June 10, 2008 -- Yes, I have a JSH T-shirt. No, I'm not going to tell you how I got it. Let's just say it had nothing to do with the fact that I am a Forum Moderator. Nope, nothing at all. Uh uh.

Gem put up a new pic. I love it!

May 23, 2008 -- Woke up this morning, and the first thing I looked at was the metal grasshopper Gem gave me when she came over on Monday.

Creativity is a virtue....she's brilliant. Her birthday is tomorrow but I already gave her the presents....I'll have to come up with something else....!

May 20, 2008 -- Voila! Problem solved! Persistence or serendipity? I have no idea, and I don't care. All I know is it's all precisely where it's supposed to be....

May 16, 2006 -- I have finally realized that dating sites are simply not the "answer" for someone like me. Some of my friends here -- Eileen and Fineporcelain, to name two -- have made it work. And that's a good thing. They're good people and they deserve to be happy.

But I guess I'm just a little (?) harder to match, and the kind of person I'm looking for isn't here.

Meeting people in real life isn't exactly easy for me, but it's easier than trying to meet someone here, where all of the "good ones" are so far away that there's really no viable chance of ever seeing them in person at all. I've met a few new people in the last month and the level of communication and interaction is just so much better than anything I've been able to achieve here.

And I'm wondering if there's a sort of complacency that sets in, on dating sites; something like a subliminal "it doesn't matter, none of these people are real" mindset that so many seem to have, not just here, but on dating sites in general. There's an aspect of unreality to it, I think, for a lot of people. I have always tried to keep in mind that there's a living, breathing human being on the other end, but I'm guilty of finding it far too easy to "withdraw" back into the safety of internet-anonymity when someone comes across as being crazy or scary or stalkerish.

I've been told I'm too picky, but that's more of a function of knowing what works for me and what doesn't. Most situations don't, because I don't like the idea of being forced into a lifestyle that doesn't fit me -- which is what most people have wanted to do. I don't "domesticate" well.

The only person who has ever truly captivated me -- intellectually, creatively, philosophically -- tells me she needs me, and that her worst torture is being away from me. She says she thinks about me every 0.0002359 seconds, and writes beautiful notes, sends gifts, calls on the phone, and we have been talking on IM 5-6 hours almost every day. And she has talked about moving here, to be with me, for the last six months, even claims to have packed all her stuff and applied for jobs on line in my area -- and that's as far as it goes. She will not actually budge from the uncomfortable, frustrating, dead-end, "constantly want to bang my head on the wall" situation she's in now.

I've seen her 3 times in the last 6 months, and one of those times was the best weekend I ever had, but....it's not enough. I'm not going to do another LDR. I told her last night "Let me know when you finally leave there. Until then I don't want to hear from you." It was a hard thing to do, but I think it had to be done. I was enabling her to stay in a bad situation, by being willing to listen to her venting, her frustrations, all her problems with where she is now. I was giving her an outlet. Maybe, without that outlet, things will get bad enough for her to realize she simply must get out of there. I don't know. All I know is I can't let her play "carrot on a stick" with me anymore. It goes nowhere.

I'm tired of being lied to, of being misled, of mixed messages, of weeks of the best converations I've ever had, followed by another twenty lame reasons why she can't move.

The bottom line is: I don't matter enough for her to take that step. And that's OK, I just wish she would have said so six months ago so I could have used my time a little more productively.

So it's time to move on.

There isn't anybody on this site, so far, who matches up well with me at all -- not anyone I'm aware of, at least.

So, I'm trying some other things.....

April 15, 2008: Posted the angsty "Check-Out Girl" in the poetry section today, had some nice feedback. Not bad for a 5-minute project. I don't have any reason to believe Lyndsey is on this site....so it's not like she'll ever see it....LAMom gave me some great feedback on the book -- it's nice to have input (especially positive) from someone I truly respect and admire....!!

April 12, 2008: The book got listed on Amazon sooner than I thought, and is moving a little bit. Gem is researching book-review publications and magazines that may print excerpts. She is a writer's dream, knows more about marketing and publicity than I could ever sleep through, which frees me up to do the actual writing part.

April 3, 2008: One of the nice things about writing a book....is that this may be the only time in your life when things turn out exactly as you wanted them to....wish-fulfillment as literature. Art imitates the life you wish you could have....

Got the proof copy of Moving Day today, and it's perfect. Glad I was talked into going with the cream pages instead of the white. It's easier on the eyes, and makes for a nice contrast against the pure white of the cover. There was some concern that the drawings might be a little blurry because they were scanned at 150 dpi and the publisher prefers 300, but it worked out fine. It will be on Amazon within 15 days....

Just noticed the 14,947th "Does Age Matter?" thread. Right after the 21,094th "I'm Bored" thread and the 55,838th "Hi" thread. Granted, there are new people signing up here all the time, and every thread is someone's first. But for those of us who have been here awhile....well, the sheer repetition is getting tiresome. If not for Peccy and a few others, I'm wondering if we would ever have any original material. I've pretty much given up on starting threads of my own because there are a few who insist on turning them into drunk talk. I could do a thread about llamas in World War II, and they would somehow hijack it into being about alcohol. But then, there are so many drunks here anyway.

I actually did a search to see if there were any non-drinking dating sites, and didnt find any. Maybe there's a perception that you have to BE drunk to be on a dating site. That's certainly not true in my case, but I would say it holds up pretty well as a general rule here.

