Fishing

So a friend of mine started writing something on her Facebook wall recently about how she wants to write a book called "How To Catch the Elusive Fish."

Naturally, this is a metaphorical title, and this book would actually be a how-to guide for catching a man.

Her friends started piling on with suggestions for chapter titles. CHAPTER 1: What worked yesterday isn't working today. CHAPTER 5: This fish is a fresh-water species, so what's he doing in salt water? CHAPTER 6: The Art of Catch and Release.

Sheri countered with her own Chapter suggestion: CHAPTER 7: Location, Location, Location... excerpts: "Location is key. Avoid popular places you may find other anglers"...."Beware of fish in Provo waters. They seem tasty enough, sure, however they swim in the same circles and refuse to leave the pond....You can still catch a great fish in warm weather, for example in AZ. Of course this requires movement because they swim faster in shallow water, eat less, and they tend to be indifferent to common lures...."

All of this was a lot of fun. It's natural to compare dating and its foibles and follies to hunting or fishing, after all. You do tend to acquire this hunter-tracking-his-prey mentality once you've gone through a few futile relationships. We've all done it.

But it got me to thinking: What does a fisherman do once he's caught a fish?
1) If it's a pitiful little thing, he throws it back.
2) If it's big enough to eat, he kills it, skins it, guts it, cooks it up, and eats it.
3)If it's a really big fish, he kills it, shellacs it, and mounts it on the wall.

Now let's compare THAT to dating. You are the fisherman. Let's say you snag a mate. You have three choices:
1)Look him over and then throw him back;
2)get a good meal out of him; or
3)keep him as a trophy you show off to your friends, until they get sick of coming over and hearing the story of how you snagged him in the Gulf of Mexico during the Bonito run last year.

The end result? Even if you've found and mounted (no pun intended) a trophy fish, you're still pretty much alone. I mean, have you ever tried to have a meaningful talk with a mounted fish? Hell, I have seen some that SING, and they STILL can't carry on a good conversation.

I think we single thirty-somethings spend a little too much time trying to figure out how to snag a trophy fish, when what we really ought to be doing is figuring out how to breathe under water and swim.

I mean, if a fish is what you want, and a fish's companionship is what will keep you happy for the rest of your life, then you need to figure out how to relate to the fish better, instead of trying to find a good way to lure that blasted thing out of it's natural habitat.

Even if you put your captured fish in a 100-gallon tank in the living room, there's going to be a constant wall of glass between you and your beloved, as he floats around between the plastic scuba diver and mermaid, and you stand outside on dry land watching him, unable to connect with him.

No, we need to rent and watch "The Incredible Mister Limpet" and learn some sage bits of wisdom from Don Knotts. Stop trying to figure out how to trick a fish into biting your hook; pucker up, jump in and swim around with them, instead.

Or hey! Try pursuing humans!