How Dating is Like Buying Jeans

Part One:

If you're a guy, this is how you buy new jeans: you walk into the store. You look for the proper waist size and length. You buy the jeans.

I shouldn't admit this, but this makes me really angry. Possibly more angry than many other examples of gender inequality, which is shallow, but there it is.

This what I (and I suspect, many other women) face when shopping for jeans:

1. Go into store. Face some sort of evil wall of denim.
2. Consider the rise: medium? low? ultra low?
3. Consider the cut: skinny? trouser? bootleg? boyfriend? flare?
4. Consider the length. Sadly, it's not measured in inches, but in descriptive terms: petite, regular, long. You have no way of knowing what these mean in terms of actual length. Guess.
5. Consider the wash: light? dark? regular? distressed? (At this point, I'm usually pretty distressed. I won't lie.)
6. Sizing. Let's talk about sizing. Sizing is different between every designer, brand, and sometimes, cut. This is not awesome, because it means that a size 0* in one style is a size 6 in another style. If you're conscious about what size you are, this can make a visit to a store to buy pants an exercise in self loathing.

Part Two:

The self loathing bit is how dating can be like buying jeans.

Because if you're measuring your self worth by what size your pants are, you are making an error in judgement. If you think that what is important and lovely about you is the number on the tag of the pants that are currently making the junk in your trunk look fabulous, then you have an issue.

Or, more precisely: if you let a pair of pants make you think there is something wrong with you -- well, there IS something wrong with you. But it's not what you think.

And if you're dating and someone doesn't like you, if you assume that it means that there's something wrong with you -- well, again, you do have an issue. But it's not because person x, who is leaning back in the chair across the restaurant table, doesn't enjoy you.

It's because you don't enjoy you.

It's because you never think: wow, these pants don't look good at all. Too bad more designers don't appreciate how fabulous my curvy tush is, and then go find pants that do love your tush, and which make you love your backside even more. It's because you immediately go to a place where you decide that you are wrong and the pants are right.

And when someone you're interested in isn't interested back, you go to a place where you decide that they are a fabulous, worthy human being and you have done something wrong that makes them not like you.

Part Three:

It's not you. It's THEM.

YOU are right. The pants? Are wrong. So you toss them aside and find new pants.

A date that doesn't like you? Is just a person who doesn't get you. I know being rejected is lousy and can make you feel bad. But a bad date is like bad pants. Some fit. Some don't. So you keep looking until you find what fits, what shows off how fabulous you are, what makes you want to be more fabulous.

Because you are fabulous. You rock those jeans just like you're going to rock your life: Joyously, in the most comfortable and wonderful way.

*Using 0 as a clothing size is the equivalent of Spinal Tap having an amp that goes to 11. Why not just make 2 the smallest? Because this one goes to 0. NOT COOL.