Then I did a search to see if there were any "no kids" dating sites, and I did find one, but those people are all ubermaterialistic. Their boats ARE their kids. It's really no different, just that the pictures in the wallet are of things instead of people.

March 26, 2008 -- About a year ago, one of my best friends e-mailed me about a dating site some of her co-workers had told her about. She set up a profile (this was unusual for her; she's never even been on MySpace and generally avoids dating sites) and asked me to check it out and join her there. I set up a profile, added a pic and some blog stuff, looked around. There wasn't much there. You could do some interesting things with the profile page itself, but there were few locals and the ones who were there seemed pretty MySpacish, meaning shallow, vapid, boring, and not the kind of people I would care to deal with. I went to the site a few times, saw nothing of interest, and forgot about it.

About a week ago, I got e-mails notifying me that two people I know from JSH had sent me friend invitations on that other site. It had been so long since I'd been there that I actually had to go to that site to remember what it was. Usually, once I abandon a site, I never go back.

I started looking around again. There were more people on the site now. More locals. More features; I set up some corkboard thing with pictures and signs on it. I was able to create something....

I ran a search, just to see who was around....lots of new people, people who definitely weren't there the last time I had checked the place out. And -- for just a minute -- I thought about writing to a couple of them. And then I noted that the ones I liked hadn't been on the site for "more than 3 months" (they have a "Last Log-In" indicator). Probably went there once or twice, just long enough to fill out a profile, and then gave up when they saw how little there was to work with. Like I did.

And I thought some more, and I realized I just don't have the energy to do this anymore. This debacle with Gem has just drained me to the point where I would like nothing better than to fall asleep and simply never wake up again. The ulcer is acting up, I spent most of last night in the bathroom, haven't slept right in months....I am so tired of being lied to, of being alone, of being misled and used and taken advantage of. Nothing has worked for me for so many years now (really, since Annette disappeared, after she had the huge fight with her mom so long ago) -- I'm just fed up. The wasted years. And for what?

March 21, 2008 -- I've noticed a lot of postings about "How can I find someone?" and "Where do you look?" in the forums lately. This is a topic of particular interest to me, because I have no (real) answers, and I wish I did.

The standard cliches sound good until you really look at them. One of the most common ones is "at the grocery store." I'm in a grocery store about 3 or 4 times a week, and I can tell you that there are no "dating prospects" there. At least not in the grocery stores in this area. The women I see there are either 85, or they're a little younger but have six whining and screaming kids piled into the shopping cart. No thank you. This is not my idea of a "viable dating prospect." I would rather be stung repeatedly by an angry jellyfish.

In a small town, there just aren't that many people around in the first place; so once you've eliminated all the non-prospects, you don't have a heck of a lot left to work with, you don't know where they are, and you don't know how to find them. Makes for a difficult resolution.

I used to think that internet dating sites would be the perfect solution for people like myself who have no real way to meet people though the more "normal" methods. I actually believed that for a day or two, back in November of 1997. Oooooops! Wrongo! Well, nobody's perfect.

I'm still trying to figure out why dating sites don't work for me. Everybody tells me I'm a pretty good communicator, I do well with the written word, blah blah blah -- people seem to like my writing, they tell me it's funny and informal and lots of people seem to like to read this profile over and over, and that's fine. I used to think that there must be women who would appreciate a guy with good communications skills, but maybe I was wrong about that, too.

In real life -- back in the days when I had single friends with single friends, and it was easy for me to meet a new girl just by telling Annette I was ready to meet a new girl -- one thing I heard, over and over, from girls was "You're the first guy who ever really listened to me." And I did; I like learning about people, I like getting to know about their lives, their histories, their goals and hopes and dreams and fears and families and their interests and disinterests and beliefs and disbeliefs....that whole process, that learning process, that "getting to know you," I love that stuff but there's almost always (except with Gem) a point where they run out of things to talk about, and then I get bored.

That's why I used to have so many 3-month relationships. And that was OK because I wasn't looking for anything permanent back then. It was fun, it was learning. It was figuring out that knowing what I didn't want was as important as knowing what I did want. Then I got married and the whole thing collapsed for a few years but I got it all back afterwards. For awhile.

And the people around me changed and grew up and got married and had 2.4 kids, or else they moved away and disappeared. No more "single friends with single friends." I lost my "connections" and never found any decent new ones.

I moved around, during and after the divorce, met a few people from dating sites in 2006 (all very, very bad situations), got back together with Gem for awhile, there was a meltdown, we're still talking, she's done some truly amazing work on my book. I still have feelings for her, the kind of feelings I've never had for anyone else and can't imagine having for anyone else, although -- to be honest -- sometimes I wish I could, I wish I could feel this way about someone who would be more stable and more consistent with me.

But I just can't find anyone else who holds my interest at all. Gem and I have this weird intellectual compatibility, this creative confluence -- whereas most of the people I've met from dating sites were 100% deceptive and (in the end) shallow enough to have MySpace accounts -- Gem is smart and funny and constantly creating something. We have some problem issues but she tells me she loves me and that her "worst torture" is being away from me. I still figure that could be fixed IF she wanted to fix it, but....

It's certainly true that I'm more "selective" now than I used to be. That's just the result of finding out what works and what doesn't, even if only short-term. People say that my standards get in the way of being able to meet people -- but I figure that's what they're FOR -- to keep the wrong people out of the picture. I DON'T want a drinker or a drug user or someone with kids. Sorry, been there, done that, it doesn't work.

