- you're going to starve." Now I like to think I can keep myself from starving.  Despite some lean times I haven't wasted away.