ABOUT WOMEN
In dating game, women too often overlook obvious pitfalls

By Catherine E. Toth
Advertiser Staff Writer

My frantic friend was becoming borderline manic.

"We live on an island. He knows where I work. I'm listed."

She punctuated that last part with an annoyed huff, furiously stirring the whipped cream into her mocha espresso milkshake, somehow managing to shake her head and roll her eyes at the same time. (It's a multi-tasking talent women have.)

He was charming, employed and, most importantly, interested.

Or so she thought.

He leaned in close when she talked, he asked about her job and — the sinker — he complimented her necklace. The one she made.

So it wasn't a surprise that he asked for her number, or that my cautious friend dished it out.

The surprise was that, after two weeks, he hadn't made even an accidental attempt to reach her. Nothing.

That's when I heard it, the first piece of advice since I turned single last year that actually made sense:

"If he can't figure out how to reach you, he's either not interested or a moron. And we don't date morons."

At least not anymore, I thought. But our single-and-sane girlfriend had a point.

Don't bother with guys who can't turn on the TV with the remote control in their hands. In other words, they have the tools to search you out. If they don't know what to do with them — ooga, ooga — run away.

Navigating through a phone book isn't like performing a hysterectomy. If you passed kindergarten, you should be able to figure out how the book is organized.

Women do it all the time. You think we just go on dates with random men we've only known for a couple of hours, trust them with our lives and Prada handbags, hoping they turn out to be everything we want them to be — and gainfully employed?

Doesn't happen.

We don't just ogle, we Google.

"There's no excuse," my sane friend said. "He already has your number. It's not like he thinks you'll think he's a stalker."

Being single is still relatively new to me. I was the girl who always had a boyfriend, the one who should've been married already, two kids, a house in Hawai'i Kai.

Now that I'm single, there's been no shortage of singlettes handing me dating advice: Date in threes. Separated is still married. Renting a movie is not a date.

Some are common sense. Others are a bit more complicated — and often followed by a story that starts, "There was this guy. ..."

What my comfortably single friend said made sense. It was advice we already knew, but it needed saying.

Of course we don't date morons ... right? But we did. All the time. Sometimes we dumped one for another.

And we needed someone to point that out, to remind us of the embarassingly obvious.

"After all," she said, "there's a reason why I'm still single."

Reach Catherine E. Toth at 535-8533 or ctoth@honoluluadvertiser.com.