Overly moral dating site

Most of you know that I'm single and getting tired of it. Well, on Thursday night I decided to take a look at eHarmony.

Having been exposed to the worst parts of the Internet for well over a decade now, I thought I had seen everything. eHarmony surprised me though.

First off I noticed that they only service "Men seeking Women" and "Women seeking Men". They've made no provision for same-sex couples at all.

Then I start going through their questionare, well that took an hour. There were close to one hundred questions to answer, strangely church kept coming up... well I answered them all. Finally at the end I'm informed that they cannot help me because I'm not single. Well, that's true. I've been separated for 4 years now but am still legally married, that's just a matter of paperwork though. They instead referred me to their "eHarmony Marriage" service which will help me save my marriage. Yeah, ok.

Well, I said separated in the interests of complete accuracy, I'll just update my status and get on with it. No such luck. I don't have access to that information. A bit of hunting through their FAQs and I find this (excerpted):

"We understand that no broad general policy can cover every conceivable situation, but we still have to create rules based on what's best for most of the people, most of the time. We look forward to welcoming you as an eHarmony member once your divorce is final.

Once your divorce has been finalized, please use the link below to e-mail us with the following information:

1. The county and state of your divorce proceedings
   
2. The name of the judge
3. The date your divorce was finalized"

Seems a little overly moralistic to me. That's fine, I'll take my money elsewhere...

Beautiful Women with Idiot Men

First of all, don't worry, this isn't one of those "poor me, we nice guys always get the shaft" posts. I'm not looking for pity, just sharing an insight.

There seems to be a surplus of attractive, intelligent women dating or married to idiots, assholes and knuckle-draggers. The obvious reason is that "women only go for bastards". Well, I've been thinking about this one for a little while and think the obvious answer is the wrong answer.

Having spoken with both Rob and Andreas (many of those who know me know these two as well so credit where credit is due) I think this needs to go out into distribution. Nice guys, listen up!

So last week I met someone whom I'm interested in (no details, except to say I'm trying to get her number as we speak, I need to work through her friends for that so I'm sure all kinds of background checks are being done). My initial thought, which kept me from saying anything when I was actually with her and could speak to her was, "Yeah, but she's way out of my league...". I've done that many times over the years... usually considered myself not good enough to even ask.

Well, this week I've been thinking about that. What I've come up with is so what? There is no harm in asking. What the worst thing that could happen? She says no and my life continues as it has been? Well, isn't that where I am now? Where's the downside to that?

Note: I suppose the actual worst thing that could happen is that we could hit it off, get married and on out wedding night she could kill me. I don't think that's likely, I'm a better judge of character than that (at least a bit).

I shared that with Rob on Tuesday and he agreed. He also added the following (I'm paraphrasing): "Most nice guys are intimidated by beautiful women, think exactly what you think and stay quiet. Only the idiots and assholes actually ask so they're the ones who win in the end."

Andreas backed that up today with a quote from Cameron Diaz about how she can't find a date.

I guess this is all true.

Now, assignment time. Nice guys like me - Forget this "out of my league" shit and if you're interested, say something! I know it's hard. Believe it or not it's just as hard at 34 as it is at 17... I'm sure it won't be easier when I'm 68 either... What's the worst that can happen? You get shot down? OH WELL! You can't win unless you enter the game.

Idiots, assholes and knuckle-draggers (you know who you are) - Just crawl back under your damp rock. It's our turn now.