I Should Have Been a Christian

I love the ladies, but the ladies, well, apparently they don't love me.

Or at least so suggests the informal polls that are Match.com and E-Harmony.

After six months of the former and three of the latter, it can conclusively be said that we, myself and the ladies, can both do better. By and large the women I fancied did not fancy me back, and by and large the women who fancied me seemed to be either entirely unaware of what was written in my profile or not particularly picky in their mate. It appeared that most of my attempts failed at or shortly after introductions, and most of their attempts never made much sense. Why women who did not share my interests or goals or even any of the "what I am looking for" criteria would think we would have any significant romantic connection is admittedly a bit beyond me. Perhaps there's intimacy in having absolutely nothing to talk about.

My failed attempts at wooing aside, the greatest realization I came to amongst all of this woman hunting is that perhaps I ditched the Christian faith thing a bit too early. Although this is an entirely unsubstantiated assertion, it seemed the more a profile directly or indirectly referenced Adonai the more fetching the woman was. (Either there is a significant lack of devout Christian guys leading to a surplus of devout Christian women or religious zeal and Internet access correlate directly with attractiveness and amicable disposition.) Unfortunately, part of being pious for most involves dating only the like minded, something about 2 Corinthians and unequal yoking, so that meant no matter how fabulous and charming I was, or how much I begged and pleaded, further discourse was right out. I was left to choose from only the nonbelievers and carnal Christians. To think, if only I had not turned to empty hedonism so quickly I could right now be enjoying myself some empty hedonism. Oh, Lord, you're an ironic one if nothing else.

This is not all to say that I missed out, though. That I feel somehow as if my experience was incomplete or that I pine for an endless series of what ifs. Perhaps had I still been waving the Christian flag I would have met the love of my life -- I would have at the very least had a larger pool of possibilities -- but I don't care for such perspectives. You do the best with what you got, learn, and move on. I certainly cannot choose my faith or will myself to believe, and I definitely cannot go back in time even if I could wear religion like a hat. But dang, man, there're some cute Christian ladies out there.

So the six months went by. At first I felt uneasy about regularly judging and assessing whether I was interested in someone or not based solely on their profiles and pictures, but this gave way to acceptance, then amusement, and then finally disinterest. It seems the appraising of maidens like all things gets boring in time. I did meet a few girls throughout it all -- a young woman whose every conversation seemed to return to Friends being a lame knock off of Seinfeld and another polite lady whose conversation style consisted of an endless stream of unconnected questions, amongst others -- and I found it interesting to see how different people chose to sell themselves -- it seemed there was a pretty even balance between tomboys with a girly side, party girls with a dorky side, smart girls with a pretentious side, and characterless nitwits -- but the pickings got slim, I got self centered (or rather more so), and so the time came for my departure.

Curiously, the very last message I was to get the day my Match.com subscription expired was from a pleasant young woman from Georgia. In it she stated that she had seen that I had seen her profile (an odd feature of Match.com), and not typically catching the eye of dudes hundreds of miles away she out of curiosity clicked to view mine. After reading it she felt inclined to write a brief message stating simply that she did not see why I was on Match.com, that my profile was not typical of the profiles on the site, and although she imagined it would be a brief venture she wanted to wish the best of luck to me with my search. That was all. Very sweet. Very nice. Very random.

And I give up.