The year I officially stopped dating

It's no mystery to people who love me that it is my heart's desire to meet a wonderful man whose crazy ying works perfectly with my crazy yang and the two of us can build a life together and have babies that we could try our hardest not to mess up or at least make sure they aren't as messed up as us.

I know I am not perfect. I know I have my issues and problems and I know I am not the most beautiful girl in the world. In the room yes. In the world, probably not. Whatever the case, I would have never thought in a million years that finding a quality man would be such a difficult task.

The year 2009 has by far been the craziest dating story year ever.

It started in January with the journalist that a few hours before our first date, he sent me a text message breaking up with me saying, "Toya I think we should move on and see other people. It's not you its me." Funny because since it was just our first day, I was under the impression that we were already seeing other people. He was absolutely right. It wasn't me, it was definitely him.

Then there was the classmate with the white shoes who seemed quite awe struck by my beauty. We flirted for weeks and then one evening he proclaimed is affection towards me. I found it adorable and quite flattering. We chatted, exchanged emails and even shared a romantic kiss or two. Although he never confirmed it, his silences to my accusation of him being married (because of his unavailability), confirmed it. We never spoke again.

Next came Wing Man. We had met a few years earlier but never went out. When we met up again he approached me as a friend and offered to go out with me as my "wing man" to help me get out and meet other men. He would always call and ask me out, pick me up, and pick up the tab when we hung out. He did the things a man would do when he is dating a woman. A week later he professed that he wanted to "date" me. He said he had felt that he was given a second chance with me and did not want to mess it up. After I agreed to "date" he suddenly got busy and unavailable. Several months later he explained that he got the impression that I was looking for something serious and did not want anyone to get hurt. When I expressed that an adult conversation would have been more appropriate he sheepishly agreed.

My next experience was so wonderfully bad that it deserved a blog of its own.

Then came the last week of November and the first week of December. I had 3, yes 3 dates cancel on me in two weekends. The hot guy with the hot body, the one I really liked, canceled because of work. He asked if we could reschedule for later in the week. I suggested he call me to work out the details and we've never spoken since.

The African, canceled because he was too tired after a day of Black Friday shopping. Instead of rescheduling, he popped up on IM a couple of times to basically share how busy he was taking care of his 14 year old son. He has since been blocked

The there was the Stupid Sheriff. Excuse me the Stupid Deputy Sheriff. We agreed that we would meet on Saturday and he was to call me Thursday for details. I never heard from him until the following Tuesday and instead of explaining his flakiness he simply texted me a Tiger Woods joke. He followed up his dumb text with two other texts reading, "Hey!!!! How are you?" When I didn't reply he texted again asking if he had scared me off. I took this opportunity to share with him why I was no longer interested. He proceeded to use the family matters card, apologized and told me I deserve better. He is absolutely right. I most certainly do.

So here we are less than three weeks away from a New Year 2010. Every year I find myself wondering what will this year bring. Will this be the year I meet my partner, my mate. I can honestly say 2009 has cured me. I am done. Over and out!