JOURNAL: TRYING NOT TO GIVE UP

Why am I still open to a new relationship--still in this often difficult and sometimes even painful game?

Do I really need to put up with the potential needs, demands and idiosyncrasies that any woman we find online would put on us, for potentially minimal return on our investment?"

This "online dating" thing is not easy. You need to become adept at reading between the lines. You need to have a sharp ear for what's not said. You need to sift through some "little white lies" and some big ones too...The selection process is harder now than it was at an earlier age, because of the illusions and delusions you have to push through. Give up looking for love, again? Never! I know what intimacy is, and I want it again, in this life, not the next.I wants a loving woman on my arm, in my bed and next to me in the first class or river cruise cabin. Do we want to play it safe, and eventually die in a nursing home, drooling and in diapers, or play big, make love on the high seas, and maybe never have to go down that slippery slope...?

Yes, Virginia, there are many delusional people in this world! But as long as there is hope and goodness and online dating I will keep believing in this particular Santa Claus: the one that will one day deliver another great woman to my door, and have her stay with me right through to the end, in my daily life, in my bed, and always, making me laugh.

It would help if she can cook, since I am hopeless in the kitchen. I nuked a potato in the microwave recently. I didn't know you should only leave it in for about six minutes so I put it in for an hour. I was still clueless, even as the smoke alarm went off. When I opened the microwave door, all I saw sitting here was a tiny black marble. I nuked a potato! Okay, that is not my area of genius. A woman who can laugh at my human failings and foibles will earn my trust and love, and I will do the same for her,

 This is a slight generalization, perhaps, but that's how it feels. Whether I've been bright-eyed or gloomy, fat or slender, young(er) or old(er), the ladies have never seemed to love me quite as much as I love them.

That's not to say I haven't spent time with women I've liked or fallen for. I've been more or less surrounded with women since my childhood, having always gotten along more easily and naturally with girls than boys. As you might expect, I've sometimes found myself smitten; a situation considerably more perilous when the person you desire is also your friend. Which is to say, someone with whom you might be wrecking something that's already pretty good.

I have a handful of images frozen in mind of the moments at which I've told people how I truly felt about them. I've become adept at reading the language of rejection: It's most often been the eyes where the answer comes first, while the face stays still. You'd be shocked how easily the thought I really like you as a person but I'm not attracted or interested in dating you can be conveyed with just the flicker of an eyelid.

"Local heterosexual white man dissatisfied with love life." I know, some headlines aren't as grabbing as others. There is at least one way in which I'm not dissatisfied however: my own ability to weather life and love's disappointments, and to never blame the women who reject me in the process.

Perhaps you've heard this story before, of a self-proclaimed "nice guy" who feels miffed by the romantic inattention of a close female friend. But assumptions that the alleged "nice guy" may be making -- feeling aggrieved, maybe even angry, that she couldn't be more open-minded, or see how great a couple they'd be -- fall perilously short of anything describable as "nice."

Vehemently complaining that a woman is dating somebody else instead of you hinges on the assumption that she'd want to date you otherwise. I understand the impulse, even the drive to convince oneself that such a romance could flourish.

And it's true -- friendships can sometimes lead to pretty awesome relationships -- or so I'm told. But if a man is basically complaining that female friends aren't actively seeking to repay their platonic kindness with sex, then let me say, clearly and loudly: that attitude is full of sh*t.

Sometimes, the answer to the question "why don't they love me?" is best given simply: because they don't. The amount of mental exhaustion I've put myself through in dodging this truth is embarrassing in retrospect.

I'd love to end this on a note of some burgeoning optimism. But in truth, I can't. It simply wouldn't feel true to my heart, my state of mind, or my expectations right now.

But I'm buoyed by the knowledge that all things change in time, and that what (or who) waits around the corner could also be a pleasant surprise. It might sound small, but if dime-store optimism is the best I can muster, I'll try to take it, every time. In that way, I'll always be a romantic.