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The duck pond
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The Duck Pond
By: Lisa Minns
When I was about four years old my parents took me back to New Jersey to visit our relatives. I loved these visits. Near the town where our family lived was a huge duck pond. Ok, so maybe it wasn’t all that huge, after all…keep in mind I was four. Everyone in the area knew about the duck pond though. Tons of ducks…..and geese. Not a fan of geese thanks to this experience. You see, we would always stop and get a loaf of bread to feed the ducks. Sounds like a good plan, right? Yeah, you never met my parents. People who think I have a twisted sense of humor meet my parents and then it all makes perfect sense. I come by it naturally. On this particular trip to the duck pond, I wanted to hold the bread. Being the princess that I was, I got what I wanted. What I didn’t realize at the ripe old age of four was that it was mostly because my parents knew what was going to happen. I was their entertainment at that moment. You see, the ducks started to swarm me. Not a problem, I was still taller than them. I was furiously throwing bread everywhere trying to make them go away. Then I turned around and was face to face with geese. Not cool! They were the same size as me and angry. They started squawking and pecking at me like mad! I flipped out. My parents on the other hand, they laughed for a bit and then about a half a loaf later came and rescued me. This taught me a valuable lesson…..sometimes you have to take chances to find out what works and what doesn’t work. Note to self…full loaf of bread plus four year old plus full pond of geese doesn’t work out too well. At least not for the four year old.
Dating is kind of like that trip to the duck pond. Well, I’m a bit older and taller now but I still take chances and find out what works and what doesn’t work. Here are some things I’ve discovered over the years that don’t work: I don’t like to be cheated on. It doesn’t work for me when a guy lies to me. Proposals where the ring is thrown at me aren’t romantic. Screaming at me because of a stranger’s Channel purse still doesn’t make any sense (Yes, that really happened and on a first date at that). Finding out that your new guy is in the process of getting a divorce from one of your friends can make things rather tense. Again, this really happened so now I always ask up front if this situation applies. If the guy doesn’t ever give me a number that I can reach him at and he shows up at odd times of the day and night, he’s married. It’s creepy when a guy wants you to move in on the first date and wants to buy you lingerie. And the list goes on but the important thing is that I took the chance with each of these guys and now I’ve learned for myself that these are not the situations I want to be in. Yes, in some of them it basically was the equivalent of being pecked in the head by the geese again before I woke up and got out of the situation but I still learned.
All of us in singleton have to visit the duck pond over and over again until we come out injury free. Whether it be meeting people in random situations, being set up by friends, looking at old friends in a whole new way, taking a chance on a long distance relationship, joining an online dating site or going to HurryDate speed dating parties, it’s all putting yourself out there and taking a chance. Sometimes you come out of it scratched up and bruised and a tad bit angry at the people who encouraged you to hold the loaf of bread in the middle of the swarming geese (thanks again for that one) but if you didn’t try, you might have missed out on that one duck that quietly waited for his turn to be only yours. So, in dating we continue to put on our favorite outfits, look our best and smile all we can in hopes that the one duck will be among the geese and come our way. If it weren’t for all of the traumatic experiences we wouldn’t truly appreciate the good ones when they happen. If we keep at it, each of us will fend off the geese and one day laugh about the whole dating experience because we’ve each found “The One”. Bruises and scratches heal over time and war wounds are what makes us each who we are. Me? I still have a totally unhealthy fear of geese but give me a couple of days and I’ll be throwing myself back into the duck pond again.
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