YES, BUT THEY'LL BE DIVORCED IN FIVE YEARS....

From Newsweek, sent to me by Gridlife, who called it a must-read (for me anyway):

Dating: Positive Thinking

Jilly Wendell
Yes, Sir: Headley

Newsweek
Jan. 16, 2006 issue
Maria Dahvana Headley grew up listening to the "Just Say No" anti-drug campaign of the 1980s. As a student at New York University in the late '90s, she applied that advice to her love life, turning down most men who asked her out and dating only intellectual, literary types. Frustrated by those guys, she reversed course, resolving to spend one year responding positively to all flirting and saying yes to literally anyone who asked her out. The ensuing 150 dates included a homeless man, several non-English speakers, 10 taxi drivers, two lesbians and a mime.

Headley's memoir of the experience, "The Year of Yes," is now in bookstores, and Hollywood's already calling. She urges other people to say yes more often, despite some horrible dates. (One guy took her to a bar that, it became clear, was a strip club—and that's a tame example.) "Lots of women are pretty set in what they think they have to have in order to be happy, but it doesn't hurt to date people who are not that," she says. It worked for her: during her dating spree, she met a playwright who was divorced and 25 years older and had two children—baggage that would have ordinarily nixed his chances. They married in 2003; now 28, Headley lives in Seattle with two teenage stepchildren. "It's something I never would have picked, but it's turned out to be this kind of amazing experience," she says.
—Daniel McGinn

© 2006 Newsweek, Inc.


Yes, and I (Satya) have dated* the man-with-kids, the tortured artist man, the tortured blue collar man, the tortured professional man, the tortured unemployed man, the still-married man, the much-older man, the much-younger man, the much-dumber man, the foreign man, the felon man, the psoriasis man, the homeless man, and the mime.... And the Basque architect who smoked and the Brahmin architect who did not and the busboy and the Vietnam vet who played guitar and the Iraq vet who did not and the former drug addict men and the short man with the giant SUV and the 6'7" man who slept on a twin bed and the rock star ex-lawyer and the Blue Man ex-lawyer and the pro football player with the "Nobody Does it Better" sign above the bed and the just-fired man who argued using a sock puppet and the drug dealer man with the three-foot Graffix and the man whose apartment was entirely white and the man who lied about his age and couldn't get over the death of his dog and the man with the Barbie doll room and sidewinder and the 12-step man who wouldn't ask for the check and the radio producer man and the music producer men and the man from the produce aisle and even a couple of brothers. In other words, everyone but the muffin man.


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*Dating as in "gone on a date with."

**OK, OK -- a couple of these guys are one-and-the-same.... and I'm still dating one of 'em.***

***Guess which one and win a copy of my first book