Every Friday Night: My Year of Dating Misadventures

A wickedly funny and wryly wise view of life on the dating scene, filled with encounters that will resonate with every woman whose search for Prince Charming is more comedy than fairy tale.

Every Friday Night is the hilarious, first person account of the experiences of Ritta McLaughlin, a beautiful, smart, and charismatic investment banker, and her commitment to go on at least one date a week, every week, for a whole year. “The point,” she writes, “wasn’t to get me into the Guinness Book of Dubious Records for dating fifty-plus guys; it was to find my prince.” Though she didn’t end up with an engagement ring, her adventures led the way to this sparkling gem of a book.
On the rebound from a broken heart and facing her thirtieth birthday with no marriage prospects in sight, McLaughlin resolved to get a life (G.A.L.). Her journey began at a restaurant with a date her matchmaking uncle touted as “future husband material.” By the time the dinner appeared on the table, McLaughlin harbored serious suspicions that she had been set up with a man more likely to end up in an asylum than in a cozy living room. Then there was the polite, respectful, and devoted suitor whose notion of a strong relationship boiled down to a demand for the complete merger of identities. Her adventure with a classic Mr. Right-Now ended relatively well, with McLaughlin triumphantly out-gaming the gamer, but the Marauder not only took a piece of her heart in his quick getaway, he also took a stack of CDs, her portable disc player, and a hundred dollars from her wallet.
A natural storyteller, McLaughlin writes with open-hearted honesty about her own flaws, reckless actions, and crazy dates, and she shows that the quest for romance offers women a whole new perspective on themselves, and is a great way to discover the pleasures of G.A.L. without (necessarily) having a guy by their sides.

RITTA McLAUGHLIN is the vice president of an investment banking firm in New York City, where she lives.