He's Just Not That Into You...

What makes people “into” each other?

When I was single, I used to have a list. A super-duper dating checklist. It helped me navigate through the sea of potentials. I don’t like to waste time. I’m ridiculously efficient. Why should dating have been any different?

Dating is a task. It’s something you have to do in order to find The One. I figured it should have guidelines. Criteria. A set of standards by which to measure possible candidates.

Shut up. I told you I’m efficient and I'm a teacher. We live by standards. Do you want to see the checklist or not?

Well, then, pipe down and read on.

Christine’s Super-Duper Dating Checklist

Name: _________________(insert name of victim…uh…I mean applicant, here)

___has a job

___likes his job

___is good with money

___can cook (particularly knows what tiramisu is)

___doesn’t care about watching sports on TV

___knows what to do with a table saw

___wears work boots (okay if only on the weekends while using a table saw)

___reads

___likes supernatural stuff

___plays an instrument or is willing to learn

___likes to be active

___is creative

___is intelligent (must be able to play a solid game of Scrabble)

___has a sense of humor (can take and make jokes)

___loves animals

___loves being outside

___questions things

___doesn’t want children (When you're firm on not wanting them, you've got to have this one on the checklist. Must! For me, if the candidate wanted them, we weren't going on a date. It'd only waste everyone's time.)

___doesn’t like the city

___Italian (my grandmother insisted)

___doesn’t settle (always dreams of more)

___is a great problem solver

___tries new things

___is a good kisser

___understands that M&Ms solve everything

This checklist really helped me spend my time on compatible individuals back in the day and allowed me to find The Husband… who, by the way, got very high scores on this. He's been an A+ student ever since too.

What do/did you look for in a potential? Are/were you as tough as I was?

For some fun with guys who are totally into their gals, check out my Maple Leaf Series. Book One is More Than Pancakes and is available now.

And Book Two, More Than Cookies, is coming in August. Check out the cover below. See what it's about at my website.

What do/did you look for in a potential? Are/were you as tough as I was?

Toodles,

Chris

www.christinedepetrillo.weebly.com

Hot August Knights - A Different View

By Betsy Ashton

While driving back from a terrific writers conference recently, I thought about how to pull together my second blog for this month. I kicked around dozens of ideas during my windshield time. I didn't have a spark of inspiration until I got home and checked e-mail. Staring me in the face was a world of opportunities. All I had to do was point and click.

Somewhere along the line, dating sites got on to me. Daily I get invites to join and find the man of my dreams, my knight in shining armor. Forget the fact that I wake up with the man of my dreams every day. These sites don't want to know from reality. They offer fantasy. On one day here were my choices.

Christian Mingle said I should join and find Christ, the man of my dreams and a life of worship and religion, all for joining a social networking site. Hmm. A couple of things are wrong with this. First, I'm happily married, so cheating seems a violation of the Christian Mingle guidelines. Still, there is the invitation. I have another bit of a problem with this invitation. I'm a Buddhist. 'Nuff said.

J-Date thought I should hook up with a nice Jewish boy. Again, guidelines suggested it would help if I were Jewish, but it isn't necessary. Singlehood is, however. Don't think I'm going to divorce my husband in hopes of finding a nice Jewish boy. I married one of them once. 'Nuff said.

I had my choice of hot Asian singles, hot black studs, Indian men and hot, horny marrieds in my area who wanted a casual hook up. In my area?  Most of the people are retired in my area. I'm not sure there's much spark left, but it has promise. For someone else.

I was laughing so hard when I opened a couple of these sites that my husband had to provide mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. And it wasn't even night, but it was kinda hot. I thought about looking on Craig's List (yes, there was an entry for men looking for love in all the wrong places), but I was bored.

I thought about all the hot August nights I've enjoyed with my husband in California, New York, Tokyo, Bangkok, Singapore, Hong Kong, Austin, Houston -- you get the idea. The more I thought about my good luck in meeting my Mr. Wonderful in a bar in Tokyo thirty years ago, the more I decided not to answer any of the ads in my inbox. I moved them into the spam folder and emptied it.

I'll stay with the best man I ever met. And I didn't even have to advertise on the web to find him. Enjoy your fantasies and realities of love in the month of August. He's my knight, no matter that he doesn't have armor. No better time to be in love, unless it's the other eleven months of the year.

Weird Behavior? Moi? I Hide Plants....

By @GlenysOConnell

I hide plants.

There, I've confessed. 

While everyone else is out there nurturing their pretty green garden plants and jewel-toned flowers, I’m hiding houseplants. It's not like this is some dark secret  vice or anything - like talking to dead people or collecting booze bottles or having a mad crush on Justin Bieber  (if I was blah-blah years younger, maybe…)

No, I hide plants for their own good. Ever since a certain young lady came to visit for a while, brought by one of my sons, there hasn't been a safe place for plants anywhere in my house.

Her name's Miss Kitteh and she eats house plants. Now there's a dark secret vice if ever there was one.

It all started when the aforementioned son decided he was changing jobs and couldn’t keep his beloved cat with him until he had got settled in his new apartment. I sighed a bit (we already have two cats) but agreed. Of course, it was only going to be for a week or two.

That was three months ago.

And in that time, Ms. Kitteh has cut a swathe of devastation through my pride-and-joy house plants. Even worse, she's got the other cats chewing on them as well.

So I have plants hidden on a high shelf in the bathroom. And two on the guestroom window sill - a forbidden spot for cats but unfortunately, one where the plants get forgotten at watering time. Then there's in the window behind my desk, and another - one of my favourites - hidden on a filing cabinet behind my office door. And that door is kept tightly shut.

I occasionally wake up in a sweat (yeah, it's an age thing) wondering if I remembered to close that office door. Of course, I then elbow DH awake to ask him if he noticed it was closed. It's a good thing he's pretty patient. Or maybe just too tired to care.

Of course, I've read that some house plants are dangerous to cats if they chew them. That may be so, but nothing seems to upset Miss Kitteh's digestion.

What worries me is how I'm going to retrain the other two to stop chewing, once Miss Kitteh goes back to her rightful slave. I mean, owner.

She's a former stray with sharp claws, sharp fangs and an even sharper temper. But you know something? We'll miss her when she goes to her new home.

Like, really.

Glenys O'Connell, a card carrying member of the Crazy Cat Lady Club, can often be seen waving her arms to stop traffic while she rescues turtles, frogs, snakes, chipmunks and other assorted creatures on busy highways. Friends predict that one day she'll be smucked by a fast moving transport. But until that day, she plans to keep right on writing - right now working on Never Kiss Another Frog - a romance writer's guide to dating for women who no longer believe in fairy tales! Visit her at Romance Can Be Murder! or on Twitter at @GlenysOConnell