Road Runner Dating & Albert Einstein

Growing up we had a tradition. Every Saturday morning I would rise early, make myself a bowl of cereal and try to convince my dad to get out of bed and come watch early morning cartoons. He’d rarely indulge my exuberance as from an early age I had a habit of rising with the sun and having something extremely unimportant to tell my sleeping parents.

From what my parents have now told me, it often meant I wound up on the back enclosed patio with a handful of rocks. Hey, the over-abundance of words I conjure up annoys even myself sometimes. I don't blame them for it. In fact I have no recollection of it so I'm not scarred. However if social services ever found out about it, I might have been a product of the foster system.

Nevertheless, Saturday morning cartoons were a saving grace for my parents. By the time Loonie Toons was on, Dad would be out of bed ready to laugh alongside me and the brothernator –aka Joel.

It impresses a fond memory upon my heart or at least it does up until I reached the part in the show where the Road Runner short came on. It was such an agonizing short for me as a child. I would sit there every time and believe that maybe, one day, Wylie E. Coyote might catch up with that pest of a bird, the Road Runner.

But it hit me recently in pondering how this simple cartoon has a lot of relevancy in the dating field, one which also causes as much agony and strife for most individuals in this age old traditional pursuit.

There is this ever so common human condition that we all suffer from in a lot of ways. I’m sure you’ve heard of it it’s called: we want what we can’t have. And we often learn the hard way that it’s just not worth it. Stop. Do some self-reflection, evaluation, seek wise counsel and prayer, or we just keep doing what Wylie E. does and just keep running like a headless chicken.

Now can you envision Wylie stopping his pursuits. Re-evaluating just how much is truly in the budget for the explosives, potentially maybe re-assessing why he’s running after the silly bird in the first place. The Cost –Benefit ratio just doesn’t balance. Deciding that Swiss Chalet would suffice as he is too hungry to continue going but alas, he does not.
But succulent rotisserie chicken just doesn’t cut it for Wylie and neither does settling for anything even remotely reasonable.

I read an article in Chatelaine about a woman who regretted not settling for any of the men she dated in her 30s. She’s now in her 40’s with a son who she went through artificial insemination for. A product of the whole pursuit I suppose. But hey, I can say that I would probably go through the exact same thing if I were her.

Her big statement hits home a very logical truth though. Her initial statement to women is that settling down requires settling. No man will meet perfection and vice versa. It’s incredibly simplistic yet we still seem to turn our noses up at everything but Road Runner.

I suspect we subconsciously do it because we recognize it as frivolous. It requires so little of our investment and heart that it's just easier than actually putting ourselves out there for someone that Yenta would advise us to be matched with.

This cycle will continue. But when is it an appropriate time to call it quits and where do whims meet logic? Wylie should have turned in the TNT after the second time. That’s my theory.

After all, I think it speaks to the adage fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me. Fool me thrice, isn’t that the definition of insanity, or wait, am I mixing up Albert Einstein with speed dating?

Then again, I don't think good ol' Albert even has an equation that deferrentiates between finding true love and figuring out true compatibility versus chasing after a bird while you're blind folded with a stick of dynamite in your hand. Just some food for thought that has been rolling around my head.