Are You A “Sane” Dater?

The other day, I came across that famous quote by American author Rita Mae Brown, who wrote in 1983: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.”

Are you in an insane dating drought?

And because I always have dating on the brain, it brought me back to one of my dustier single droughts, when I was spending two to three nights a week going to the same bar with a group of my British co-workers. Night after night, as I shimmied up to the same bartender, I’d look around at the same faces hoping that this night, someone amazing would walk in! But night after night, the same group of us would down our pints facing the same 50-somethings on barstools.

I enjoyed it for a while, but eventually, when I realized that nothing new—and no one new—was coming into my life, I started looking at the sameness I was stuck in. I was doing what Rita Mae Brown talked about: I was doing the same thing, night after night, and expecting different results. I needed a big burst of something as new—the way Tim Wow is Available Now! mustered with his infomercial about himself to find love.

So if you’re getting down because you’re on the “same” wheel too, well, you know what to do! And this isn’t just true of where you’re going in life. This is also true of who you’re dating. You’re smart enough to start looking objectively at people you meet now, so if you tend to date the same woeful type over and over again to disastrous results, sharpen your dating radar and stop the insane cycle! Dating the same jobless, commitment-phobic, or personality-challenged person again and again and expecting a different result the next time is, simply, insane.

Eventually, during my dating drought, I took a break from the British pub uptown and found a new hang-out downtown that attracted a cool mix of new people. I made new friends, new business acquaintances and even ended up dating a few new guys I met there. So if you’re feeling like you’re going dating insane, try something—anything—new. Different thing, different results, sane state of mind.

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Big love,