Wire Monkeys

I took a psychology class when I was in college. I'm not sure how often I actually attended said class because it was at the dreaded 8am time slot and that just did not work well with my night owl ways. Also, the class was dreadfully boring and taught by a woman who spit a lot when she spoke and always smelled a bit like moth balls. Anyway, I think it's clear why I might not have had the best attendance. But I did take away one thing from that class - the Wire Monkey Theory.

The Wire Monkey Theory is my own but it's based on a study I read about while in class one day. A bunch of scientists took several baby monkeys and separated them from their mothers at a very young age. These scientists wanted to see how the babies would be impacted by having no physical contact or affection. They put the baby monkeys in small, empty rooms. The babies were well fed, kept cleaned and allowed normal hours of sleep but were not given any physical contact. Of course, this did not make for a bunch of happy baby monkeys. The next part of the experiment was to put a wire frame of a monkey in the room with the babies. Well the babies, who had not had any contact for an extended amount of time, went friggin' ape shit (pun totally intended) when this wire monkey was put in their room. Those babies clung onto that wire monkey as though it had a heart inside of it and was able to give attention and affection. And even though the baby monkeys were not getting any aforementioned attention or affection, they still clung to that wire monkey because it was better than being in that room all alone.

I will be the first to admit that I have been a baby monkey in the past. The summer I moved back to Denver I was completely lost. I didn't have a job, I was living at home again, I was broke, and I didn't have any clue what I wanted to do with my life. I felt like I had no direction at all. It was awful. I met a guy through a friend and we started dating. Sometime during our second date I knew he wasn't going to be anything serious. He kissed me that night when he dropped me off at home and after that kiss, I really knew he wasn't the guy for me. But I hadn't really met anyone else either so when he asked me out again, I said yes. He was kind of funny and we had a mutual friend so I didn't see anything wrong with it...except for that part about me knowing early on that I didn't really like him. But he called fairly regularly and it was nice to have someone to hang out with. He was my wire monkey.

Everyone has dated a wire monkey once or twice. I think we're more likely to do it during one of those particularly dry spells in the dating scene; those times when it's just been entirely too long since you've snuggled up next to someone. So you convince yourself that clinging to that wire monkey would be better than being in that room all alone.

As for me and my wire monkey... well, we dated for a couple of months until one night when he invited me to his house for a lovely meal. After that lovely meal he unceremoniously dumped me saying that he just didn't think there was any "spark". I thought my head was going to explode. Of course there was no spark - he was just my wire monkey!

I've been dipping my toes back into the dating pool again lately. In the past, I've always seemed to have really good luck dating in the autumn, but this fall things haven't been quite as good. (No plentiful harvest this year, Megs and Rosie.) I suppose I could find a wire monkey to help pass the cold winter months ahead, and trust me, sometimes when I crawl into bed alone at night it doesn't seem like a bad idea. But the thing is this: I think I'd rather take my chances sitting in that room all alone hoping for the real thing to walk in rather than cling to something that isn't real. After all, that room comes complete with high thread count sheets, a fluffy down comforter and many pillows into which one can nestle. If a girl's got to wait alone, she may as well do it in style.