"So why are you not dating?"

Is anybody else in love with this question the way I am? Isn't it a great one? I mean, don't you just want to jump up and down and say, "Oh my gosh, you've just enlightened me! I've realized my hang-ups and am now free to date the 8 jillion guys in line to ask me out."

Actually, what we want to do, as Kait says, is stick our middle finger up and tell them to go away in no uncertain terms, but instead, we smile politely, make up some appropriately nice social commentary that tides us over until we get home, and then we keel over and scream with frustration.

I for one am not dating because 1) No one's asked. and 2) No one's asked.

That's really my only reason at the moment. I actually tried to ask someone out last week - by tried, I mean I said "would you want to go out for coffee with me? Wed? At 8?" He said no. Which PJ says is okay, since I am actually dateable. Or maybe it was marketable. I asked him what he meant by this. Our conversation went something like this:

PJ: You asked a guy out? That's awesome!

G: You think that's a good strategy?

PJ: Great? I think it's the ONLY strategy...I mean, he knows then, and you'll know if he's into you and it's either yes and you can move on or no and you can move on. Either way, it's all good. Whereas I'm having trouble here. Nobody says yes to me.

Greta: Really?

PJ: Well, you know, would you date me?

Greta: No, actually, never.

PJ: See?

I pointed out that this doesn't count because he is my brother, but he insisted that I was more dateable than he was.

Anyway, the point being that dating has morphed into this weird sort of thing...whatever happened to getting a drink with someone? Has this custom died down? It seems like one is either dating someone exclusively or not dating at all. What happened to the girl who went out with a couple guys a week? Does this happen anymore? Can anyone tell me?

As LKT says, "I don't really know how people get married. I mean, seriously, how does it happen?"

I'm not even curious about the marriage part, I just want to know how people start to date. How does it all work?