Dear Prudence,
Why do my friends always seem to set me up with the biggest losers they have lying around their lives? Last year I broke up with my ex. Our wedding was postponed due to COVID and instead of being disappointed, we were both just so relieved. It obviously wasn’t a good sign and we ended up making that postponement a cancellation. Now I’m back on the market. I’m a catch. Maybe not one to write home about, but I don’t think I’d be thrown back in for the seagulls to pick over. I’m presentable, socially functional, and solvent. Dating apps have turned up a pretty standard ratio of good dates to disasters, with men who are not walking red flags.
Yet, whenever one of my friends tells me they have a guy I have to meet, it’s either someone who brings his mother on the date, a man who genuinely looked me in the eye and said “Patrick Bateman is my idol,” or an active alcoholic (no shame on his problem, addiction issues run in my family too, but an addict with no plans to sober up does not strike me as a good match for anyone I like). I just don’t get it.
Do I seem so desperate that I’ll take any man with a pulse? Do they feel pressured to help me find someone and just don’t have any better options? Have I thrown off table settings by no longer having a guaranteed plus one? Do they just want someone to fix these disaster zones that are in their lives and I look like the one to do it (I’m not)? I suppose I could ask my friends, but it’s not exactly nice to describe someone in their social circle as an inveterate loser and chronic creep. And it’s not even the men who are the problem. They might all have it in them to make someone happy. I just don’t get what makes my friends, who should know me best, think that someone would be me.
—Flea Market Dates