That annoying itch when a wound is healing or is infected always calls out to be addressed. Therefore, we remove the band-aid and between air and antiseptic, it feels better. However, we also get to look at the inner workings of our body and some bacteria, which usually isn’t pleasant. I recently had a similar glimpse into the underbelly of relationships  causing me to gasp for air.

Because of recent news  documenting women killed and/or assaulted after contacting men on a certain “List” I had to wonder. Seriously, do people really date someone from the same place they sell old lawnmowers, used breast pumps and potty chairs? Regardless, just like ripping back a band-aid I was itching to understand this lower level need for companionship. I clicked onto men seeking woman and let the  infection begin!

I’m not exactly sure what man in his right mind – and that may indeed be my answer, assumes a photograph taken by cell phone in his bathroom with the heading “love me big jugs” would send Sinatra style chills through women. I know what it sent through me, and even though there were chills involved, it stopped short of a serenade. The ads continued from there every bit as dysfunctional, disgusting and delusional as the next, which left me bothered, bewildered and far from bewitched. Needless to say, there were close to 200 of these assaults to my sanity, leaving me to wonder what was sadder the women who answered them or the men writing them.

Keeping that thought in mind, I moved to the women seeking men column wondering what my fellow hunters in the dating jungle were looking for, and found myself amused. Although there were titillating titles, what immediately struck me was the lack of them. In stark comparison, the ratio must have been 2 for every 25 on the male side. Either  demographics for the human race are changing, or women have just given up, and if asked I would agree with the latter.

Listing qualities I someday hoped to find in my soul mate  very long ago was part of the time honored ritual of the single young woman. There was fantasy and even a little naughty, hoping Prince Charming would appear and we would age watching the sunset. Sadly,  the majority of those dreamy Prince’s have announced they’re Queens and no longer young women, we have been left with an underbelly of back hair covered crude testosterone, which  I for one prefer to walk away from – even if they think it’s good enough to advertise and photograph.

It must be something in the water as my mother used to say, because for the life of me I don’t remember honest, compassionate, funny and romantic men being put on the list of extinct species. Why is it so difficult to find someone to share a sunbeam across a week-end couch, laugh at an old cartoon or just touch feet with in the night, knowing it conveys as much satisfaction and emotion as any wild week-end? However, don’t get me wrong a wild week-end of frolic is always a good thing, and even this old gal remembers what a can of chilled cream can whip up. It is though that warm sunbeam and what it represents, which is the foundation for such whipped up romance and it is also what seems to have disappeared between too many lists in life.

The hunters have become flabby bottom feeders because they no longer need to seek out feminine prey and the one time femmes are far from fatal, putting very little effort towards the inevitable. Self-esteem has fallen off everyone’s list if you ask me. Maybe if it weren’t so easy to punch a few keys on a computer for cyber companionship there would be more honest matchmaking and sparks firing up the world making date night hot once again.

I remember a playboy cartoon years ago with a woman using her feet to fondle her naked husband as they sat across from each other reading magazines. The caption said, “No Edna I don’t think you’re kinky, you’re just lazy.” At the time it was humorous, but thinking about it now there isn’t anything funny about it, just a harbinger of relationships no one ever saw coming.

We don’t need to worry about the political decline of our world; it is already slowly matching the overall decline of who we are, our expectations and our commitment to really just about anything. Our food, dating, relationships and even children have  all become fast and easy, most times selected from lists and usually not completely thought out. The list is simple for the vast majority, wake up, work a while, go back to bed and before you know it, it’s time to die – nothing that requires much effort.

Amazing how far we have come and yet nobody has ever mentioned everything important we seem to have left behind.