the des moines party girl announces the end of panic dating

I neglected to add that the newspaper picture of me was taken on a night when I was supposedly home sick - thus destroying my alibi!

Where I was supposed to be, that night, was on a blind date with a fella from match.com. I had some serious misgivings about the whole thing, so I told him (well in advance, thank you, I didn't stand him up) the evening was off. I realized I had been employing a strategy I call "panic dating". I coined the phrase when a friend of mine joined every available dating website and started dating as many men as her social calendar could hold. She was looking down the barrel of her mid-thirties, and realized that if she wanted to have kids during the prime years, she would need to find a husband in short order. I'm pleased to say that she did find a fiance through this harried and sometimes harrowing search, but I think she would agree that the experience was not for the faint of heart.

But panic dating doesn't have to be about husband-finding or biological clocks, any time when you're dating with a sense for deadlines or impending doom will do. It can be a reaction to Post Heartbreak Stress Syndrome (hereafter abbreviated P.H.S.S.), when you feel you have to fill the void - quick! Or it could just be about being at loose ends and bored, but panic dating always ends up with people getting used and hurt. (Wait, maybe that's just dating).