In case there are younger guys reading, I want to (re)tell the story about what got me to think about this subject (I’ve written this before elsewhere). One of the sad aspects of growing old is that when you look back at your life, people and things that once seemed trivial become more important than you realized in retrospect.
The first time I ever set foot on college campus, at Freshman Orientation, I met a sweet, very inexperienced girl from a small town. Within hours we were “together.” That night at the sleepover in the dorms we kissed — which I practically had to teach her to do.
But she was “cute” and not sexy or beautiful. She also looked about 12 years old and had no sense of style. All of this and her “small town-ness” put me off. I wanted the hot chick(s).
Which I did get. When I returned home after orientation I started dating a high school hottie I’d been after for a while. I also blew off Orientation Girl without a second thought and without any apparent guilt (until now, ironically enough).
I had a lot of fun in college and dated the aforementioned high school girl as we went through college. But she left for California after graduation. After that I was thrown into the early ’20s dating market. And by then you start to get jaded and meet people who are even more jaded: The women with multiple abortions, countless partners, strange diseases and habits, etc.
Decades later, I was able to track Freshman Orientation Girl down on Facebook. She got married and stayed married (to someone who is a lot like me, funny enough). She looked too young back in college, which was bad. Now that quality is good.
My advice to any young guy reading this is that you probably already know the woman who would make a great wife, but you’re passing her up to ride the male version of the carousel. Unless women like these become young widows, you won’t have the chance to meet them again because they get pulled off the market and stay off the market. Forever.
