Just wondering if anyone else has ever had this sort of experience.

First, I have to say that I have never put a great deal of emphasis on looks when considering someone as a relationship prospect. It's a consideration, but it's not in the top 5, and the fact of the matter is, there are very few people I find instantaneously attractive anyway.

I can go through 100 or 200 Mutual Match candidates, and I may run across 1 or 2 who strike me immediately as "she's absolutely gorgeous." Which is meaningless, anyway, since they always live in Uzbekistan or don't want to get involved with guys who have blue eyes or they don't like writers or something; or their profile reads like an ADHD-riddled second grader's "What I Did On My Summer Vacation" report, except with worse spelling and fewer words.

{"I don't know what to write here" is rarely a turn-on, even in the best of circumstances.}

But, once in awhile, I run into someone who strikes me as genuinely attractive, but not necessarily in an "attainable" sense. Most often, it's someone I see working in a store, etc., someone who I "admire from afar," as the old saying goes, but who I would probably never make any real effort to "pursue."

Several years ago, there was a girl who worked in a nearby mall who more or less served as a perfect example. Her name was Jessica; anyone who has read my short story, "The Coin," will immediately know who I am talking about here.

For some reason, I had this idea of what Jessica must be like as a real person, outside of the workplace; the idea wasn't based on anything, as far as I can tell, other than wishful thinking and sheer delusion, but it seemed reasonable to me, at the time, anyway. I had this image of her as someone who I would like to know, would like to get to know, even though I knew it was unlikely to ever happen.

Then, an acquaintance who knew a little about her, advised me to go check out her MySpace page. He said, "I think you need to see this if you really want to know who Jessica is."

So I did, and what I found was, to say the least, disturbing. Jessica, it turned out, was an abusive, vulgar, downright nasty person on her MySpace page. She was so different from the image I had formulated that it left me a little stunned. I asked myself "How could I have been so wrong?" before ultimately realizing that the thing I was so wrong about, was something I never knew anything about in the first place.

(After a couple years away, she is now back at the same job at the same mall again.)

Under those circumstances, I suppose it's not all that outrageous to expect a little wrongness.

More recently, I have been "admiring from afar" another person, this one working in a nearby grocery store. Once again, I had built up this picture of "who she is," based on nothing more than personal observation and a few bits and pieces from a friend of mine who knows her slightly, or who claims to (I have seen nothing to substantiate this).

I decided to strike up a conversation with her the other day, more as an experiment than anything. My ultimate reaction to this discussion -- to paraphrase Herb Morrison -- "Oh, the vapidity!" I would have gotten a better conversation from a bag of frozen peas.

So, I'm wondering what it is, exactly, that's behind my insane desire to see these people as intelligent, evolved, communicative, and good human beings, when every experience I have with them dictates precisely the opposite....?

"Admiring from afar" is almost fun, until you start to learn about them.

I suppose, in the end, the desire to find someone with some substance, some genuineness, someone to really click with, outweighs any kind of common sense....for me, anyway. And its starting to hit me that the valid candidates in real life are so few and far between -- perhaps non-existent -- that maybe it's just easier to construct artificial personalities for people I really know nothing about.

Sad but true....

Lexy....

I got to tell you.... you believe in unicorns too. You are a hopeful, optimistic person who believes in the wonder of the world and that people are wonderful.

Gosh... it is why I adore you.