What's a girl to do?

Lately I've been realizing 2 things. One- most of my close friends are either married or in very committed and long term relationships. Two- the rest of my friends are either single and dating or single until they are rescued by their knight in shining armour or both. lol. Having been single for, well I guess I'm nearing two years now, I'm beginning to wonder...what's a girl to do?

Do we hit up the dating scene? That can be anything from friends hooking us up to finding our way around online dating sites to asking the guy in line if he's single. But really, what is the dating scene? Is it one date, many dates, a few dates with different people? Who made the rules to this stupid game?! Oh that's right, there really aren't any, yet we all have picked up rules and expectations of what we think dating is or isn't.

To be quite honest, I've never been one for dating. My impatience and desire to get to the point of "What are we doing, yes, no, maybe, sometimes?" usually prevents any sort of surprise or element of progression, which I'm realizing is ACTUALLY where all the fun is. My impatience had my mind so far in the future I was never paying attention to what was in the moment, who I was, who they were, what we had in the moment, what my heart was saying! My goodness, if I had just stopped and listened to my heart every now and again I could have saved some tears for a good ol' sappy chick flick!

There was a point when my impatience took me out of the moment and into some far off fantasy land or my own personal hell. It's quite interesting the stories that we can conjure up when outcomes are unknown and fantasies are outlandish and unrealistic.

I will say that I have made progress. I have become more in tune with the messages my heart speaks to me. A date I went on not too long ago involved myself and a gentleman I had never met in person before and he was picking me up for our date. Most say that I'm a very grounded and calm person, easily excitable at times, yet all in all, quite put together. Not this night! Of all the nights to get all nervous and excitable it had to be date night!!!

There was quite a bit of conversation helped along with too many glasses of wine. Water spillage and catching my toe on the sidewalk on the way out. At least I provided some entertainment and flirty teasing. Really though... I had a lot of fun. I stayed present to all the comments, direct and somewhat indirect, I understood that I was in the right place and I let the night flow.

Now, it would be a perfect world if we were all mind readers and knew what the other person what thinking, but only I can do that....well I'm still working on it! lol
In most cases, I feel it is safe to say that both people have communicated whether or not there's going to be a 'next time' after the first date and things continue along naturally.

My next question lies in the grey area...What's a girl to do? When things suddenly seem less sunny? When maybe both people are trying to figure out who should call who because they're both nervous or confused,or there's a little bit of decreased communication or maybe one person just doesn't want to continue and hasn't told the other person...or maybe life got in the way and somehow slipped their mind.

It's like a sixth sense though and everyone has it, I can feel when things shift from good to awkward. I used to be all over it wondering what the hell was going on and what was up. Now I'm recognizing that shift and then asking myself whether or not I let myself get trapped by it or take the initiative and courage and move forward, whatever that next step might be to whatever the outcome might be. Until you take it, you'll never know. Haha, until I take it, I'll never know.