First, let’s get this out of the way.

That is the song I have had playing in my head since I decided on today’s topic. You know, sometimes the jukebox in my head can be pretty damned loud. Anyone else have this problem, or is it just me?

Anyhow, since I talked about sex yesterday, I thought I would talk above love today. To me, these things are intimately linked in more ways than one. I know for some people, sex can be entirely recreational, and I totally do not judge them in any way for that. In fact, I kind of envy them.

But for me, sex is about intimacy, and intimacy requires an emotional connection, and you can’t get that by cruising.

Anyhow, as you all know by now, I am a complete and total virgin when it comes to romance. I have never had even a weekend boyfriend, let alone a genuine LTR. I have no idea what it is like to be in love, or rather, my entire concept of how romance works is derived from popular culture, and that is probably not good.

Of course, I am talking about real life romance. I have had online relationships before, none of which went well and one of which ended in a terrible way that was completely my fault and hurt a very sweet and idealistic man and for which I will forever bear a burden of guilt.

It sucks that sometimes learning important life lessons ends up hurting others. I wish it were not so.

So I suppose that if virtual romance counts, I am not entirely virginal. I have dabbled. But a string of relationships with people who turn out to already be in relationships soured me on the prospect. Plus, of course, seeing as most of the world lives nowhere near you, there is always the problem of falling in love with someone you will never meet because they live at the exact antipode of you and you are both poor.

I suppose I would be more open to the idea today, now that I am forty and ready to be more realistic, shall we say. I have always been monogamy-minded. I have always wanted a man to settle down with and put down roots with and make a life and a home for ourselves. I’m a Taurus and we want comfort and stability over almost anything else.

But as I get older and life hurts more and I feel the aging of my bones, that nice comfortable house of my dreams begins to seem more and more attractive. I would love to have a nice home with my Man of Life somewhere. I may end up needing it.

And here’s the thing : unless I have a radical change of lifestyle, I am not going to meet men in any other way. I can’t imagine going to gay clubs. I was too introverted for night clubs when I was in college. I have only gotten crustier and less tolerant of such things as I age.

Oh sure, put me in a place with loud noise, crowding, and intense social judgment. That way you can activate my dislike of loudness, my claustrophobia, and my social anxiety all at once. It’s like they are made to repel the likes of me.

Oh well, at least they aren’t also filled with smoke any more. They were when I was a college student. Talk about the perfect hell. No amount of liquor could get me to be able to tolerate that.

So it is not like I am going to meet men offline, in the real world. It would take a rom-com level of meet cute style luck for me to meet the man of my dreams in my current mode of existence. Mostly I just see my friends, which is ideal if all one cares about is keeping social anxiety in check, but not if one actually wants to have a life.

And I do want a life. A life beyond this bedroom. I want a man, and a home, and a job, and cats. I want to participate in life and be a part of it instead of just being a cipher on the sidelines, worldly wise but wet and weak.

The question, therefore, is whether or not it is better to have an online relationship with someone I will never meet than to have no relationship at all.

I think it might be, but I’m not sure.

Then there is the massive problem of compatibility. I have extremely high standards, not because I am so full of myself that I think nobody is good enough for me or that I am just too damned fussy (I’m not), it’s just that my natural requirements for a man are fairly exacting and do not necessarily allow in a lot of human males.

Take intelligence. I need someone who can keep up with me intellectually, and I am a really bright guy. That already disqualifies most of humanity.

Add that to the fact that it would be kind of convenient if he was gay or bi, and that makes it a tiny percentage of a tiny percentage of the world population of adult males.

Then you have to add in actual compatibility factors, like outlook on life, goals, dreams, values, and of course, basic personality, and you can see why it seems so daunting to me.

I sign up for dating sites, and I read profile after profile, and they all seem so impossibly boring. None of them seem remotely like what I am looking for. And it gets really depressing really fast.

So where do I find love? I have no idea. I can’t see myself going out there and meeting men, I can’t imagine having the emotional stamina to go through a million profiles to find Mister Right, and nobody ever responds to my sparklingly witty and charming profiles, so I am up a stump, love-life wise.

Maybe I should make a profile under the name Horse-Hung Billionaire and see where that gets me.

Talk to you tomorrow, folks!