Add Lifetime Movies To The List of Reasons Why I'm Still Single

Not making enough of an effort to find the special girl has been an issue for me. I knew I had a

problem the time my two friends-- Al and Justin-- and I visited my sister at

Newport Beach, RI.

We were summoned to RI under my sister's headline of: "You

guys won't believe this place: The Atlantic Beach Club(ABC). My friends and I will be partying there

outside all day—there will be tons of girls there".

Naturally, my buddies and I headed up to RI with high

hopes. There was a great venue

(beach towns are always good venues), and my sister (who went to Boston

College) was a total in. After all

these years of bothering my sister to help us meet her friends, we were finally

going to immerse ourselves into the scene under the sun in a great bar.

This is where the mistakes began.

Our first mistake was renting a bed & breakfast for the

weekend. We didn't want to cram in with my sister, and we didn't want to stay

in squalor either. So we settled

on a quant bed and breakfast on top of a hill right in town. OK, so three guys staying at a bed

& breakfast—not bad if it's going to be balanced by partying with cute

girls at the ABC.

The next afternoon was ABC day. With a few hours to kill before our meeting time, we

switched on the TV and happened upon a phenomenal Lifetime movie. A high school girl had created an

illegal gambling ring at her school and had fallen into a fast life of drugs

and sex. The three of us were old

pros at Lifetime movies.

1. Calling out random stars:

"Oh my god, that's the principal from Saved By The Bell!"

"Dennis Haskins," chimes in any viewer worth their salt.

2. Predicting

My friend Justin is amazing at this. I suck at it. I'll say: "she's going to steal that car to run her husband

over and then blame it on his mistress."

Justin will scold me: "No way. Too much. She'll poison him with that chemical that the guy who she slept with who

was also painting her house left behind." Justin is 95% accurate. Al

just goes: "Oh my god, unbelievable."

Everyone can agree that a woman will cry in the corner of

the shower at some point in any Lifetime movie.

Around 3PM, another Lifetime movie started up immediately.

In this one, Delta Burke was getting beaten up by her teenage son every time he

got mad and put on heavy metal music. Absolutely ridiculous. We all looked at each other. OK, we could be a

little late to the ABC.

Lifetime's short breaks between movies killed us. By the time 10 PM rolled around, and my

sister had given up on us and was way too drunk to even see us, we had watched

9 straight hours of Lifetime movies without moving. We did manage to make it out to a bar after that, but it was

nothing like the amazingness that would have been the ABC (which was sounding like a suicide

bomber's heaven the way my sister was describing the plethora of young

girls).

Total mission failure. In a third of a day, we had shirked our male single responsibility to

meet my sister for drinks and play with the girls to instead curl up in a bed

and breakfast and watch Lifetime movies together.

In my defense, I must say that a good string of Lifetime

movies is as addicting as crack.

But as we sat in the foyer of the B & B chatting with

the old lady who served us OJ, we realized something was wrong. Even she looked at us like we sucked.

But, it brings up the question—is finding that special girl

something that requires the same dogged pursuit as finding the dream job? Or, should I listen to them when they

tell me not to look too hard and it will just happen? I think, according to my sister, it might be a little bit of

both. When she does bring a cute

friend or co-worker out at my request, I'm angry at her for not giving the girl

a total briefing on how cool I am and how she should hook up with me.

"I got her in the same room as you, my job is done," my

sister will say.

So, do I try hard to find the special girl, or will she come

to me? What do you think?