agzaiM werdnA -

Around 5:00AM, I always start getting really lonely. I'm not talking about, "Gee, I wish my friends were still up" lonely, I'm talking about, "I wish I had someone in my arms to confide in, instead of my god damned pillow" lonely.

So loneliness makes me do stupid things. For instance, write people on Friendster. Part of it is I've completely "forgotten" (I'm not sure I ever knew how in the first place) how to approach women. My only experience is getting a phone number one time, and admitting my feelings another (and that took over a month to pay off). Everything else has been initiated by the other party.

My attempts on things like Friendster and Yahoo Personals are notorious. It usually ends up with me sending a message and never getting a reply, or getting a single reply and nothing after that.

Maybe I'm too honest. Maybe I don't know how to sell myself. Maybe the social skills I pride myself in aren't really that great.

Then again, maybe I'm too picky. I already know dating someone thirty IQ points below you is destined for disaster. I'm usually a little more humble about being intelligent, and I try to practice and preach that just because someone's not as smart as you are doesn't mean they should be treated as inferior, but in this situation, it matters how smart the perspective mate is, and the benchmark is my own level of intelligence. And my own level of intelligence is hard to match, but I wasn't aware that among online dating services it's hard to approach.

The worst part is I don't even think of myself as that smart.

Culture is also important, seeing as how I wouldn't even considder someone who puts in their description that they love Blink182, because how am I supposed to drag that person back to San Angelo when she wants to listen to her crappy music and I want to listen to my crappy music and... Ugh.

Another serious limitation is age. Friendster is full of 18-19 year olds, while Yahoo Personals is filled with the 25+ crowd. I think I've decided I don't ever want to date a teenager again, although I might considder someone who was 19. Also, as I was explaining to Eggy, that in my mind, there's a sliding scale of acceptability when it comes to dating someone older than you. For instance, if you're 20, would you date a 16 year old? No, well then don't date a 24 year old, they both have 4 years of age difference. I've set my limit at 19, which means the upward cap is 23.

Sure, I'm picky about appearance too, but not nearly as picky as with the other three things.

Damnit, I know it's even harder in "the real world" because you don't get a written description along with the picture.

Fuck it. Diamonds are hard to find.

werdnA