Viral Dating: Parte Tres

At long last. Thumbelina emerges from her den. And she prays:

1. Please dear gods, send me someone--anyone--in this town you've forsaken. More than true love, I want to date. ONE date I do not somehow end up paying for. ONE date where I get treated like the well-raised, smart, sassy, sweet woman I am.

2. May he be single. May he be respectful enough to tell me if he isn't. May he be man enough to meet me halfway, even if that means being friends. Good ones do make my world go round.

3. May he be honest. With himself: about how he treats others, weighing pluses versus minuses, the state of the union and the globe.

4. May he delight like a cactus found on a desert trek: tough on the outside, succulent on the inside. Persistent in heat, nourishing in drought. An utter relief.

5. May he have the heart of a lion. Without courage, there is no real integrity.

6. May he have the wisdom of an owl. Book wisdom AND uncanny intuition. Because it takes both to navigate this jungle.

7. May he have the rare beauty of a dolphin. Joyous. Communal. A creature who has crossed borders: sea to land back to sea.

8. Pam Houston writes: "You fall in love with a man's animal spirit . . . and then when he speaks like a human being, you don't know who he is." May his animal spirit awe mine.

9. Aretha Franklin sings: R-E-S-P-E-C-T. May he know the song and live it.

10. May he have a funny bone and tickle mine. May he have boners that do it for me.