WHeRe R u PrInTZ ChArMiNg?

This is a rant, continued from a note I started on a favorite’s diary. It’s been a long time brewing.

I’m not old enough to be considered an oddity or an old maid, but I’ve never been married, never been proposed to, and frankly, have never seriously considered any of the two dozen guys I’ve dated as lifelong prospects. Most of them don’t last past the first three months anyway before I gently kick them to the curb and tell them how happy they’ll make someone else.

I’m setting up for a point here, so please bear with me.

For about ten years I’ve been wondering what’s wrong with me. I’m not perfect, I know, but neither is anybody else and I don’t see where I am so profoundly defective as to actually repel men. So the unoriginal and oft-quoted question remains, why am I still alone? In seeking an answer, I occasionally allowed myself to nurse cruel self-criticisms into full-blown depression because I was so convinced there was something really unlovable about me. I begged my friends to be blunt about my shortcomings, hoping in vain for a problem I could fix. Then one day about three months ago, it hit me.

I’m not the problem.

I realized it’s not that I don’t get hit on, it’s that I don’t get hit on by the kind of guy whose proposition I’d accept. I don’t think my standards are ridiculously high, but the guy next door probably doesn’t cut it, so that may be part of the reason I’ve never met Mr. Right. Not to mention I’ve also wasted a lot of my early years being distracted by Mr. Right Now, Mr. Great Pecs, Mr. Brooding Eyes, Mr. Hot Chemistry and Mr. Can Never Meet My Mother. If I were to guesstimate that 5% of the dateable male population matches my requirements (and really, it’s not even a ballpark figure. I have no idea how one goes about putting numbers to such things), then it begins to logically emerge that such a small pool would be A) highly prized and much in demand (assuming my requirements rate high on a popular scale, and I think they do), and B) spread across an increasingly isolationist society, making it hard to meet them. Maybe I just don’t get out enough.

Then I meet people like my ex-neighbor who are beautiful, vapid, chic, self-absorbed, barely educated and slightly psychotic, and appear to be dating and discarding the entire top 5% all at once in a never-ending cycle of blithe entitlement. (I admit I was jealous when she brought home Ralph, a smart, adorable, well-spoken, kind guy with a secure job and a pronounced desire to settle down, then was astounded as she cheated on him, insulted him, disregarded his feelings, and generally treated him like a disposable boyfriend. WTF?) And I watch other women — smart, compassionate women with depth, vibrancy, passion, brains, beauty and humor — who consistently get jerked around even more than I do. These are some amazing women, the kind who, if I were a guy, would be my dream women. But they aren’t being hotly pursued by passionate poets, forward-thinking philosophers, or even just wise, witty working guys any more than I am.

Where are those guys? Where are the guys who not only fit our requirements, but require the things we offer in return? Doesn’t it seem right that when it comes time to settle down and find a lifetime partner, brains would seek brains, humor seek humor, passion seek passion, etcetera? So why do these apparently smart, funny, great guys follow their wankers straight to the nearest Britney or Tara or Pamela, and then marry them and for the next fifteen years (or however long it takes for Misty to get bored and start screwing the help) put up with the kind of stupid, senseless, mind-numbing crap that would make Justin Timberlake send his SexyBack where it came from? Do they really prefer big-breasted, bottle-blonde, money-grubbing drama queens with the conversational skills of a table lamp, or do they not know something deeper and more satisfying exists? What kind of guy settles for the shiny wrapping paper when he could have the whole damn package?

Dude! What’s wrong with this world?

Thus concludes the rant. I feel better.