I've had people tell me that they think I "intimidate" through my writing. I can't understand how anyone could feel that way. I'm just writing about my life and things on my mind. If that intimidates you, we probably wouldn't get along anyway. If you're more comfortable with someone who has the writing skills of a kindergartener (which, realistically, is about 85% of the people on this, or any, dating site), you're not for me. I've already been married to a brain-dead fluffball, and I'd prefer not to relive that error.

My friends tell me it's time to move on and meet someone new. When I try to be objective about it (which isn't easy), I can see some wisdom in that advice. BUT -- I have to ask myself if it will ever be possible to meet another person with her level of compatibility, her intelligence, her sheer and simple "fit" with me. And I don't see how that could happen. How many people on dating sites do you find, who have IQ scores off the chart, who don't drink, and who have absolutely no interest in having kids? She's the only one I've ever found, thus far, and I have been on a hell of a lot of dating sites.

And what makes the point moot is that there's no realistic way for me to meet anybody here ("here" in both the geographic and on line senses) anyway. Unless Annette comes back, or I can find a new Annette, I'm pretty much stuck. Like Kerry Wood says, between arm surgeries, "It is what it is."

"It is what it is." I just have to find a way to work with what it is.

March 16, 2008 -- Gem and I have been talking on the IM 4 or 5 or 6 hours a day, plus e-mail and phone calls and all that. She's going through a lot right now, and, as confused as I am by the whole thing, I know that what I have to do right now is be Supportive Guy and help her get through this. That's what I have always done for her, and I'm not about to start making any radical changes now. She always complains about things being "too one-sided" -- and maybe they are -- but this is what I do. We can worry about "balancing the scales" later, if that's what she feels she has to do. For now, all that matters is to get her through this time.

She has been doing some tremendous work on the book -- reformatting everything to the new page size, and she designed an absolutely gorgeous cover. All that's left, I think, is to reinsert the italics and bolds (where the original reformatting cleaned them out), and I have to come up with one more brief quote for the cover blurb. I'm going to do this one through a publishing website, so it should be all ready to print within the next week or two.

And then we'll start formatting the second one (already written and PDFed).

Gem says that being away from me is the "worst torture" she's ever been through. I guess that's a compliment, but if it's so bad, why doesn't she do something about it? She did ask if it would be OK for her to stop by when she's up this way to visit relatives over Easter. I said sure -- I haven't seen her since December -- and I want to give her the disc with Book Two on it, anyway.

My friends are telling me she's never going to make up her mind about anything, and I should just move on. I understand their concern but it's not going to be that easy.

Even if I made up my mind that they're right, I'd be stuck. It's impossible to meet anyone in this town, and there's no one on this site who's even remotely datable. I've wracked my brain (and that really, really hurts, by the way) trying to come up with alternative ideas to meet new people, and I'm stumped. In the past, I've always had a meddlesome, agreeable, well-connected friend or two to handle this sort of thing for me. But all of my formerly meddlesome, agreeable, well-connected friends have either moved away, or gotten married and had 2.4 kids. They're not so well-connected anymore (although most are still meddlesome and agreeable).

The annoying thing is that I feel completely immobilized by bthis whole situation, and I hate that. Nothing bugs me more than feeling paralyzed like this. And yet -- there's really no one to talk to, no place to go -- this may be one of those situations that has to resolve itself, and those always seem to take WAY too long.

Then I found out that the cute girl at the grocery store has a boyfriend, too....what else can go wrong?

I'm wondering if maybe I'm spending too much time here. As much as I love JSH, and so many of the people here, maybe I could be using this time to try to do something more productive for myself. I dearly love Gem, always have and always will, but I can't see waiting in Limbo the rest of my life, for her to make up her mind about this. 2006 was a horrible series of fake people I met on other sites, 2007 was a vegetative state until Gem showed up in November, and 2008 is....? I don't know. I need a change. I don't know how to do that. I don't actually know if it's even possible. What I do know is I can't go on like this.

March 10, 2008 -- I wanted to thank everybody who put up with me, who gave good advice, who cared enough to make a supportive comment or two, during my meltdown a few days ago. It was a rough time, and it's not over yet, but I'm no longer thinking about driving my car into the sun. Couldn't find the right road, anyway. Just not sure what to do at this point. Gem and I are still talking and she has been through a bad stretch, and I refuse to abandon her if she needs me.

Deb (Feral) and Jist have both mentioned Deb's matchmaking thread, but I really don't feel ready for that. Deb is doing some incredible work, I wouldn't be surprised if she's already matched up more people in her threads than have been matched on the whole site since Day One.

I guess the biggest thing is that, after 15 months here, I really haven't seen anyone in the forums who comes across as realistically compatible. There are people I like, but there are ALWAYS distance issues -- and usually one or two or eleven other problems. So there MIGHT be someone I could work with here, but most likely it would be a lurker, someone who has NEVER posted in the forums, and therefore someone I will probably never even know exists.

Dabbling with another site, in the hopes that a "new crowd" might contain some better prospects. Ran into a couple of JSHers over there, too....

February 22, 2008 -- I wanted to see if I could make a fake typical profile, like most of the ones I see on the Mutual Matches -- here it is:

"I don't know what to write here. I'm a fun person who likes to have fun. I'm easy-going and laid-back, and I love my friends. I like to go out or stay in.* I would like to meet someone who doesn't play games and who is looking for something meaningful. Anything else you want to know, you'll have to ask."

