Why I am single:

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
-Walt Whitman, Song of Myself 52

Dating is tricky business. In my experience it takes about three years to really get to know someone, and with most dates you have something like a few hours. Here’s the problem: in those two hours (or seven, or fourteen, or thirty) you have to figure out what this chick is about, whether not she’s at all intellectually curious, what here motives are, and whether she is capable of taking an interest in what you’re all about. That’s the easy part.

The hard part is doing all of this why also trying to figure out whatever weird arbitrary rules and expectations she brings to the table. It’s consistency that I have a problem with. The advice always given is “be yourself,” which is, I suppose, the best way to be. My problem always seems to be what part of yourself to be. I’m really a pretty simple guy, but apparently broadly interested and experienced enough to be perceived as complex. Combine that with a natural proclivity to take a position opposed the prevailing one in the room at any given time (innate striving for balance?) and you can see the results.

When with the 45-year-old attorney, one should probably be fairly calm and sophisticated; when with the 19-year-old retail clerk, probably happy-go-lucky and energetic. I, of course, am legitimately all of these in season. It’s just aligning the season with the situation, especially with any kind of consistency, that never seems to work. Mentioning the destructive power of pseudo-science with the fundamentalist Baptist? (despite all of the other good she may have) – probably not a good idea. Appreciate the honest power of being a simple native? - not around the shapely Russian banker. I often wonder at how a multifaceted prism gets mistaken for a cardboard cut-out.

Even if you do have the moment in common, the next hurdle is: what does she want? I’m pretty open-minded, but should one be superficial and aggressive (thus scaring the woman looking for a long-term relationship) or patient and deep? (thus scaring off the one looking for something casual) I think most people are each of these from point to point, but woe be to him that picks the wrong one at the word go.

That’s the only thing I don’t like about being an adult: no longer having the long time-frames to really know what you’re dealing with, it all becomes a matter of guesswork and luck. Over and over.

Of course, I could be over-analyzing things.