Have we finally found a mayor we can stick with?

I hate to sound like a girl and all, but sometimes I feel as though we in Vancouver have been on a wild series of weird blind dates when it comes to our mayors.

Really, someone could almost make a romantic comedy out of it, the string of relationships we've had with the series of unique Vancouver characters who have swept in and out of our little civic lives.

After years of a steady relationship with old Mr. Reliable (Philip Owen, our conscientious mayor from Shaughnessy who always made sure all the lights were turned off at city hall before he went home for the day), we got swept off our feet in 2002 by bad boy/coroner/TV star/snappy dresser Larry Campbell.

He used unsuitable language, his attention often wandered and he was wicked, but we ignored all that because he was exciting.

Who else in Canada was going out with a former cop turned safe-injection site advocate?

He was the Big Man on Campus, someone the national media (i.e. the cool kids at school) paid attention to. He promised us we'd do all kinds of exciting things together. Then he ditched us for another girl, i.e. the Senate.

Hurt, we took up with the nerdy geek in the Grade 9 science class, Sam Sullivan. We thought he was nice, this soft-spoken young man whose major accomplishment was to achieve the Vancouver lifestyle (sailing, hiking, hanging around coffee shops) from a wheelchair.

We thought he'd treat us well and be respectful. We were pretty sure he wouldn't leave us flat like Larry did.

But then he turned out to be a little too weird.

Those strange experiments. The obsession with telling us over and over again about his life goals. The revelation that he would step on someone's neck to get where he needed to go or the strange feeling that he would do, well, pretty much anything to get where he needed to go.

I don't know. It got a little uncomfortable being alone with him at home at night. Just too dark and mysterious.

And now we've decided to entrust our hearts one more time. This time around, it's to a guy who isn't dark or mysterious at all, Gregor Robertson.

Just a simple, honest, straight guy who seems incapable of telling a lie or being devious. A guy who epitomizes yet another kind of Vancouver, the kind that drinks organic juices with god knows what mashed into them and really, really cares about homeless people.

Oh, it all feels good now. But will we feel the same in a year?

Or, like far too many girls (or guys) with that attention-deficit relationship thing going, will we be starting to have those little doubts: Hmm, maybe he's too nice. Maybe just a little too earnest.

Do I have to spend another night with him while he tells me about his latest strategy for affordable housing?

Okay, I'm being flippant here. Or you could see me as a discount Maureen Dowd, that New York Times girl who pretty much frames all political analysis as girls dishing about relationships.

But the underlying reality behind this girl chat is -- we have been on a counter-productive zigzag for quite a while here, looking for romance in all the wrong places.

And, while we could choose to blame our partners, I'm often reminded in this situation of a saying I once heard from my philosophical friend Peg, who found it on an anti-positive-thinking site. The saying: "Did you ever think about the fact that the one common denominator in all your failed relationships is you?"

So, using that lens, I have to wonder sometimes what's wrong with us, what we're looking for that none of these mayors can seem to provide.

Or maybe this time, we're ready to settle down. Something to ponder as Gregor and team take control of the ship today.