Love Stinks

For this post, I'm taking the title of a song by The J. Geils Band. I suppose I could use Elvis Costello's "My Funny Valentine", but Peter Wolfe sums it up better. Tomorrow is St. Valentine's Day. A day when all express their love for their partners with gifts and displays of affection. But for single people...forget about it. It's just another day, a day when everyone else rubs it in that you are alone. Sometimes it's a concious maneuver, but most of the time it's not. People are overjoyed to be loved, so they feel the need to let everyone know, whether they're interested or not.
I seem to be one of those people who's "Terminally Single". I've tried all kinds of avenues to meet attractive women, but they always seem to turn out to be dead ends. The basic problem is: that I'm attracted to the girls that everyone is attracted to. When a lady has a bevy of potential suitors to choose from, I always seem to end up pretty low down on the list. I hate to say this, but I think that romance is a dying virtue. People look at dating from all angles, and much of it is financial in nature, so that's a major strike against me.
Once, while talking on the phone to a woman who's personal ad I had responded to, she asked me, " What are you looking for?" I responded,
" I'm looking for somebody who's attractive, creative, with a sharp wit and unconventional"
" No, I mean what're you looking for?" She asked again.
" I'm looking for somebody to date, isn't that what I said?" I asked, feeling like a doofus.
" No, but what're your goals?"
" I'm looking to date somebody that I have a connection with..." I tried again, hoping that this time she got the gist of what I was looking for.
" Are you looking to get married!?" She finally spelled it out for me.
" I'm not looking to get married just for the sake of being married. I want to meet somebody special" I answered.
" Why?"
" Because I'm alone and lonely" I snapped, getting flustered with the direction the conversation had taken.
" You've gotta offer a girl more than that!"She snickered. After that, I stopped answering personal ads. I simply have nothing to offer. But human emotions don't work on that kind of logic, and years later I saw a report on the TV show, "CBS Sunday Morning" where they did a feature about the internet dating site EHarmony.com . It touted how successful they were at matching people and how many had gotten hitched since their first meeting. Their ads had a caveat stating, "If you apply now, your first contacts are free" or something along those lines. I went on line and read all the fine print, expecting to see what the cost of the set-up was. There was no mention of any prices . I decided if it was free, I'd give it a shot. There were 450 questions to be filled out. I began the process, and less than halfway through it a television show that I wanted to see came on, so I'd watch it until the commercial break, dash over to my computer, answer two or three more questiuons, dash back to the television, watch more of the show and then repeat the process. It took me forever to finish, when the results came back it said something like..." even E-Harmony.com cannot find a match for everyone". So in other words; I'm too fucking weird for even an internet dating site to find some scag to dump in my lap. What a confidence builder!
I could go on for paragraph after paragraph with dating disasters I've endured. With that in mind I just want to wish all those loving couples a Happy Valentine's Day. On February the 15th, don't go to work and recant all the tales of your undying love to the single folks who're cringing inside. It won't endear us to your tender hearts!