I attribute many of my dating mistakes to a Lady Gaga phase.
That's the premise of this week's nightlife column, which details Gaga's effect on my dating life.
Until recently, I couldn’t understand why some of my past romantic relationships failed. I found the answer after some soul-searching set to “Bad Romance.”
I failed at love because I tried to sustain affection with shock value alone.
For a long time, I thought the key to keeping someone around was to appear as far from ordinary as possible.
So I attempted to dazzle dates with tales of previous romantic exploits, half of them exaggerated or selectively edited.
In the process, I made myself an alien dater, someone whose obsession with tomorrow’s shock made her overlook today’s realities. Rather than trying so hard to prove I was extraordinary, I should have showcased my passion for the ordinary.
I boasted dating’s equivalent of a meat dress, when I really just needed to wear my favorite T-shirt and sing “Poker Face” at a piano.
