i can't get no

My dating prospects are ever-increasingly-promising here in the small town where I live and work.

Last Friday Boss-Lady and I were out to the local restaurant for dinner and drinks when the owner of one of the local businesses approached us. This guy, in his late forties, is strapping and genial and talks endlessly of his horses. He's also a pretty bad flirt with anyone who has, or once had, ovaries. Boss-Lady and I always smile and make polite conversation in return for the drinks he buys us, and wait for him to go away. He's nice, but we have only so much input into the life and psychology of the equine species.

I've seen his son around town. Nice kid, well-mannered, gentlemanly in that small-town kind of way, around my age, quiet, but you can just see him thinking "little lady" as he offers to move this or that for you. Sweet guy. Maybe high school education. And fighting with his ex-girlfriend over their kids.

So when his dad came up to us at the restaurant, he had this "look." That dad-look that men get when they're talking to a young lady who interests their sons. He said that his kid thought I was really nice. I smiled and said he was a nice kid himself, and then Dad started hinting heavily that I should have Son "take me by the house to go horseback riding."

Oh no. I tried to put it off nicely, hem-hawing like girls do, but it evidently didn't work, because last night Boss-Lady was at the restaurant by herself and Dad asked her if I was interested in Son. She said she couldn't speak for me. (Thanks a lot. Now I have to be mean.)

Meg thinks I've got that reputation -- the one of that nice, single girl in town for whom the guys are setting their caps, that girl with whom fathers would love to see their sons, and don't mind saying so. "The Belle of the Burg," if you will. I think she's right.

I think it's funny, in that absurd sort of way. I need to make treks down to South Bend once in awhile to find men with college degrees, though; it's sort of rare around here. And it's not that the guys here aren't really nice, but I just don't see many fruitful conversations. They always run when they find out I like to read, anyway; might as well save the grief.