JOURNAL/DATING/THOUGHTS: MY BELIEF THAT IS BLOCKING ME FROM LOVE.

Smart people lime myself feel that they're entitled to love because of their achievements. For most of their lives, we inhabit a seemingly meritocratic universe: if we work hard, we get good results. Good results mean kudos, strokes, positive reinforcement, respect from peers, love from parents.So it only makes sense that in the romantic arena, it should work the same way. Right? The more stuff I do, the more accomplishments and awards I have, the more girls  will like me. Right? Please say I'm right, because I've spent a LOT of time and energy accumulating my education, my home..my car...ect, and I'm going to be really bummed if you tell me it's not going to get me laid.

You know what I learned...your romantic success has nothing to do with your achievements and everything to do with how you make the other person feel. And making someone feel a certain way is a somewhat nonlinear process that requires a different kind of mastery than that of calculus or Shakespeare. In other words, you need to earn love (or at least lust). Sadly, no mom, dad or professor teaches us about the power of the well-placed compliment (or put-down), giving attention but not too much attention, being caring without being needy.

Here's an incontrovertible fact: every one of your ancestors survived to reproductive age and got it on at least once with a member of the opposite sex. All the way back to Homo erectus. And even further back to Australopithecus. And even further back to monkeys, to lizards, to the first amphibian that crawled out of the slime, the fish that preceded that amphibian, the worm before the fish and the amoeba that preceded the worm.

And you, YOU, in the year 2014 coming up soon., the culmination of that miraculously unbroken line of succession, you,Homo sapiens sapiens, not just thinking man but thinking thinking man are the only one smart enough to screw the whole thing up.

Perhaps you should consider thinking a little less then.Because heaven knows that the amoeba, worm, fish, amphibian, monkey and primitive hominids didn't do a whole lot of thinking. Their DNA had a vested interest in perpetuating itself, so it made sure that happened.Turns out your DNA works the same way, too. And maybe when you're really sloshed at a party and your whole frontal lobe is on vacation in the outer rings of Saturn, you've noticed that your lizard brain knows exactly how to grab that cute girl by the waist for a twirl on the dance floor. To put it plainly, you are programmed to reproduce. Now quit thinking you're smarter than the 3 billion base pairs in your genome and 4 billion years of evolution. Actually, just stop thinking altogether. Let the program do its work.

2- By virtue (or vice) of being smart, I have eliminate most of the planet's inhabitants as a dating prospect. Let's say by 'smart' we mean 'in the top 5% of the population in terms of intelligence and education'. Generally speaking, smart people seek out other smart people to hang out with, simply because they get bored otherwise. And if they're going to spend a lot of time with someone, intelligence in a partner is pretty much a requirement. Well, congratulations -- just like me...you just eliminated 95% of the world's population as a potential mate, Mr or Ms Smartypants. Now, luckily, the world's kinda big, so the remaining 5% of the gender of your choice is still a plentiful 160 million or so people. Even if only 1% of those are single enough, good-looking enough, local enough and just all-around cool enough for you, that's over a million people you can date out there. Still, that's less than one in five thousand people. And if you live in a smaller city, it may be just a handful of folks who are going to meet your stringent criteria.

At this point, I have three choices:

A) Loosen up

B) Do a very thorough search all over the planet and be prepared to move 

C) Join a monastery.

I know the whole purpose of relationship (and perhaps all of life) is to practice the loving. No partner is going to be 100% perfect anyway, so learn to appreciate people for what they have to offer, not what they don't. And love them for that. That's what real loving is.

Nobody's asking to lower your standards here; you should still spend time only with worthwhile company. But do question the standards to see whether they're serving you or you're serving them.

When you open your heart to love, you may find fulfillment in ways you never imagined possible -- like the day you tried sushi or beer in spite of your trepidation, found it surprisingly alright, and expanded your personal envelope of pleasure. Taking that into consideration, given a choice between happy-go-lucky and picky-but-lonely, happy sounds like more fun.