Food Blind

I wouldn't call myself high maintenance because that phrased has shifted to just mean crazy but I would call myself someone who needs maintenance a lot. We've shifted a lot of phrases to just mean crazy in order to fit the crazy people out there and by crazy I mean people who aren't me. My maintenance means I need to take care of my body and my environment in order to have a happy head. And one of my favorite ways to take care of my body is by feeding it. Food! I live in NYC the food capital of the world and though Kosher restaurants are usually a year or so behind the trends, we all get there eventually. We have a Kosher Japanese/Peruvian place now. Did you know those two countries went together? Neither did I!

So then there's a problem. Sometimes guys take me out for food. They do this because it's romantic, or easy to plan, or they are also hungry. And, if they take me out for really good food, then I will often get food blindness.

Food blindness is when the food that the boy buys you is so good that you just kind of fall in love because happy stomach=happy life. Your thinking brain shuts down and your animal brain kicks in and says things like "He may have asked the waitress to switch tables twice but who cares he might have more pasta." Red and yellow flags are nothing-NOTHING-to a well cooked piece of steak. You can't say no to a boy after he got you steak. First of all because you feel guilty that he spent so much money on you and second of all because now you're an animal on the hunt for more where that came from.

Can I buy and cook my own food? Of course. Can I go to restaurants by myself and have a marvelous time? Oh yes. But this food is free of all effort except smiling and asking follow up questions to ridiculous stories.

The effort of the date washes away when food is involved because now I'm comfortable and my main goals in life involve moving from one source of comfort to another.

But then, I get my sight back. And I'm on a date with a guy who I cannot stand/is actually crazy.

How did I get here? I comb back through my memories....there was pasta...then meat...another night pizza...some bakery stuff...more pasta...did I agree to marry this guy?

Oh G-D.

I'm wearing a ring.

He got me. He just took me from restaurant to restaurant and somewhere in there he proposed and I probably said "yes and pass the ketchup."

I think I need to start rating my food dates differently. Like, everyone else is on a 10 point scale and food dates are on a 15 point scale and both are converted into percentages. Or I can ask the waitress to rate it instead.

Of course, I've had miserable food dates but in the post COVID I don't know what the world will look like tomorrow existence food has morphed into a greater source of comfort for me.

I look back through my past few experiences. Who got second dates? Whoever got me food.

Not the best way to pick out a potential mate post the cavemen era.

Unless I am to assume my stomach knows something that my head doesn't. And considering where my head has landed me (writing a blog about my dating life in my lateish twenties with no prospects) maybe it's time that I let my stomach take over completely.