Maybe I should have moved somewhere trendier...

Everyone has a guilty TV pleasure - something they curl up and watch, or that they have programed on their DVR, that they probably shouldn't be watching given their age/gender/ect, but still do.

Lately, for me, that has been A&E'S confessions of a matchmaker, which deals with a Buffalo NY matchmaker and the fucked-up people who she tries to find love for. I figure it's good to watch since it a)gives out a certain amount of dating advice, which is always useful and b) because it's always reassuring to watch people more fucked up than I am, which is always kind of reassuring.

One of the people on tonight's show was Lynn, a 33-year old woman who still lived at home and partied at college bars. In other words, she was pretty much the anti-MadAnthony.

I can't say I went out a whole lot in college, although I did occasionally. But after college I really didn't. Part of this was I didn't have a group of easily-accessible people to go out with. But a few months after starting my job, I was offered the opportunities to work Saturdays - something I did for nearly three years. When you have to be at work at 7:30 on Saturday morning, you can't do a whole lot on Friday night - not that I would have had anything to do on Friday night anyway, but I didn't feel bad about it because I had to be at work anyway. Throw in grad classes, and time spent at the gym, and I didn't really have time to realize what a loser I was. I was busy, and that was enough.

Plus the whole overtime thing was lucrative, enough that I was able to buy a house after a few years. So did I buy it in one of those areas where there are lots of bars full of young single people my age? Nope. I bought in suburban Baltimore county, where most of my neighbors are families with children or elderly retired couples (with the exception of my next-door neighbors, who are 4 recent drunken Towson grads). Nightlife around here pretty much consists of the TGI Friday's near the mall. I'm too far from the hot spots of Baltimore City to go drinking and safely get home, plus I'm too broke from mortgage payments and the end of that afformentioned overtime to be able to afford going out anyway.

But sometimes I wonder if I would have been better off putting off buying a house and instead living in one of those trendy, bar-convinient neighborhoods. Probably not - I still won't have anyone to go drinking with, and who wants to drink alone? And I really don't like city life - I rented in Resevoir Hill for a couple years before buying my house. That had some of the advantages of traditional city life (close to work), many of the disadvantages (shitty parking, crime, lack of nearby shopping for anything other than 40's) and cheap rent. But despite the long commute, I do like having a parking space with my house number on it and not being hustled for money while walking from my car.

But when I'm perusing match.com and every girl's profile seems to talk about how her favorite spot is Canton or Fell's, and has a picture of her with a drink in hand, I realize that the choices I've made in the last couple years of what I do with my weekends, and of where I rest my head, have been very different that the choices of most single people my age. While I like certain aspects of those choices - I think (or at least hope) buying a house in the county will prove to be a good financial move long-term, and that having my MBA may come in handy eventually - I also realize those choices have contributed to my being single, and probably remaining that way for the forseable future - and I can't help but wonder if things would be different, if I'd be happier, if I'd made different choices.