Happy Valentines Day and all that.

I've been thinking about being better at dating lately.

A friend challenged me to be engaged by the end of the year, and there's nothing I love more than a challenge. Except perhaps potato wedges. And Thai food.

Oh and movies.

But aside from those things (and some other things I've not mentioned), there's nothing I love more than a challenge.

Actually I only really like challenges when people are challenging me to do something I want to do. "Tom, I challenge you to go a month without eating Thai food." That's a crap challenge, who wants to do that?

"Tom, I challenge you to go the the movies 15 times in one weekend." Now that's a good challenge.

So getting challenged to be engaged is a good challenge because I would actually like to get engaged. I'm very happy being single, but I reckon I could be pretty happy being engaged too. Particularly if I was engaged to someone I was in love with, rather than just someone I was getting engaged to to successfully complete a challenge.

Still I didn't accept the challenge, because though I am romantically deficient even I can see that getting engaged to win a challenge is a bad reason to get engaged. Especially since my friend didn't offer me a reward for success. I would only get engaged to someone I didn't love if there was a particularly handsome reward, like a Ferrari, or my own kidnapped Thai chef to live in my kitchen and cook for me.

However what this thinking about relationships has meant is that I have decided to be more open to getting to know women this year. And I have also decided to let my friends meddle a bit more in my love life, like setting me up and stuff. The idea doesn't particularly excite me but if there is anything that the last half of my life has taught me, it's that I'm pretty much romantically incapable by myself. Perhaps it's more a team sport, so I should let people help out a bit more.

I know I blogged last year about how happy I was being single, and I am still happy. Singleness rocks! But who knows I might get a wife who I love out of this, or even my very own Thai chef.

These are prime dating years of my life, what's the worst that can happen? Apart from losing my freedom and ending up married to someone I despise, things can't go too badly wrong can they?