(* Special thanks to Aaronzdad for reminding me that the true epitome of bad profiles must contain "I like to go out or stay in." He is absolutely correct, and I'm ashamed for not having incuded it in the first place.)

Jeez, I feel like my IQ went down 35 points just writing that drivel. And people actually write that stuff and think it will get someone's attention! Who's dumber, the ones who write this crap, or the ones who answer? You make the call.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled (and hopefully more thought-provoking) profiile.....

February 8, 2008 -- One thing I really like about JSH is how there's this constant influx of new people into the forums. Some of them are really great additions to the site, and they keep the forums alive, keep them from getting stagnant. And, yes, there are also some jerks and idiots, but a lot of them seem to be getting themselves removed from the site fairly quickly, by violating the rules and such.

Now that I've been a moderator for a couple of months, I have a much better understanding about some of the "insider" stuff that goes on here. It's actually pretty fascinating, and it gives me a greater appreciation for all the work that the site owners have to do, just to keep everything up and running. I have more direct interaction with Mike than with the others, and I have to say that it's been a real pleasure (as well as an education) to work as closely with him as I have been. He tells us mods about any changes that are occurring, answers our questions, handles all the stuff that the mods can't handle, and just generally keeps everything positive and fun.

Well, that's WAY too much positivity for me, for one day. Now let me get back to my usual cynicism -- we have a group of female bullies causing problems on the site! Apparently, they have been warned about their horrible misdeeds. Will it help? Who can say? All I know, is it's pretty pathetic when these women feel the need to attack someone, er masse, and then claim it's OK because he said something they didn't like. Wow. Well, with any luck, this will be resolved in the very near future. Heh.

The other thing that bugs me lately is the 4389 "I'm bored" threads that get posted every single day. And the "bored" idiots STILL haven't learned that "bored" threads go in Chit Chat, not in General. I swear, I moved 50 of them myself one day. Frankly, I don't CARE if you're bored -- it's not MY problem, it's YOURS -- If I'm bored, I will find something to do, I won't whine about it in a dating site forum. Wake up and get off your dead ass and stop asking for people who have real functioning BRAINS to fix everything for you. Jeez, i wish we could set up a filter so that every post with "bored" in the subject line would automatically be deleted....

Well, whatever. That's probably not going to happen. (Or is it?)

OK, I'm done for now. Time to go play that Pogo game where you shoot the metal ducks.

January 29, 2008 -- I wonder if these idiots who post 25 "I'm bored" threads every day have any idea how one-dimensional and mindless it makes them look. Who wants to be with someone whose whole repertoire is "I'm bored, someone please talk to me and entertain me" --- ?? That's the kind of person who I would give a coloring book and a box of crayons and then kick them out of the car near an underpass on I-57 and hope (without really caring much either way) that they find their way back to the forest.

I don't think they understand the correlation between "I'm bored" and "I'm boring." Because there really is nothing more boring than someone who's bored all the time. If you can't even keep YOURSELF amused, how the hell am I supposed to take your intelligence seriously? Have you ever heard of a "book"?

Mike has instructed the moderators to move all of the "I'm bored" threads into the Chit Chat forum. They can't be in General, because General requires, at the VERY least, a SUBJECT or TOPIC, and not mindless drivel. Mindless drivel is relegated to Chit Chat, which actually makes sense because all of the "Good morning" and "Anybody wanna talk" and "I'm going to bed now" and "Oh, I need to go to the bathroom" and "My dog just barked at a squirrel" threads are also relegated to Chit Chat.

Personally, I think they should all be deleted! But that's just me.

So, a significant percentage of the people on the site are extremely boring, and another significant percentage don't know how to write a profile that contains more than eleven words. I'd like to blame this on the public school system, or Bush, or Billy Mays and Oxi-Clean; but the reality of it is probably just that there are a lot of boring, lazy, stupid people out there. Oh well....

At least all of the people on my friends list are intelligent and sensitive and creative and conversationally competent! And there are some other good ones....

But not enough....

January 19, 2008 --

The Adventures of the Talking Atheist Bear: (this is a rough draft, but I wanted to get the basics down before I lost the whole idea!)

One day, the Talking Atheist Bear was trundling through the woods near Godless Falls, North Dakota, when he happened to notice a bright light off in the distance. Curious, he set off in the direction of the unusual sight, and soon came upon a young man caught in a bear trap. The young man was waving a bright metal pole back and forth, in an apparent attempt to attract attention to his plight; it had been the pole which had reflected the sunlight and created the gleam seen a bit earlier by the Talking Atheist Bear.

The man noticed the bear and was terrified. "Please don't kill me!" the man screamed, not expecting this to accomplish much. The bear looked at him quizzically and said, "Do you think just because I'm an atheist, I have no values or morals? Do you believe I would kill you, for no reason other than sheer bloodlust? What kind of a bear do you take me for?"

The man stood, mouth agape. "You can talk! You're a bear, but you can talk!"

"Well, yes," the bear replied, "I think that's self-evident. How is it that you ended up in a bear trap? Seems a tad bit ironic, to tell you the truth."

The man looked down at his injured foot. "I was hunting squirrels, and I wasn't really paying attention to where I was walking. And..." He pointed downward. "And then this."

