"The Turtle And The Hare."

Depending on what it is you're searching for, dating in the Small Town can make you feel like a kid in a candy store or a parched wanderer in a desert coming across nothing but mirages. Even if you're not the total jackass that can be found practically anywhere and everywhere, the seemingly infinite choices render most people paralyzed and incapable of making a firm decision...

Inevitably, when you're positive there's something better out there, you can't help but try to find it. You begin to see yourself falling prey to the tyranny of choice - The idea of that people, when they are faced with too many options, find it that much harder to ultimately make a selection. If you are attempting to choose a girlfriend, out of a flock of thousands of them, you may end up selecting none of them. Or, you see someone until someone better comes along. The term for this would be "trading up" ... It can lead you to believe your opportunities are infinite, and therefore to question what you already have.

However, on the total opposite end of the spectrum, there are those who're completely tired of the seeming futility of it all and who just want to get off the damn dating carousel already. If you really are eager, to say nothing of desperate for a long-term partner, you may have to contend with something else - The tyranny of unwitting compromise ... The people who are looking may not be the people that you are looking for. Some people are too picky, and others aren't picky enough. Some hitters are swinging at every first pitch, and others strike out looking.

Once you've spent quite some time in the dating loop, it becomes tricky not to fall prey to either of the two - As I constantly encounter/witness men and women who appear to be perpetually looking over their date's shoulder, just in case somebody better walks past the first course of theirs. What people fail to realize is that the only reason they should be with somebody is if you're crazy about each other. If one of you is still looking over the other one's shoulder, or if the only thing that binds you is the fear of missing the boat, that is simply not enough.

I couldn't help but wonder ... In the Small Town of such great expectations, is it time to settle for what you can get?