While waiting to fall asleep when I was a kid, I dreamed up my future – what color house I’d have, whether or not there’d be a picket fence, how many children would be invading the front lawn, and what my husband’s profession would be. If you’ve read even one of my blog posts, you know that my life has not even remotely ended up this way.

Now I dream of more tangible things – items I can actually work toward – trips, volunteering, and living abroad again. I can’t make someone love me or make a perfect match magically appear, but I can practice Spanish for the dream trip to Ecuador I’d like to take. I can email organizations and ask them for raffle donations for charities for which I’m on the board. I can research the cheapest flight to Fort Lauderdale and NYC so I can meet my HK friends. There’s a lot I can do, but procuring a mate just doesn’t happen to be one of them.

I could spend hours playing the online dating field, but clearly that’s produced nil results. So instead I find new projects, join more boards, volunteer more hours, hop on Rosetta Stone, and now that the weather is nice go outside. These things won’t make up for the lonely nights or the envious tears that spring up when I see a romantic comedy, but they will produce new friends and get me out of the office and my apartment. Maybe, just maybe, it’ll even produce men that I can meet in real life.