'Ya dance with the one what brought ya.'
[-an old expression-]

I made my decision, but not on the basis of which I'd previously written. Rather, that night, as I lay awake at 5am unable to get back to sleep, something a friend had said to me that day rang in my ears and as I reduced the situation in my mind, the complexities of the tech world and Sun Tzu's Art of War faded away until I was left with a clear and simple answer.

When it comes to complicated decisions like this, I like to reduce the situation to the simplest analogies I can think of, something child-like, almost. It's a lot like modern physicists and the Grand Unification Theory. They want to take something as mind-bogglingly complex as the universe (hard to find a bigger conundrum than that) and explain it in a few fundamental ideas about forces and particles. To me, relationships, every sort of relationship - coworkers, employer/employee, lovers, friends, acquaintances - has certain fundamental principles under which they all operate. There is a contract, for instance, initially negotiated and then difficult to modify. In the case of friends that contract may be unspoken, in the case of lovers it may be oral (forgive then pun), and in the case of employees and employers, it's written and explicit.

And so, all I needed to decide was which girl I should take to the prom. In that sense then, the story in my mind played out something like this:

I needed a prom date. I wasn't familiar with Sally, but some friends said she was really nice, so I considered asking her. I was also already a little familiar with Dana. She's a very nice and very popular girl. An acquaintance suggested I should check out Darlene, with whom I wasn't familiar, saying he thought we'd both really like one another if we met. There was also this really weird girl Trish who hinted around that I should consider asking her, but she didn't seem at all like my type. Another acquaintance suggested I consider Bethany (and rumor had it she would be easy) but I was uninterested. I also found myself very curious about Wanda, the crazy granola/vegan chick.

I tried to get to know Sally but found her unresponsive, and learned that a friend of mine had already asked her and she'd agreed to go. I began flirting with Dana, Darlene, and Wanda. Darlene and I hit it off immediately, and she made it quite plain that were I to ask, she would quite happily go to the prom with me. Dana seemed kind of interested, but more so in perhaps just a date, not the prom. With a bit more flirting and charm, I realized I could talk her into it. Wanda, as I got to know her, was every bit as weird as I'd imagined, and I confirmed there wasn't a real attraction here, just curiosity. I still don't even know if she's interested, but it didn't much matter once I knew for sure I wasn't.

Who do I take? The obvious answer is Darlene. Because as fun as the flirting may be, as good as it can make you feel, and as notorious a flirt as I am, at the end of the day, like everyone else I'm smart enough to know I want someone who wants me, and while a hesitant Dana may have been willing with a little coaching, Darlene and I share a mutual interest. And in the coming months or years, maybe Darlene and I will form a lasting bond, or maybe it won't go far beyond the prom. Maybe it would have turned out better with Dana, Sally, Bethany, or even Wanda. But whatever the case, right now I get to pick just one girl to be my date, and Darlene is plainly the correct choice.

Not having to deal with Dana's jealous ex-boyfriend is a blessing, but it's not the real reason why Darlene is the girl for me.