"EAT TO LIVE"

A look at dating, from a grocery shopping perspective!

As you may have already figured out, this blog isn't actually about groceries! As I have not yet arrived to be a member of the senior community, neither am I a 1960's housewife.. I'm also not too certain that those of you who read our blogs would be interested in us giving you an account of what we buy when we go to the grocery store!

With all that being said, grocery shopping will be a metaphor for dating in this blog, and the question that I pose is do you create a list to take into the store/ dating world, or do you just wonder the isles until you see what you think you want at the time!?

Most of us at some point have done some form of grocery shopping, and from personal experience I know that shopping while you're hungry is the worst thing to do. Whenever I decide that I need a few items from the store nowadays, it's usually in the manner of need, or sometimes even a desire for a specific item or two.

Often, I may have a meal idea and I have to go to the store for those specific ingredients. All and all, I'm usually only in the store for 10 to 20 minutes at best. I know this isn't the case for everyone, it wasn't always the case even for myself.

Those times that I went into the store without a list, I always came back having wasted a lot of time and more money than I should have. Only to get home and realize, I really didn't get what I needed.

Grocery shopping without a plan would also usually happen when I was hungry, and at that time everything seemed to look good! I'd walk around the store eating/ stealing unclean grapes, samples of cookies, and filling my cart with food I knew I had never liked before.

As I write this blog, I'm amazed at how the similarity of starved shopping is to desperation dating! My cart wasn't filled with vegetables, fruits, or even things that would help make a good sustainable meal, my cart was filled with junk, things that looked great for the moment, but would be regrettable and damaging to my overall health in the long run.

As good as the junk food tasted at the time, it would always be the food I'd get bored with the quickest, this being the reason I'd have to have so many varieties of it. When I learned what a good meal was, and how to prepare it, I realized I didn't get bored so easily. I learned different ways to arrange it so that it wasn't always eaten or prepared the exact same way.

Learning what I liked taught me what I didn't like, and that was when I began shopping more efficiently.

When I went into the grocery store with a predetermined idea, I realized I wouldn't be in there as long, and I tried never to go into the market hungry. I wasn't always successful with that then, or now, because sometimes being so focused I forget to eat.

Becoming more mindful, those occasions are now rare, and I've now learned to shop as if I am already full even when I feel starved.

Leaning on wisdom to discipline me from making bad decisions, I'm now shopping with a list, and doing my best not to deviate from it.