The Talking Atheist Bear said, "I'd be glad to pull the trap open for you. You'll need to go see a doctor though, there's obviously been a lot of bleeding and there could be some tissue and bone damage."

The young man seemed a bit reluctant to accept this generous offer, but then reassessed his options. It was difficult to imagine anything good happening in his life until and unless the bear trap could be removed.

"Well, OK," he said. "I'd appreciate it."

The bear approached, and, with his big bear paws, levered the trap open and gently removed the bloody foot from between the jaws. "There you go," he said. "And I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't hunt squirrels around here anymore. A lot of animals live in this forest and we like to keep it peaceful."

Then something occurred to the bear. "Wait a minute, if you were hunting squirrels, you must have had a gun."

The young man nodded sheepishly. "I did. I was holding it when I stepped in --" he looked at the trap, open once again -- "in this thing, and I screamed and threw the gun over there someplace." He pointed in the general direction of a mass of huge, old dark trees clumped together as if in a clandestine conference. "I guess I'll never find it over there, though, it looks a little dark, even at this time of day."

The bear shook his head. "I t would be better for both of us if you didn't waste time looking. You need medical attention, and right away. You don't want that foot to get infected. Can you walk?"

The man took a few steps. "It hurts, but I can manage."

"Well, I'll walk with you to the edge of the woods, to make sure you're all right," the bear offered.

"Thank you," said the man. "My car is just past the river over there" -- pointing to the north -- "and I'll go right to the emergency room."

They walked together silently -- and slowly, because the man had a bit of a limp and was leaning on his metal pole -- for a few minutes, and then the young man said, "Did I hear you say something about being an atheist back there?"

The bear laughed. "Yes, it's true. You see, a bear needs no God. Everything I need is right here. My food, my home, my sky, my water, my friends. It's all real, all in front of me. I can see it, taste it, hear it, smell it, feel it. I need no illusions, no superstitions, no fictional characters to fall back on. All I need is what is here, what I was born into. I appreciate it, I love it, but I see no need to attribute it to a higher power. Because I see no evidence of a higher power."

They reached the clearing at the edge of the forest. The river loomed ahead.

"But how is it that you can talk?" the man asked.

"How is it that YOU can talk?" the bear replied. "It doesn't need to be a miracle. Sometimes a talking bear is just a talking bear."

The man shrugged. "I never thought about it like that before."

The bear said, "Think about it some more. Think about your place in this unverse. Maybe it will help." The bear turned and began to walk back into the woods.

The man said, "Wait!" with a tremor in his voice.

The bear turned around. "Yes?"

"I just wanted to say that, if I ever come back here, I won't bring a gun. I won't hunt here anymore."

The bear nodded. "Then we've both accomplished a great deal today."

And he walked back into the woods while the young man gazed after him in wonderment.

January 8, 2008 -- Has anyone noticed the sudden spate of "Am I Cute?" topics? What the hell is THAT about?

People are so unbeliveably stupid; it's as if they think asking that question -- and generating a dozen, two dozen, maybe more, insincere answers -- will somehow MAKE them cute.

Trust me, it doesn't.

Why does anyone care what other people think? Don't they realize that "cute" is a subjective judgment call, anyway? Somebody will think, "Yeah, they're cute," and the next one will think "They look like a deranged porcupine." Who cares? Everybody has their own conception of "cute."

It's like those idiotic TPAY threads. I find it hard to believe that ANYONE would actually be stupid enough to have sex with a total stranger -- someone they know NOTHING about, other than that the person likes to post cat pictures or can't differentiate between "lose" and "loose."

Then again, the levels of alcohol and illiteracy are so pervasive here that it wouldn't completely surprise me if some of these spirit-scarred third-grade minds could be talked into pretty much anything....

I wonder about people who put adjectives in their screen names, like "sexy" or "sweet" or whatever. Who are they trying to convince? "Sexy" is totally subjective off the top, and my own personal definition of it is rather narrow. "Sweet" takes time to discern, and I am NOT taking your word for it.

It's sad. JSH has this core group of great people, but they seem to be participating less, overwhelmed by this sudden sea of superfluousness. I hope it's just cyclical. Maybe the next batch of newcomers will want to talk about something other than getting drunk and having anal relations with strangers under the pool table.

One can only hope.

Oh, and, for the record, I love the Arby-Q and White Castle hamburgers.

January 3, 2008 -- This profile is REALLY long! But it does what it's supposed to do, so I won't cut anything from it right now.

What I WILL do is put some basic info right here at the top, so you don't have to go hunting for it in the 293rd paragraph (or wherever it is now).

The truth is, I'm probably the most boring person you will ever meet. Here's what I don't do:

I don't drink.
I don't do drugs.
I don't go to bars.
I don't smoke. Anything.
I don't drink coffee.
I don't go to church. (Devout atheist.)
I don't vote. (Devout anarchist.)
I don't dance.
I don't want kids.
I don't care about money.
I don't care about fancy cars or trucks or or boats or motorcycles or helicopters. I've got one car, and it works for me.
I don't do much of anything except read and write and watch TV and play on the computer.

I will spend days at a time just writing. I may go weeks without writing anything. I have a short attention span, and unless you have an IQ of around 160 and can hold my attention, I will get bored with you in 3 months and you will no longer exist to me.

