There are Friday and Saturday nights where I wonder whether I should go out or not. Go on, my little voice tells me, Go out and have a drink. Don't be such a shut-in. Maybe make a new friend, maybe pick someone up.

There are times I do go out (just read the Cincinnati portion of this blog, hah!). But the last few weekends, I haven't felt like it.

Then I wonder, did I miss something? Perhaps I would have made a new friend, maybe I could have had some great sex. Maybe, I would have met HIM. (organ music/cut to commercial.)

Well, I guess I'm not too concerned.

I've made it through just fine without meeting Mr. Right to date, and I highly doubt he's waiting for me at a bar (although where he IS waiting, I have no clue). He, and I, can wait a little more.

As for sex and friendship: Maybe what kept me back was my experiences here before. Lots of smoking, lots of drinking. A little bit of bar-fighting in case things got dull. Maybe someone getting sick in the bathroom. Yaaaaaay.

I'm not missing a thing.

This is probably a good time as any to say a word about what qualities I look for when I *do* go out.

I'll pick a place where there's a good number of people inside, but not too many. Some empty seats at the bar for me to sit, or I'll stand by the pool table if there's a game going on.

I'll strike up a conversation with someone, sometimes people will strike up conversations with me. If I do the striking, I try to meet people I judge to be "my age". My age means these folks are at least 30-something. They should be in relatively good shape, and I prefer people who don't smoke. (Unfortunately in Ohio, that means almost no one.)

There are other qualities: I don't like barflies, so I avoid the folks who know everyone in the place by cutesy names, and have not-so-inside-jokes I suspect they repeat endlessly, "so did you find out whether the fireman had a big hose?" ahaaablaahabablaaa (cough coughing on cigarette smoke).

Dayton, at least two years ago, doesn't give me much to look forward to now. Everyone was a barfly. It was the first place I lived where people wanted to pick fights. One person snapped his t-shirt in my face; maybe he thought that was cute. I had a couple of aggressive folks corner me and get hostile when I said "no". Doesn't give a good vibe, does it?

Am I making excuses? Underlying this is another theme -- about aging and age-appropriate behavior. Is it bad to admit that I'm just fine sitting at home reading a book and watching a movie? Nah.

Well, not sure that this past weekend's alternatives were any better: I read that 1968 self-help book by Vernon Howard and... what a waste of time. Those books are like an addiction or something with me, really. On PBS, I watched The Unsinkable Molly Brown -- not that great, I didn't think.

On a better note, I knocked out a few chapters of Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird, a book on writing that is written simply and with humor.

Eventually I'll go out again. And I'll write about it. Maybe the local yokels will be different this time. If not, then Cincinnati, and now Columbus and Indianapolis, are not that far away...