Since I've been gone...

Alright, I’ve been slacking off a little on this whole blog thing lately and for that I apologize. Apparently there is a good deal of you out there (more than five, less than ten) that enjoy reading these things. I didn’t know I meant so much to you. I honestly have some relatively good excuses…sort of. My Monday blog that should have been done earlier this week didn’t make it to press due to me staying at my folk’s house all weekend taking care of their dogs. I didn’t have my laptop with me. Well, wait, yes I did, but my folks don’t have wifi at their place and my non-wireless network card doesn’t work in my computer, so I didn’t have access to my notes etc. So there you go, that is why I miss my early week blog entry. Sure, I could have done it later on, but I try not to waste time on my blog on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday due to the fact that I have classes and should be working on those. I didn’t get it done on Friday this week because I had a relatively busy day compared to how my usual Friday goes. I had a lunch meeting with a friend, a client meeting for my class project, to help my mother put up Halloween decorations outside their house, and then the Rangers first ALCS game (don’t get me started on how elated and heartbroken I was in a span of four hours due to that one). Today we celebrated my folk’s anniversary which is actually Monday, so I have just gotten around to doing this (since I can’t sleep and there is nothing on TV).

I have struggled with what to talk about in this blog since my life lately has been a little less than exciting. Sure, I’ve been busy and done some fun things, but none of them seemed terribly blog-worthy. So, I’m going to my playbook and coming out with a canned topic I thought up when I first decided to refocus my blogging efforts toward talking about my life. There is a neat little list I made up that is saved as a Word file on my desktop (if you know me, you know how seriously OCD I can be at times and how forgetful I can be at other times, so making lists gets me through my everyday life). It started with things that I noticed I do on a regular basis. Then it started to include things that seem uniquely bachelor-esque. Then it mutated into things that bothered me or were on my mind at that specific moment. No, the topic this week is not my blog topic list or how I make lists in general (though that topic has now made it onto my blog topic list). My blog topic this week has come about due to some things I’ve experienced over the past week and a half.

This topic may not seem important to some of you, but to a man such as me, in my situation, this is a very important part of daily life. I’m talking about chick radar. The reason this topic came to me started on Thursday when I was at the State Fair with my brother, sister (in-law), and niece. We were walking into the fair past the crowd control barriers and ticket booths when out of the corner of my eye I spotted her. The first thing I noticed was blond hair. Now, I’m not necessarily a guy who digs blonds (all the girls I’ve dated were natural brunettes except one who was dirty blond at her lightest). It’s hard not to notice a blond. They stick out in a crowd, especially when that crowd is filled with rambling geriatrics (apparently Thursday was senior citizen day at the fair). She was cute, shorter than I would usually go for, but hey, you don’t have to be picky when you’re just looking (sounds terrible, I know). She disappeared into the crowd and I thought nothing of it after that. Then, it happened again. Standing in front of the Fletcher’s corn dog stand waiting on my sister to get something to eat, a pretty brunette slipped through the crowd toward the auto show building. I locked on right away. Once is just a coincidence, but two times of finding the prettiest girl in the crowd, that’s almost uncanny.

My brother had noticed how much my head had been on a swivel and mentioned something about the second girl who seemed to be working at the car show. Now, this was a full minute or more after she had caught my eye, which struck me a little. The situation became more apparent as we were leaving the butterfly enclosure (not my idea to see the butterflies, but don’t get me started on that) about an hour or so later in the day. We were walking across the lobby of the building where the butterfly deal is and there was this six-foot, gorgeous brunette and her shorter but equally cute friend paying to get into the exhibit. They were right there, plain sight, so I figured you’d have to be blind to miss them. My brother and sister disappeared to change my niece’s diaper and when they came back and asked what we should do next, I said, “I’d like to go back and see the butterflies again.” My brother was stunned by that and asked, “Why?!” I of course said, “Didn’t you see that six-foot brunette and her friend in line to get in?” He said he hadn’t. I realized then and there, my chick radar had kicked back on.

Every man has some form of chick radar. I even knew a homosexual gentleman who could spot the hottest girl in the room before the straight guys could. It’s nature or something like that. Beautiful women just get your attention right away. They draw your gaze. To quote the film Beautiful Girls: “A beautiful girl can make you dizzy, like you've been drinking Jack and Coke all morning. She can make you feel high…full of the single greatest commodity known to man - promise.” Sometimes this chick radar can just click off or stop working. As in the case of my brother, who is happily married to a woman he thinks he doesn’t deserve and the father of the prettiest baby girl I’ve ever seen. When life works for you like that, chick radar just isn’t needed. But, when you’re single, you know you’re single, and have somehow come to the conclusion that being single is best thing for you right now, then chick radar is your best friend. It shows you all the wonderful prospects out there. It shows you how beautiful women don’t just exist in your dreams or on TV. They’re right there, in front of you every day. This is the greatness of chick radar. I had noticed it starting up late last month when having dinner with a group of old friends in a trendy restaurant in Frisco (an upscale suburb of Dallas). I was the only single person at the table (a topic I’ll touch on at a later date)…and the only one who noticed the bachelorette party that was seated two tables away. That, my friends, is chick radar.

Now for the sensitive side of me to make a statement: in no way do I measure a woman’s worth by her appearance. Nor do I base my relationships, whether friendship or something more, solely on looks. I doubt there are many who will argue whether it takes an initial physical attraction to spark a relationship. Of course it does. But what makes relationships work, what makes relationships last, is personalities. I haven’t been in a relationship that didn’t involve attraction not just physically, but also mentally and emotionally (because I wouldn’t invest myself in a relationship that didn’t have those things). To quote Prince Akeem from Coming to America: “I want a woman that will arouse my intellect as well as my loins!”