I may be boring -- hell, unless you're into reclusive hermits with no desire to participate in the "real world" (whatever the hell that means), except for the occasional hockey game, I AM boring, and you won't like me at all. Hey, there are LOTS of guys with much more accessible (and shorter) profiles on this site. Go look at some of those. They're more your speed anyway.

December 25, 2007 -- The tilt of the Earth's axis is the reason for the season. Merry Christmas, everybody!

December 13, 2007 -- This is confusing. My profile views went WAY up today, and I have no idea why. I posted some stuff, mainly because I saw I was close to 6000 posts and figured I might as well go for the "milestone" (while Ms Teddy, who joined several months AFTER me, just hit 10,000!) -- maybe I'm lazy. Actually, I had a hard time finding threads I wanted to post on, for awhile. It's a little better now, we have some new people who are posting some thought-provoking things. Sometimes an influx of new people revitalizes the whole site, and I think this may be what's happening now.

Still wondering what's up with the locals. More and more new ones every day, which SHOULD be a good thing, but they never post. Caught a local looking at my profile (she obviously didn't get the memo about that) -- but no e-mail. Not that it would be permitted!

I don't do mainstream; it is SO boring to read the exact same profile 892 times. What happened to girls who knew how to write more than 3 sentences about themselves? What happened to girls with a sense of humor, and some creativity? What happened to girls who refused to be indoctrinated into the same old conformist societal roles as everyone else?

It's scary, when the homogeneity of a culture creates millions of people who are nothing more than interchangeable parts in some politician's Grand Scheme Of Things. Who the hell are you people? "I'm the same as the one on my right, the one on my left, the one in front of me, the one behind me. We're all the same, all of us. That's how it's supposed to be."

This is the sort of thing that makes me wish for a remote little shack out in the middle of Montana someplace, with NO human interaction at all. Then again, it didn't do all that much for Ted Kaczynski.

December 11, 2007 -- And the endless parade of consecutive "NO" button clicks for the Mutual Match continues unabated. Up to 572 now. It's amazing, you would think 1 out of 572 (0.0017482%) would at least be a MAYBE, by sheer coincidence, if nothing else, but no....

Profile views went up quite a bit over the weekend (and why is that?) but the new "lookers" are mostly "lurkers" (I've never seen them post anything), and they don't write, so.... maybe they're actually getting to the part of the profile where I get into the whole thing about no drugs, no alcohol, no kids, and that scares them away. Which is good, because that's exactly what it's supposed to do....

It would be so great to find one local person on here who is not a cardboard cutout, a cloned sheep, a showroom dummy (thank you, Kraftwerk), someone with a functioning brain and communications skills to match. While I'm at it, I think I'll wish for a platinum-coated baleen whale.

I'm just so tired of seeing these cookie-cutter, boring, non-dimensional profiles of cookie-cutter, boring, non-dimensional people -- "I am a single mother of two kids, and they are my world." Ick. Thankfully, my spaceship doesn't go to that world. What is life like for someone who is so intellectually deprived that they can't even write three sentences about themselves? "Anything you want to know, you'll have to ask." I don't really need to know all THAT badly, sorry.

November 17, 2007 -- It's getting harder and harder to find anything I even feel is worth posting to or about anymore. Every thread is about people getting drunk, or doing some godawful thing to the person above them, or the same attention-starved losers hijacking every conceivable thread, just so people will notice them. Maybe it's cyclical, but there's a real dearth of thought-provoking, intellectual, problem-solving-type stuff right now.

I signed up here -- almost a year ago -- with the intention of trying to meet someone. Clearly, that is not going to happen. So I decided to stick around because I enjoyed the forums and the communication/interaction with my friends here. But that's starting to get old and boring now -- Nus has been gone for awhile, a lot of my favorites are still here but post only occasionally, and I have to wade through 12 pages of "I'm lonely, I'm bored, why doesn't anybody like me?" just to find something that actually generates a reaction other than nausea and yawning.

November 4, 2007 -- It amuses me when someone posts "Why doesn't anybody like me?" in a brand new thread 47 times a day. Hey, hun, I think you just answered your own question.

It amuses me when someone posts "I'm bored." Stop whining and get up off your ass and do something. We're not your own personal entertainment committee. At least, I never got that memo.

It amuses me when someone posts "I'm the greatest thing since snow tires!" and can't spell simple words like "know." I know, I know, English and grammar snob. So sue me.

It amuses me to see all the talk about alcohol. I have never seen so many drunks in one place in my life. If you're that intent on killing yourself, a gun is a lot faster. Let's allocate our resources more productively, huh?

It amuses me when the know-it-alls in certain forums start pontificating about things they have no knowledge of. One person posted "Evolution can't be true, if we came from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?" Anybody with a third-grade understanding of the process knows that an evolved form will not necessarily replace the earlier form, unless they are in direct competition for food or territory or something. I mean, this is basic stuff. I used to think freedom of speech was a good idea, but maybe morons should be given a "shut the hell up" certificate. If you don't have the first clue about the topic, maybe it's better to keep quiet and not put yourself out there as a cretin.

It amuses me when people post "Why doesn't anyone answer my e-mails?" because I went through that myself, with the locals here, and I quit wasting my time. And I'm not shy about saying so. But now it looks like a lot of other people are having the same problems with their own locals, as well. I can sympathize. I just wound up saying "screw them" and stopped making the attempt. The farther-away people like me, so I'll just talk to them.

