Could this scene really be in Belle's near future?. (photo courtesy flickr/p_x_g)

This week I had a quarter-life crisis in the middle of the Nordstrom store at the Grove. I walked to the baby department and spent 20 minutes flipping through the pint-sized dresses, pants and booties. I spotted a pink and yellow cashmere sweater, size 6 months, and mindlessly carried it to the cash register.  In between handing the cashier my credit card and asking for a gift box it hit me.  I was buying a sweater for my friend's baby because my best friend from high school is married, just had a baby and is light years ahead of me in the relationship department.  

I'm at that age now where my friends are actually in serious long-term relationships, getting married and having babies! What the hell is going on? In the last year I have gone to three of my high school friends' weddings and two baby showers.  This is getting ridiculous.  

When acquaintances get married I can handle it, but when my best friend from high school got married last year and had a baby this month it was too much.  Of course I'm happy for her, but I'm also weirded out.  The girl I spent my awkward youth with, the one I had over for sleep overs every weekend and sang N*SYNC songs at the top of my lungs with is married? She never even had a boyfriend in high school.  She met a guy at church her freshman year of college and never looked back.  I don't want to get married anytime soon and I didn't think anything of it, but while I was buying that tiny sweater, all of a sudden I felt really behind.

So, when I went on my internet blind date number two this week, courtesy of match.com, I thought I would have an extra incentive to make it work.

This week's date managed to exacerbate my quarter-life crisis perfectly.  He was a true Settler. Every once and a while you meet the male anomaly - the guy who isn't afraid of commitment and, above all else, is eager to settle down and start a family. These Settlers, as I like to call them, come along every 20 dates or so but very rarely do I even contemplate actually settling down with any of them.  This week's settler though was a plastic surgeon, 38, and attractive. Like McDreamy attractive.

The Settler messaged me online and said he found my profile interesting and enjoyed my pictures.  He asked if I would meet him for drinks downtown on Sunday because that's his only day off.  Apparently, he is cutting open people's breasts and sticking in chicken cutlets the size of small animals every other day of the week.  

I stalked his profile and noticed that it said he had never been married but wanted kids, badly.  He also said he enjoyed "bettering others physically" which I thought was a little creepy but appropriate and in line with his profession.

We met Sunday at a Mexican restaurant downtown.  He walked in wearing scrubs because, apparently, he had to do an emergency surgery -- but I really think he just wore them because he knew he looked amazing in the light powder blue color.  He's not too tall, maybe 5'10", has very short, dark hair, blue eyes and a smile that is perfectly punctuated by two small dimples on each cheek.  He greeted me with a kiss on the cheek and a light squeeze on my arm.

We sat and chatted over chips and salsa.  Actually I ate the chips and salsa and he wouldn't stop talking; about everything. He grew up in Beverly Hills, went to college back east and his dad and brother are also plastic surgeons.  He kept looking at me funny as I scarfed down the chips.  I hadn't eaten lunch, I was starving and I'm not one to pick at a salad on a date.  After I asked the waitress for second basket of chips he finally said something.  

"I don't eat anything deep fried," he said.

"Oh, ok," I replied.  Why did he just tell me that? Was he disgusted that I was eating chips?

"Do you always eat like this?" he asked hesitantly.

I couldn't believe he asked me that.  I explained, a little defensively, that I was starving and hadn't had lunch.  He apologized and said he only asked because he thought it was comical.  Great, he was making fun of me already.

By the time my burrito came I was over the comment.  The margaritas lightened us both up and he opened up about his life plan.  He wanted to get married within the next two years, have kids in three and retire in time to travel with his family.  He explained that he went online to find a date because he doesn't have time to go out and meet people.

Normally if someone told me this I would run the other way, but there was something about his frankness that I found attractive; and the whole plastic surgeon thing didn't hurt.

Halfway through dinner he started including me in the settling talk.

When I told him about my family and my schooling he seemed pleased and kept making odd comments like "wow, our kids would have great genes" and "our kids would have no problem getting into a good college, being USC and NYU legacies."

Then he asked if I had a history of cancer or heart disease in my family. He was screening me to see if I was fit to bear his children!

"Would you like to come to a family dinner the Sunday after next with my parents?" he asked.  I was definitely flattered, but a little scared.  He was moving too fast, but my baby clothes encounter was still fresh in my mind, so I said yes.

"Great, maybe we have time to squeeze in a procedure this week, before the dinner of course" he said.

What procedure? And what did he mean by 'we'?

"I'm sorry, maybe I misheard you, but do you mean I'm getting a procedure this week?"

He looked at me, puzzled, like he didn't understand why I didn't know what he was talking about.

"Well, I noticed that your breasts are probably a small B-cup so I could definitely fix them, free of charge of course," he said.  "Oh, and I know you are probably a size zero, but if you wanted a little lipo, maybe under your arms, I could definitely do that for you as well," he said as he looked intently at the skin under my left arm.

Wow, not only was I offended, I was seriously disappointed.  I really thought he was going to make it to a second date. And why did he want me to have the "improvements" before I met his parents.  Was I not good enough?

I declined the free surgeries graciously, even after he continued to insist.  What was I thinking going out with a plastic surgeon.  Even if I didn't have body image issues, I would without a doubt develop some dating a plastic surgeon.  I finished the dinner but declined the offer for drinks after.

Even with the years between me and 30 shrinking rapidly, I was angry with myself for staying and letting him make me doubt myself like that.  I never really think about marriage but I think my baby clothes adventure sort of shoved me into looking at reality.

So I'm in my mid-twenties and I have no intention of settling down anytime soon.    

The thought of spending every day with the same person makes me anxious - in a bad way, and sharing a bed with someone for something other than sex makes me want to throw up. Maybe I just haven't met the right guy yet, or maybe I'm just not the marrying kind.  Either way, I'm going to stop comparing myself to my married friends and move things along at my own pace. While they are at home wiping up baby vomit and breast feeding, all I'm worried about is what I'm going to wear on my next date. That's ok by me.