I left you with a cliffhanger yesterday. The Burmese Mountain Dog coincidence, remember? Well, I will get to that momentarily.

Many of you may know I have been doing some light dating recently. Nothing serious, just felt like the thing to do at this juncture, what with the move and all. La Vita Nuova, you know. It's better than "la selva oscura," which is where I was before, at any rate. Still, my dance-card's not exactly on fire, or anything. I've had three little dates so far this year, and two of them were just afternoon coffees. Which is just fine with me.

I didn't write about the first one, but I think a quote from Bachelor Number One will suffice to show why: "Do you always have that beard?" he asked, as I was getting up to go. "It makes you look..."—pregnant pause—"old." Mmm. Charming. (And I broke my No South Enders Rule for him, too. Never again.)

You have to have thick skin and a good sense of humor to date around in this town, that's for sure. Whatever happens, it has long been my policy when meeting people like this never, ever to comment negatively on them to them, even if they get catty with me. This stems from years ago when I first came to Boston, and was briefly involved with a forty-something radiologist with a chichi flat on Comm Ave., who wanted something from me I wasn't about to give up to him.

One day we went out to lunch and he says to me, just out of the blue: "You're never going to amount to anything, you know that?"

I was like, "you gonna eat your fries?"

He's like, "No, you can have 'em."

I mean, I was like, whatever, dude, pass the catsup. Here I am, a strapping twenty-something corn-fed Hoosier right off the turnip truck. Maybe if I study real hard and eat my vegetables I'll grow up to be a radiologist.

The comment didn't wound me deeply, though it did stick with me, obviously. Truth is, I pitied him for it. All I remember thinking when we parted was (a) there's no such thing as a free lunch, and (b) I did not want to become that dude. So I resolved not to.

But resolve isn't enough, is it? Pushing forty, and you know how I feel about those twenty-somethings. Tables are turned, aren't they? Now who's the radiologist?

Well, they haven't exactly turned like that, but you know what I mean.

No, you need more than resolve, you need ethics in life. You need a code when dating, too, if you're going to do it at all. And you need to be explicit about it. You need to say to yourself, "self, these are the dos and don'ts of dating." Because dating is bound to be frustrating sometimes, and you can count on meeting a lot of people who don't agree with you in various ways. Treat them as you would any stranger—with polite respect. Then go home and blog about them—but don't use their real names, and change a few details around so they'll know it's them but they can't sue you, or anything. And then get on with your life.

But seriously, I'm respectful of others out in the world, even when we don't click. When there's no clickage I just think of it as a social experiment and chalk it up to sample size.

Bachelor Number Two was pretty much my type from tip to toe, but he's a very busy little guy, and a cancer—like me—to boot. Two crabs. It may be it's just not in the stars.

But we're here to discuss Bachelor Number Three, who takes the cake, hands down. Youch.

Much, much better-looking in person than in any of his pics. Which seems like it should be a good thing, but usually turns out the other way around. In this case he was also much, much crazier than he came off in chat (and he came off pretty crazy in chat). Still, it's a cost-benefit kind of thing, and I'm still doing the math.



You know, the thing about it is, like Sam Allis said in his "True Love" piece in The Globe today, the key to a successful marriage is "a seamless neurotic fit," and "a seamless neurotic fit can be anything. All that matters is that two pathologies occupy sympathetic angles of repose." Everyone has baggage, in other words, you just have to find someone with baggage that matches yours. (Mine has rainbows and unicorns on it, by the way.)

Number Three had been a real pain to communicate with, by chat or phone. Unfocused to the point where it was hard to even make plans to meet. But he was persistent. He wasn't drugged out or flaky (both deal-breakers), just, well, confused, often to the point of befuddlement. I'm not going to hold that against him. But it may be our bags don't match.

After chatting off and on over a period of weeks, I finally thought, well, what the heck? Let's get it over with. So we made tentative plans for a rendezvous. After a series of miscommunications we managed to agree to meet midway from his place to mine. We didn't agree on a specific place or time, because it was just too much to negotiate in one phone call. I told him I'd be in touch after I did whatever I had to do President's Day.

So I called him when I was about to leave the gym. As is typical, one second he's telling me where he lives, then interrupts himself to tell me his ipod is charging, and starts explaining why that's important for me to know, and then interrupts himself again, half-apologizing for interrupting himself in the first place—or was it the second?—to tell me about the ipod, which again brings up the ipod, which I still don't know why he's bringing it up, which seems to demand an explanation as to why he's doing it, which...now, what were we talking about again?

I'm like, OK, I'll call you when I get to the square.

On the way there, I was thinking, one coffee—make it a decaf—and that's it. Can't cope.

I get there, phone him again, and tell him where I am (in front of Starbucks). I figure, that's pretty central, and he'll take the clue and meet me there. Instead he starts explaining in great detail where he is.

He's like, "you know where the art store is? I'm actually not out in front of the art store—I'm, like, two doors down from there."

I'm like, I don't know where the art store is. How's your ipod?

"The art store's across from the thai restaurant—the one next to the bank—or it used to be a bank. But I'm not across from there anymore. I'm sort of kitty corner from it. About three blocks down on the left."

I'm like, just meet me in front of the Starbucks, bitch.

He's like, "I'm almost there. I'll be the one with the big dog."

And there it is, gentle readers, as promised: the second half of your coincidence.


Cha-CHING. I hit the Coincidental Burmese Mountain Dog Sighting Jackpot, didn't I? The dude shows up with a Burmese Mountain Dog, just like the ones from the day before (only obviously different). I personally not only do not see Burmese Mountain Dogs every day, but I don’t really recall ever seeing one on the streets of Boston. And then three in the space of twenty-four hours?

WTF???