I'm a total sucker for investigative/"year in the life" books. Even when I don't particularly enjoy them, I almost always feel compelled to finish them. This was the case, this past weekend, with Rachel Machacek's The Science of Single: One Woman's Grand Experiment in Modern Dating, Creating Chemistry, and Finding Love.
Machacek, who lives in Washington DC and works for a trade magazine, decided that she would undertake a year's worth of power dating--leaving no stone unturned* in her search for "the one." During her quest she enrolled in online dating services, attended singles events and mixers, paid dating services**, committed to dating in other cities, read a pile of dating advice books, and hired dating coaches.
I'll let you read it and find out if she finds her "One," but let me just say this: if the guys she dates are representative, wow, it's a scary dating world out there. Although I wasn't crazy about the author as a character (she did seem a little picky, I'll admit it, and her insistence on immediate and overpowering chemistry was a bit off-putting after a while), she did make me laugh a few times. Consider:
"He's a good kisser, but the chemistry has waned at exactly the same rate that my buzz has worn off. It's gone by the time he goes for the boob grab, awkwardly reaching under my seat belt that's still fastened. There's a time and place for boob grabbing, and when you are thirty-five years old, you should know when and where that is." (p. 38.)
Ha. (Funny sad.) Although I can't find the page right now, later on she decides that guys should really be taught the aforementioned proper place and time in health class, as they are all helpless at mastering a properly timed boob grab. I totally agree.
I'm sitting here trying to think of some pithy way to sum this one up, but nothing's really coming to me. It's that kind of read--okay but not really anything to write home (or on one's blog) about.
*It seems like this literally sometimes, as many of the guys she dates seem to have slithered out from under a primordial rock somewhere.
**She paid one company, It's Just Lunch, $1300 for fourteen date match-ups. Holy cow. I need to get into the dating advice business.
Thanks for the review. I am definitely reading this as even my bachelor matches on OKCupid are so awful that I wonder what's up with men these days.
Posted by: Kerry | 08 June 2011 at 08:34 AM
Kerry,
You're welcome. From my own sad dating days I remember it being tough to find a somewhat normal guy so I second your question: what IS up with men these days?
Posted by: Citizen Reader | 08 June 2011 at 09:10 AM
Um, she lives in DC. Enough said.
And thanks for the encouraging words!
Posted by: Sarah | 08 June 2011 at 11:51 AM
New one: MY YEAR WITH ELEANOR by Noelle Hancock (July)
Posted by: Sarah | 08 June 2011 at 01:11 PM
Sarah,
Thanks for the new title!
Does everyone know something about DC that I don't? Bad town for men?
Posted by: Citizen Reader | 08 June 2011 at 10:10 PM
Well, it's all full of big egos who are working 100-hr weeks. Think Anthony you-know-who.
Posted by: Sarah | 09 June 2011 at 12:02 PM
Sarah,
Isn't that guy's last name the best EVER? Now THAT is funny.
Posted by: Citizen Reader | 09 June 2011 at 01:09 PM