Expert: How To Reinvent Your Love Life

Once upon a time, I thought time had run out on my chance to get love right.

While all my friends were marrying, settling down, and starting families, I was once again staring at the smoldering remains of yet another failed relationship with yet another Mr. Wrong. 

The perpetual bachelorette in my social circle, I had a job my friends envied, owned my own condo, took amazing vacations, and always had fabulous plans on the weekends. I was even saving money for retirement like a smart, savvy woman should. Advice: Should I Give Up On Dating?

On paper, my life looked amazing. In reality, I felt like a complete and total failure.

Convinced my single status was a life sentence I was forced to endure without the hope of parole, I worried about growing old alone. My fears were magnified by my circumstances. Having gone through my Big Breakup at work, a family friendly environment where engagement parties and baby showers were a weekly occasion, I felt like a dark cloud hung over my cubicle. A cloud that said "Relationship Train Wreck" with an arrow pointing down at me. Is The Cost Of Living Higher For Single Women?

Thanks to my office romance and subsequent office breakup, I still had to see my ex every day. Convinced he was The One, I believed I’d lost my opportunity to have my own personal happily ever after ending.

My Big Breakup wasn’t the only thing making me feel like a failure. Living in Los Angeles, I walked around with a painful secret. I was convinced that being a size 14 in a size 0 city meant that my chances of finding a man who could love me for me were slim to none.

Pouring over my options, I considered three choices. I could:

1.  Go on a diet, lose 50 pounds, and miraculously become worthy of love in La La land.

2.  Get liposuction and other cosmetic surgery to make me a more desirable candidate in the City of Angels.

3.  Move to a less image-conscious city to find love. Austin, Texas seemed like an ideal location, even though I’d never visited, and only knew one person (a friend of a friend) who lived there.