Okay, so given the popularity and interest in this topic (TAB's response to my post on the subject netted a whopping 125 comments) and more importantly because I was planning to write a little more about it anyway and respond to a few points, we're going to revisit the subject of DATING. So let's have a go at it, then.

In several of the comments to TAB's response to my last dating entry, people noted either that I have a unique take on the subject or my age -- or both -- implying that the former is a consequence of the latter. And while that's possible, I ultimately disagree. One of the things that I'd intended to emphasize more in the last post but don't think I noted well enough was that I've been where TAB and I suspect several other of the commenters are at the moment (otherwise I don't think there would be so much support of that feeling of desperation) -- that is, there was a time that I really, really wanted to have a romantic relationship. Like TAB, I'd never had one before -- and, in fact, I still haven't. Now maybe things are a little different for me, seeing as how I'm ten years younger than TAB and still "have many years ahead of me," but I don't think it's relevant to discount my advice or to earmark it because of my age because that's not how I'm thinking about the situation. It's not like I'm saying, "Oh, I won't worry about being in a relationship now because I'm young and have plenty of time to worry about that," whereas persons in their thirties may be anxious to settle down (because society says they should be settling down by this point). It's not like I'm saying, "Man, I'm too young to be tied down now -- I've got to play the field, dawg!" Like I noted before, I still retain my virginity and am hardly scrambling to lose it. And while I am saying that TAB and others would do better to care less about being in a relationship, I'm not saying it because I think they should be more like me -- I'm saying it because I don't think this desperation is very healthy or attractive or productive or helpful in the least. And maybe that feeling comes in cycles -- I dunno -- but I think it's very weird that so many people should be somewhere that I was several years ago. I mean, given their age, shouldn't they be WAY over this feeling by now? I'm genuinely curious about how this all works.

But maybe it was a little easier for me to shrug and say, "Fuhgeddabadit!" Obviously TAB and these other folks still hold out some hope for finding happiness in a romantic relationship, otherwise they wouldn't be paying $30+ a month for online dating services and going on multiple dates a week and worrying so much about dating and patting each other on the back and saying, "Don't worry, Such-and-such, you'll find the one!" each time things don't go well. I don't have that. I mean, sure, it would be nice -- maybe -- to be involved in a loving relationship and all of that jazz, if that sort of thing exists and is as wonderful as direct-to-video Disney cartoons and the idle fantasies that follow viewings of certain Richard Linklater films would have one believe, but I'm fairly convinced that even if loves like that do exist, they don't exist for me. I view finding myself in a loving relationship in the same class as the possibility that I might sprout feathered red wings and ascend into the Heavens and, moreover, actually be welcomed there. As shouting a catchphrase into my wristwatch and thus summoning a giant mech from the ocean in which I would ride about wrecking major cities and looking really cool while doing it. It's sorta like that. And yeah, when I first realized that it made me kind of sad, but now, years later? Not so much. Now, I'm not saying that these dating folks would do well to convince themselves that they'll probably never end up in a loving relationship, but I am saying that they should remember that it is a possible and arguably probable outcome. After all, there are couples that have been married for twenty years that never knew that kind of fairy tale love. Just putting things in perspective.

And I anticipate at least a few comments along the lines of, "Why don't you think you'll ever find a relationship? OMG! That's so sad." It really isn't -- at least not to me and not anymore -- but we'll save the answer to that question for another time. If you're interested, that is. And whoa, deja vu -- did I write about that before?

I was kidding about the public flogging thing at the goth club, by the way. Out of the four or five different goth clubs I've visited, only one of them had public flogging. Natch, I participated a few times. 😉