It amuses me when people hijack a thread and someone gets all pissed off about it. I mean, so what? It's a thread on a website. If it means that much to you, start another one. You know, the forums are like big conversations, where people drift in and out all the time; and sometimes the topic shifts. It's no different from real life, except in real life, people aren't walking around hiding behind pictures of cats and motorcycles and butt shots clipped from magazines.

And that's another thing: Who CARES if someone wants to use a picture that's not them? Not everybody is comfortable with being right up front out in the open with their real pic, and they have the right not to have to do that. If you think it's deceptive or something, fine, you don't have to write to that person, but you might just find him/her to be pretty impressive if you read their posts. Besides, if someone is using cat pictures, that tells you something about them, they probably like cats. For me, that's an automatic plus, because I love animals. So don't go dismissing a picture just because it isn't the person. The fact that they chose that picture, whatever it is, says something about them. You just have to know how to read it.

It amuses me when some guy makes his first post, and he says "This site doesn't work, I've been ripped off!" when he signed up 3 days ago and hasn't received 1000 e-mails from horny women yet. And how do you get ripped off on a free site, anyway? Nothing says "infantile" like a baseless tantrum from an idiot who never learned the concept of "deferred gratification."

It amuses me when people complain that "The joke I just read yesterday was already posted a few weeks back." Guess what? Other people joined the site after you did, they probably never saw that joke the last time, so this will be their first time getting to see it. So we're supposed to construct all the posts around what YOU have or have not seen before? That kind of self-centeredness and arrogance is laughable, but oh so prevalent. It's that old-timer entitlement mentality, still up and running here (albeit not as badly as it was 6 months ago).

All in all, a very amusing place to be....

October 30, 2007 -- Yes, the beloved and cherished Arby-Q is finally back! Made my whole day when I found out, and I had to immediately stop and get the 2 for $4.00 deal, plus potato cakes. Now if only they could do something about the Vanilla Pepsi issue....

October 27, 2007 -- Nothing happened today. Oh, it rained. Tomorrow, I really need to go to Wal-Mart. Not sure if I can stand all this excitement.

October 24, 2007 -- For some reason, my profile views have shot up about 60% over the last 4 days. What's up with that? Am I posting more? Maybe; I have no real sense of that -- posting is like breathing (I don't know if that's more creative than pathetic or vice-versa) so I don't really pay much attention to how many I'm doing. I'll check my total number of posts once in awhile (high 5400s last time I looked), just because it's such a small number compared to CCP and Gypsy and Whisper and a bunch of others.

It's a real mixed bag with the profile views from new people, too -- lots of 18, 19-year-olds, some 20s and early 30s and then nothing until late 50s. Very weird. They should at least write to me and tell me what they thought of the profile. People DO sometimes, and I always get a sort of mixed message. They say "Wow, you really know what you want!" as if my decisiveness is a really good thing, but WHAT I decided somehow annoys them. But that's their problem. I'm not going to turn into Ward Cleaver just because somebody in Lonko, Kansas, thinks that would be the right thing to do.

You want to do that, feel free. I won't try to stop you. Not my job.

The truth is, it has nothing to do with what I want. I don't think I've ever really explained, here on JSH, what I want. I've explained what I DON'T want -- because it's a lot easier to define. When you say NO something, it's pretty clear what you're talking about. NO smoking, NO U-turns, NO walking on the grass. NO problem. But for me to say what I DO want -- that would take awhile. Because it's more complicated. I've mentioned the intellectual thing a few times, that's a key, but there's a lot more to it. A genius is a genius, but a genius without passion is an android.

Still don't understand all the profile views. Maybe there has been a massive influx of new people in the last 4 days. How would I know? I see a bunch of new people in New Matches on the home page, but I always see that. Have I posted something more interesting, more confrontational, more controversial? I don't think so. More silly stuff, maybe. Do girls like a guy with a sense of humor? I've heard some do -- there's a common line I see in profiles all the time -- "if you can make me laugh, you can capture my heart" or words to that effect. I'm not sure it really works that way, especially if your humor is esoteric and a little snippy at times. Goes over their heads. WHHOOOOSHHH!! There goes the 9:18 to Boston.

Now, if only some of those intellectual-looking girls with glasses would start reading my profile....someday, one of them is actually going to read the whole thing and understand the next level. Probably in 2062. That's only 55 years away; I can handle it....

October 23, 2007 -- I'm seeing a lot more posts along the lines of "Why Is It So Hard To Find A Good Man?" and "Are There Any Men Who Don't Play Games?" That sort of thing. Maybe it's just cyclical, but I'm sensing a sort of growing dissatisfaction (from both genders) about the whole problem of meeting someone suitable.

A few have commented on the issue of people having unrealistic expectations, and I think that's a big part of it. Maybe more to the point, though, is this idea that people think other people are looking for the same thing (or almost the same thing) as they themselves are.

I mean, let's be honest. Most of the people on JSH have not been all that specific about what they're looking for. Profiles, for the most part, are either poorly-written, or empty, and offer no real insight into the person behind that profile. And the percentage of people who post in the forums is probably just the tip of the JSH iceberg, I'm guessing. And even a lot of them have the literary skills of a toilet brush. It's hard to determine compatibility with someone who can't assemble a complete sentence.

Look, I don't want to sound harsh, but I'm done with the dummies. I've been with too many of them already, and for what? Just to learn that I don't mesh well with them. There are worse things than being alone. Being with someone like my ex-wife, for one! I once heard someone use the term "dumber than a bag of hammers," and that describes so many of my exes to a tee. Boring! Waste of time!

