Math was never my best subject. I finally realized that, when I was in the 37th grade.

I don't write to anybody first, but if I did, I would try to include something interesting and/or humorous and/or relevant to something they had to say in their profile or in the forums.

And I've always made sure I had some genuine material in my profile for people to work with. Or complain about, to be more accurate, but whatever. I'm not trying to put myself out there as some sort of mindless blank slate.

I get e-mails every day that contain nothing more than "Hi" or "Hello" or "How are you?" I don't reply to those anymore. Back in the days when I would reply, the follow-ups they sent were never any better than their original messages -- a few words (usually badly misspelled or otherwise garbled), no content whatsoever.

When they do write a few extra words, it's usually something along the lines of "Hey, I read your profile and I loved it! Where are you and what do you do?" Of course, that information is IN my profile, meaning they didn't actually read it at all, or they have serious short-term memory retention problems.

Either way, I'm not replying.

I only have 3 absolute deal-breakers.

No kids.
No drugs.
No alcohol.

Unfortunately, that eliminates 114% of all women in the world. Sad but true.

I'm not sure there's really a precise line, per se. More of a nebulous gray area which shifts around a lot depending on who's doing the assessments.

I mean, I get called "arrogant" a lot, usually by people who have read three or four sentences I've written somewhere and who don't have any inkling of the context. And that's fine, I really don't stress over conclusions reached by total strangers with insufficient data.

I do consider myself fairly self-confident, but I don't think that makes me arrogant or condescending. Sometimes people just see what they want to see.

Yeah, that kind of common ground is amazing when it happens. Other than her, I've never been involved with anyone whose idea of creativity went beyond opening a box of crackers.

I really believe a lot of people just do blocks of copy-n-paste from other people's profiles. Because so many of them read almost exactly the same. "I like to go out or stay in." That pretty much runs the gamut, I'm thinking....

Agreed. There are way too many "I don't know what to write here" and "Anything you want to know, you'll have to ask" and "The hardest thing in the world is to write about yourself, so I'm not going to do it" and "I'm not going to put anything here until I see if this site is worth it" profiles. Pfffft. If they can't take the time to write three coherent sentences, where's my incentive to want to know about them?

But profiles are full of vapid cliches and brainless plagiarism. I have now seen approximately sixty billion profiles of people who claim to be "unique" because "I love my friends and family" or because "I'm bipedal and I take in oxygen" or some other non-unique thing.

And a lot of them are "tired of dating loosers," too, whatever those are.

Same here. I saw it on a book cover.

As I recall -- and it's been some years since I looked -- fetishes were big over there. I've heard it described as on par with Craigslist Personals, which isn't exactly encouraging.

Yeah, you're on the right track. It reads like some weird kinko-porno-fetisho-sleazo tabloid from the 70s.

The odd thing is that there used to be a site called Friend Finder (minus the "Adult" designation), and that's the site where I met the one decent girlfriend I've ever had, out of the 94 in toto.

Of course, that was way back in 1999, so I have no idea what it might be like over there now. Or if that site even exists anymore.

I've been married, and I found it to be more like a bed of piranhas. Somebody should make one of those.

Let's just say it doesn't seem to be the sort of site that would be of much use for someone seeking an actual committed relationship....

Sure. The vast majority of my friends, since about age 15, have been female.

Well, I'm not a member, but I have looked at it -- it's hard to avoid the ads all over the place!

But that site is not geared to anything I'd be looking for.

Not even close!

Could you be more specific?

Thank you!!

Accomplishment. I'll have plenty of time for leisure when I'm dead.

Absolutely. It would cut into the time I spend looking on the internet for gray pens, but sacrifices must be made.



I don't. I'm pretty sure that's not going to happen either way.

Your platitudes are just empty words
Vapid cliches that don't mean a thing
You think they're true and so profound
But all they do is mislead and deceive

I saw it on somebody's Facebook page:
“It will come when you stop looking”
But it never has before;
Why should it be that way now?

You think you're helping
You think you're being kind
But you're lying to people
Who don't deserve to be misled

Lies about things that are “meant to be”
Lies about things that “will only get better”
Lies about how “it will all make sense”
Lies about lies about the liars who lie

And the people who read this become complacent
Because they want to believe that it's actually true
And they end up being lazy and unmotivated
Because they think the Universe will fix it all for them

So how does it feel to be a feelgood pusher?
To use your words to numb their troubled minds?
How does it feel to know you're inventing expectations
That will never be realized until the day they die?