As mentioned previously, I took the holidays off from dating.  My original New Years plan involved time with friends for board games, good food, good drink, conversation, movies, etc. and I had planned to invite one of the women I was seeing but my son had mentioned he wanted to have a gathering of friends and I made my excuses and apologies and we planned for that.

The gathering ended up not coming off so it was just my son and I on New Year's Eve, which was fine as I was beginning to feel poorly.  I didn't realise this would continue for two and a half months.  I'd get cold symptoms, I'd get better, I'd get a light fever, I'd get better, I'd get worse cold symptoms, I'd get a little better, I'd get high fever, it'd break.  When I finally went to the doctor they tasked at me, mentioned pneumonia, gave me a once a day seven day course of antibiotics that forced me to flee from sunlight and gave me symptoms of hypoglycemia and cause the tendons in mo left shoulder and right ankle to hurt.

But I got better.

And the reason I bring any of this up is during my down time, planned through February 14 because women get absolutely insane about that day, I tweaked my profile on dating sites, looked into a few new ones, and then discovered two things.

1) There are a ton of desperate and lonely people who are desperate and lonely because they require perfection while being far from perfect

2) Dating sites are just about the worst place on Earth to meet people

As if this blog idea was not bad enough, right now I have mortally offended people.  Let's recap something shall we?

I am a decent looking man in decent physical shape who makes a great living and is creative and romantic and polite and an excellent lover, just like most other people who have for whatever reason had relationships fail.  The only thing special about me is that I am comfortable with me, things I do not like I change, things I do not mind I do not change.  I am confident and I find confidence in women sexy.

I'm past the age or interest to rescue women.  I am not looking to be adored or idolized or anything like that and I will not approach women in that manner.  Would Halle Berry or Sandra Bullock come to their senses and track me down, I would appreciate them but they are just women and there is nothing golden about any of their body parts.

Lust is a physiological reaction and while I have nothing against lust, it fades and after it fades if every time a person opens their mouth I think "ball-gag" then I don't have a relationship, I've got a hooker.  That's enough for some folks but it is not enough for me.  And I am not dating to satisfy the wants and desires of any person but me so if it ain't good for me, it ain't happening.

Is that selfish?  Hell yes.  I am so selfish that I want to have a relationship with a confident and successful woman whom I also find physically appealing and who feels the same about me.  What a horrible person I am for not sacrificing my happiness in the hope that my discomfort might make someone else happy.

That was sarcasm.  You got that, right?

But I have come to believe I am a rarity on dating sites.  My profile is simple and straightforward and I do not spend any time trying to tell everyone why I am special.  My pictures are recent and show me in a variety of activities, none of which involves me with my clothes draped to avoid deletion of the image.  Folks, there is a lot of free porn available featuring sculpted women doing everything you can imagine and quite a few things I had believed were impossible.  Yes I will look at your PG-13 pictures; no it will not sell me that any of your body parts are golden.

But every day I see profiles with pictures that are 5+ years old.  I see profiles that remind me of some girl in High School writing for her hope chest.  In short, I see a lot of delusion and I am missing the point.  I am 49 years old and have a full life and the chances of me sacrificing this life in hopes that I will make some random person posting a picture of what they looked like in a bathing suit 10 years ago happy are exactly zero.  They would be less than zero but I am doing my part to eliminate the deficit.

In the next installment I'll give you my take on the dating sites.  Ease of use, setup, clarity of terms of service, up-front pricing, etc.  I'll rate them and tell you which ones show promise and which do not and which ones are so much of a scam that I'd rather drive a nail through my skull than ever use them again.

And then we'll get into some of my e-mail exchanges.  These can be fun because of the reactions I get.  I'll also detail my attempts at establishing communication.  It'll be fun and we can all point and laugh at my pathetic small talk skills.

Stay tuned.