July 21

Well, girlfriend-to-be, it's been nearly a month since you've caught up - and a busy month at that. In that time, I sponsored a Meetup.com event - First Thursday Free Seattle museums (I saw the Jim Henson exhibit at the EMP/SciFi Museum). But that was ALSO the night my allergies (grass, trees, dust mites, cat hair, etc. - normally controlled by Claritin) decided to 'overflow', and give me cold-like symptoms. I was down the following 4 days with a summer cold - one uncatchable by ordinary mortals.

I didn't hold the July "Singles Connection / Resource Roundtable" because I'm re-vamping the format. I've been working from an old model of how to build a community of like-minded singles, and provide them with a 'romance free zone' where we can relax, mingle, network, and make new friends - and if 'romance' happens outside the groups once-monthly meetings... who am *I* to complain? ;?>. Now I'm firmly in the 'sabbatical from relationships' camp - single people want to join other supportive, like-minded people, and form urban communities (i.e. tribes) based on mutual interests: hiking, cycling, movie watching, reading, writing, 'rithmatic... the usual. They also want to take time to improve themselves for-their-own-benefit. EXACTLY the things people do when they leave their jobs for a couple of months to go on sabbatical.

Why not go on a 'relationship' sabbatical? That's what I've been doing for the past two years, and I'm really enjoying the new experiences, and new friends made along the way.

I've also been thinking about my concerns about 'online dating', and how I think it bypasses the normal models people have been using for centuries to "get-to-know other people". Online dating provides too many opportunities for people to create false identities, pretend to be something they're not. Most common on-line dating lies: (1) Age, (2) marital status [lots of married guys pretend to be single - look for profiles with no photo, or who ask for your phone, but won't give theirs in return], (3) availability [truly ready to date, OR... not yet at 'baggage claim'], (4) fantasy likes/dislikes - no one ever says, 'I work all day, and watch tv for 4 hours before bed each night', instead it's 'like to tango (loaded?), gormet cooking (takeout?), and philanthropy for starving children' (his/her own?). All in all: I'll stick with OFF-line dating.

My middle-son and I flew to my nephew's wedding in Birmingham this past weekend [and are my arms TIRED... ], and had a great time. But it pointed out some weaknesses in the whole wedding reception model. There were many, many obvious 20-something singles, but no way to easily tell whether the over-30's were single or married. So I danced with my 2 nieces, my sister in law, and my 82 year old mother. The next wedding reception I D.J., I'm going to provide availability lapel pins: Blue for "Available", Red for "in-a-relationship".

So I've been planning a new social networking website (in my spare time). More on that in a later post...