The Bet

I’m pretty sure I’ve made reference to this in a couple previous posts, but I don’t think I’ve ever written about it on its own. A while back - maybe a couple of years ago - one of my male friends and I made a bet that the other would get into a relationship first. “That’s just awful”…yeah, yeah, whatever. I know I haven’t shied away from women because of the bet and I’d be willing to say that he hasn’t either. The reason I’m writing about it is that the two sides of the bet are rather interesting when contrasted with each other (even though this is from my perspective, so I may not be 100% correct in stating half of this - that said, I’m pretty sure I’ve got it).

Why He’ll Win: well, this is pretty easy. I think I want to be in a relationship more than he does. I’m certainly more expressive when it comes to the idea…not that that’s an absolute indicator, but this isn’t supposed to be scientific anyway. I have certain traits associated with my Zodiac sign (not that I’m an astrology nut, but when something’s right I pay attention) that are best carried out in relationships. Also, he doesn’t go out as much as I do; so I have a better chance of meeting people. He also has a better chance of winning because I’m the one with bad enough luck to lose and then have the relationship crash and burn in two months.

Why I’ll Win: there’s really one encompassing reason for this, and that’s the sheer difficulty of finding the right person. He is selective. I’m downright picky. I don’t think I’ve explicitly stated what I want in a woman (although I’ve made quite a few allusions), but let’s just say there’s not a lot of space in the middle of that Venn diagram. Even though I may very well want to be in a relationship more, my pool of candidates is much smaller. There are also less nuanced differences, like my being four years older and being skinny.

Even though we’re obviously on opposite sides of this wager - by the way, there’s nothing tangible on the line - there are some things that we definitely agree on. We agree that whoever leaves Tallahassee first will become the solid favorite to lose. We agree that the process of dating should be slow and deliberate. We agree on how we should go about the process, which is also a big part of why a winner won’t be established for a while. We agree on the things we’re not going to take on the road to losing, which is also a big part of why a winner won’t be established for a while.

Cycling through the motivations and rationale, this will be interesting. I don’t know how it’ll turn out, but I know this much: whoever wins will definitely have earned it.