by Karen Boss.

Baseball season and dating season begin at the same time. Most people (especially those of us who have suffered a long winter) find that when spring begins its slow crawl - and our favorite team starts winning, we are ready to begin anew our search for a perfect mate for the long summer days and even longer summer nights.

Dating (and baseball) season has only been open since April, and already I’m losing steam. I am no Dice-K, that’s for damn sure.

The Red Sox may be still leading the American League (and 8 over the Yankees I might add smugly), but I’m certainly not up in the dating standings in the third month of the season.

First loss: A man who right before our third date told me he wasn’t looking for a relationship but wanted to keep hanging out. Spending time one-on-one with someone my age, who is a man and attractive and calling it friendship is not on my list. Fake-dating sucks, no matter how you cut it. So I bailed.

Second loss: A guy who spent 3 hours buying me beers and having a great conversation. I saw him at two work events, one where he fetched me a beer and asked for my opinion on a gift for his mom and one where he mostly ignored me but then sought me out to say bye and threw in a “Hey, baby, I’m leaving” for, I don’t know, good measure?

Third loss: The guy I had offered a ride home to after our second date. Note to all the male readers out there: when a woman offers you a ride home, and you arrive there, you have two choices. One, invite her up. Two, get out. There is not a sit-in-the-car-and-chat choice.

Fourth loss: The fight over IM. I kid you not. He mentioned that he’d rather be lucky than smart. I said that I thought luck was a result of hard work with potentially some privilege thrown in. He asked my definition of privilege; I defined it as having resources, support, and things such as race and gender assignment by accident of birth and/or parentage. He asked why I use “gender” instead of “sex” and I said because I think “gender” is more inclusive, allowing for a continuum rather than simply “male” or “female”. He said, and I quote, “deconstructive masking by disguise. egregious pc-ism makes one’s teeth itch, or should.” The final result: he said that none of his success is due to his being white or male and that anyone who believes that is Marxist. So there you go with that one.

Fifth loss: Phone call with one guy who seemed sweet. But he asked twice over email if I had put him under speed dial. Chill, dude. The fact that you are even in my phone is more a result of technology-driven laziness than of anything else.

And finally the sixth: I went on a same-day date (which every rule book of dating says you shouldn’t do) with guy and had a fine conversation. But, I drove through a lot of stop signs (you know, red flags on dates you know you should listen to and don’t). First stop sign: he sat there, making no move to go to the bar to get us beers, and let me get them. Stop sign 2: When I was up at the bar, he yelled over, “Will you get me loaded fries, too?” Stop sign 3: He was wearing dark pants, white socks and black shoes and anyone could clearly see his pants were far too short (last I checked men are able to buy their pants by the number of inches of length they need).