The Toad Pool

People often ask me about the origin of The Toad Pool. I’ve also been asked why I number the guys I date. One has even gone so far as to call me insensitive to treat men like numbers and like they don’t matter.

Here’s the story.

#1 and #3 were both named Bill. Both ended poorly. When I would speak of them, my best friend couldn’t keep them straight. She kept asking if this was the Bill who I actually met or the other one. She suggested I use the Seinfeld naming reference…first name plus occupation. So that would be Bill Cop and Bill Tractor Sales. In my frustration, I said they didn’t really deserve to be given names. I decided I would just number them. I would start a betting pool for my friends. My goal was to find a boyfriend. They got to place bets on which number would actually be a winner. I liked my friends who had low numbers because that meant I would find a boyfriend quickly.

So I would refer to them by number from that point. It worked well. #6 was actually a boyfriend who lasted more than a few months. Calling him by number had a side benefit of keeping our relationship anonymous until we were ready to “come out” to our mutual friends.

After that relationship ended, I continued to date and number the men. But something happened. The numbers got into double digits. It stopped being cute referring to them as numbers. It started to make me sound slutty. It’s not that I was sleeping with all of these men. Heck, one of them I never even met. And some of them I never even kissed. So what qualified as a number? I decided #1 deserved a number even though we never met because he had such huge significance in my single life. After that, I stopped giving numbers to the guys who I’d planned to meet that never materialized. There are several of those in the online dating world. So pretty much if we actually go out and meet, you get a number.

I have noticed an odd phenomenon. EVERY odd number has ended badly. Many of the even ones ended badly too, but not every one of them.

Somewhere around 15, I stopped using the numbers publicly. I still keep track. They are still numbered. There is still a Toad Pool in place.