Keep Traveling

I went to lunch today with some of my Red Hat friends from work. We were celebrating Kay's "Redulation" at Oak Alley Plantation in Vacherie. Over lunch, my burning desire to move from NO came up. When they asked me why, I stated that it was mostly because I want my son in better schools, but part of it is because I would like to marry again one day and the chances of meeting the right person here in NO are slim.

"I've done the statistical analyses," I said, as they laughed heartily at my obvious engineering mind. "After living here for about a year, I did the math. Back then, there were about a million people living in the greater New Orleans area. Of that, about 2/3 were black [that was back when I cared about race when I considered what I wanted in a life partner]. Of those, when you count those who were males between the ages of 18 and 34 [I was only 24, and those were the ages I would consider then], when you take out the men who weren't on drugs, not married, not in jail, not in a relationship, and had the intelligence level I require, that left about 15 men...and I've met them all!" They laughed when I said that, but then I shared the kicker.

"So last Christmas, after the company Christmas party, I went to HOB to celebrate a friend's promotion and impending move (a guy I used to date) with a little Latin dancing that Friday night. While we were there, I saw this very tall guy walk in & just knew I was supposed to talk to him. When I had a break (while the guy I was with was busy getting me a drink, and even though we weren't dating I still wanted to be respectful because the male ego is quite fragile) I mossied over to the tall guy and talked to him. He asked if the guy I was with was my boyfriend & I told him no. I gave him my number and he called me a few days later. After 10 minutes on the phone with him, I realized I'd met him before! Not only that, when I'd met him 2 1/2 years before, I'd decided not to date him then. It was at that point that it hit me: I've met all of the eligible men in New Orleans, and now I'm on round two!" They all laughed almost hysterically.

I then said, "That's when I realized I was going to have to start dating men in other cities or move. I can't move right now, so...I went to Italy. There, I met the Norwegian, traveled half way around the world to visit him and he turns out to smoke weed and didn't call after a natural disaster hit my current home town! I'm done with dating!" By this time, the ladies were nearly in stitches when one of the ladies said to me, "You're still young [I just turned 31], it will happen for you. Keep traveling!" Yeah...we'll see.