Today was productive. I had a thirty-minute massage, bought new pillows and a magenta shower curtain, started stripping the finish off the dining table, worked on clearing out J's room a bit, and went to a play.

The play part was a little pathetic, I admit. I flat-ironed my hair and put on eye makeup to go sit in a four-row theater surrounded by strangers. There I was, in a skirt and dangly earrings no less, wedged in among all those couples.

But then, walking home from the bus stop, I had this great idea: all I have to do is adopt a strict anti-dating policy. Then I can do whatever I want without feeling like a dating pool reject, because, screw that, I do not date. And I do not have to worry about attracting someone to date or fret about why no one wants to date me, because I have an ironclad rule: I do not date.

That is what I will tell people from now on, whenever they want to "help" me find someone to date or encourage me to "get out there." And if anyone asks me out I can simply invoke the policy, thereby saving myself a lot of trouble and heartache. The beauty of this plan is that everyone's feelings are spared, because it's nothing personal--it's just a matter of policy. I don't have to go to all the effort of trying to figure out whether some guy is awful, only to find out at some point that I was wrong anyway or that he seemed okay but later proved to be awful. I don't have to consider whether he might think I'M awful. I don't have to wonder whether he'll call. I don't have to worry about having the right thing to wear on a date.

I am a genius!

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