Sexless streak shifts to quest for Mr. Right

By Diane Mapes, Seattle Times

Think you could write a book about your lousy love life?

Suzanne Schlosberg did just that, recounting the tale of her three-year, eight-month, and 23-day-long dry spell in "The Curse of the Singles Table: A True Story of 1001 Nights Without Sex," just released from Warner Books.

Not that Schlosberg intentionally set out to become the "Cal Ripken of celibacy," as her friends took to calling her. It just sort of happened. There was a break-up, followed by a string of bad dates, followed by a bit of reassessment and then more bad dates and suddenly, the weeks turned into months into years — and the years turned into something that Schlosberg began to refer to as The Streak. Only this one didn't prompt cheers from adoring fans.

"Do I look like Freddy Krueger?" she wrote in the first chapter of her book. "Do I dress like Barbara Bush? Am I too picky? Too bitchy? Do I have really bad foot fungus?"

In a word, no. A 34-year-old fitness expert and die-hard cyclist, Schlosberg was healthy, hearty, funny and fine and more than willing to go the distance not only with Mr. Right, but even Mister Remote Possibility.

Problem was, she couldn't find him. Not through countless bad blind dates, including one with a fellow "writer" a friend met in a bar who turned out, instead, to be an unemployed motorcycle "rider." Not via the Internet, where she plucked 50 "possibles" from a sea of Dragnet-style descriptions ("I'm a single white male, 5'11', 165 pounds, brown hair, hazel eyes") and shamelessly vain assessments ("I'm often asked if I'm a model or an actor, but I'm more the writer/intellectual type") only to find the possibles were a little too remote.

Speed dating, set-ups, and even a grueling "hot-or-not" evaluation didn't turn up Schlosberg's Prince Charming. Neither did working out at various health clubs, volunteering for a host of causes, traveling around the world, or having her condo feng shui'd.

"People would tell me, 'Don't try so hard,' " Schlosberg said in a recent telephone interview from her home in Los Angeles. " 'Just live your life,' but for me, living my life involved trying. There are people who mope around, but moping wasn't my style."

Not that she didn't get discouraged now and then.

"I got bummed out quite frequently," she said. "I quit Match.com four times out of total despair that it would never work, especially when everyone else around me was getting married. But I wasn't going to let any of this stop me from living my life. I didn't want to sit home and brood, so I'd come up with a wacky adventure. I figured, if I'm not going to be married, I'll go to Iceland instead."

Schlosberg's book is full of wacky adventures, including man-hunting safaris in Nairobi, Papua New Guinea, Arctic Russia, the Caribbean and even good old Lincoln, Neb. But while her attempts to find a nice fella are at the heart of the book, Schlosberg never loses sight of an important truth: To thine own self be true.

"I don't advocate going 1,000 days without sex, but I do think there's something to be said for being picky," she said. "It's a good thing to have high standards and to hold out for somebody — he doesn't have to be Mr. Perfect, just Mr. Perfect-For-You."

Did Schlosberg find her match? And more important, was he worth the wait? You can find out on Tuesday, when she discusses her experience — and what she's learned from it — at Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park.

And according to Schlosberg, she has learned a lot, particularly with regard to Internet dating.

"The first year, the guys I would go out with were totally off-base, not even in the ballpark," she said. "But then I got better at screening and working the system. Obviously, there's nothing you can do to guarantee a match, but there's a lot you can do to improve your chances."

Schlosberg has received so many questions about the ins and outs of Internet dating that she's compiled a list. Her "Simple Internet Dating Rules For Men and Women" can be found at www.suzanneschlosberg.com.

Does this dogged dater have any advice for Seattle's teeming singles?

"Nobody could be in a worse dating slump than I was," she said. "And even I managed to worm my way out of that one. My advice to anyone in a dating slump is: Don't give up! Try everything. And then, when that doesn't work, try some more. I don't believe in that thing married people say, 'Oh, it'll happen when it happens. Don't try too hard.'

"Sure, some people just get lucky, but for most of us, it takes effort. You never know what approach is going to work, but one approach that never works is sitting at home and whining."

(Wed, July 28, 2004)