getting back into the dating game...?

What is it with dating? I am 38 years old and have been happily single for a long time, but I've been thinking about asking someone on a date recently and find that, in reality, I am 16years old and far from the ordinary, mild-mannered guy he seems to be, and far from the casual interest I have in him, I am actually a besotted school-girl asking the best looking guy in school to the end of year formal!

Is it because, by the time I am interested enough to actually ask a guy on a date I care too much what he thinks of me? Is it just the crippling fear of rejection and the suggested judgement that that entails?

I went to an engagement party for two wonderful friends last week, and felt that twinge of wishing I had a special someone who made me smile the way they both were! (Do you know what I mean?)

My options are clear, I can a) shut up and spend the rest of my life wondering what it is like to be smiled at like that over the age of 35, b) ask him (and any other subsequent hims) out and find out if rejection is really as bad as I think (OK I know it is as bad as I think already!!)?, c) ask my friend to ask his friend if he likes me, whilst practicing writing my first name and his last name in my homework diary (a tad difficult since I don't know his best friend or his last name!) or d) accept that I am undateable and be the eccentric aunt and slightly wacky friend who never has a date at any event and usually ends up taking my best friend (see I'm not 16, . . . coz I would never have been seen dead on a date with my best friend at high school).

Yeah, yeah, yeah... I know what you're all thinking... stop procrastinating with the blogging stuff and get on the phone... except that I don't know his number!!!!!!!!!!!