The other thing -- on JSH, at least -- is that a lot of the girls who seem to be looking for an actual relationship, are totally stuck on the idea of ONE PARTICULAR UNCHANGEABLE STRUCTURE for that relationship -- they want marriage, and kids, and the little house in the suburbs with the white picket fence, and the dog.

The dog works for me, but everything else is off the table. I can't live that way. I have to be clear about this -- to try to live that life would kill me, sooner than you can say "I missed a mortgage payment." To create, to write, to make things, to formulate, to build, to examine, to question, to THINK -- that's my life. Past experience has shown me -- all too well -- that it doesn't work for me if I can't do those things. It is like being suffocated -- my closest analogy for marriage was suffocation.

My life is necessarily "outside the box" and I'm too ensconced in it to change now. I don't want to be my dad, or your dad, or anybody's dad. Dadness itself is too constricting, too confining, too narrowing. Procreation is the lowest form of creation -- simple biology, it requires no (and rarely consists of any) thought, only a fleeting mixture of chromosomal material. Tree shrews do the same thing. I have no interest in dating a tree shrew.

So, please don't e-mail me with complaints about "I read your profile and I saw your rules for dating, but I think I should be an exception because...." Because it really doesn't matter what you think about my rules, any more that it matters what I think of yours. We all have the right to set our own standards, and we all have the right to demand that those standards be respected. By everybody. We don't have to AGREE with them, or even understand them. But we do have to accept them. And not be judgmental. Look, I don't know all the details and circumstances of your life. I'm sure there is a reason (or you think there is) for the beliefs you adhere to. And that's fine. But if those beliefs incorporate a guy who lives a mainstream life, then I'm not the one for you. Let's not kid ourselves, and let's not waste each other's time.

I'll be friends with just about anybody. That's one of the beautiful things about JSH. Some of my closest friends here are people who are living their lives in a manner I find incomprehensible. And that's OK, because maybe I can learn something from them, from the decisions they have made. Maybe they can learn something from me. It's like two diametrically-opposed nations coming together and finding out that, as different as they are, there is still some common ground. They can still get along.

I can get along with most people. But I'm still looking for someone datable! -- who isn't 897,000 miles away....!!

October 16, 2007 -- People tell me "You're too picky." And I can see why they feel that way. But the truth is, I've spent too many years being non-picky and being disappointed by the girls I wound up with. I'd rather be alone than be disappointed again and again by my inability to choose someone suitable.

Look, I'm not really interested in what the 99% majority thinks about me. They don't get it, they never will, and I'm OK with that, because I don't share their beliefs or values or even their thought processes, hopefully. I don't want a girlfriend who is cute but who's a total shlub in the brains department. Hey, I was married to her already, it was NOT fun, and I have no desire to repeat that particular experiment.

After my marriage broke up, I met a girl who really WAS everything I wanted. Smart, loving, fun to be with, and -- this is very important -- creative. She was involved in art, drawing, painting, photography, music (played the trumpet and the bass guitar), tennis, softball, and wanted to learn more about everything I was interested in too. I told her I was interested in Nietzsche and Ayn Rand and Douglas Adams, and she went out and bought the books so she could read them. And then she told me who she liked to read, and I bought those books. It was like we had our own little book club.

She knew I liked crossword puzzles, and when I was sick, she would bring crossword puzzle books to me. I knew she liked Green Lantern, so I got her a set of Green Lantern figures for her room. She worked nights sometimes, at places like Jewel and K-mart and Hot Topic, and I would go see her at those places every chance I got, just because we could talk a little and spend 15 minutes together on her break.

She's gone now, my ex-wife and her family made sure of that. I need to get past all that now, and there are days when I think I'm there. other days, I'm not so sure.

But it's been almost 2 years, I've gone through the obligatory "stupid idiot rebound" experimental relationships (last year) and those were just massive train wrecks -- it's what happens when the desire for companionship outweighs common sense and caution. Dumb dumb dumb.

The thing that I have (finally) learned is that it really only works for me if there's a standard of intellect and communication and creativity -- everything else is just so much fluff, and I've been with more than enough cute airheads to know that they just don't do it for me. You may be adorable, but if you can't tell me the name of the last book you read (or if the name of the last book you read was "Yogi and Boo Boo Visit the Zoo"), we're probably going to run out of conversation pretty quickly.

I don't mean to sound like an intellectual snob (even though I most likely am one), but it's time for me to meet someone who understands things, who understands and acknowledges her creativity, not someone whose entire mission in life is to be the boxed-in societal little robot zombie conformist who can't see past her own contribution to an already-polluted and ultimately doomed dead end gene pool.

I don't know if there's anybody like that on this site.

I don't know if there's anybody like that in this world.

Well....there was one, once. But one out of six billion is not very good odds. Even the lottery is easier to win than that one.

But you never know.

About me: short form -- I'm an atheist. I don't go to church. If God shows up at my door and has proper ID, I'm willing to adjust my beliefs accordingly.

I'm an anarchist. I cannot support any system in which flawed and fallible human beings are given sanctioned authority over other flawed and fallible human beings. I don't vote. It makes no sense to me.

I don't drink alcohol. At all. I don't go to bars. I haven't touched the stuff since I was 22, and I never will again.

Same with drugs.

I don't have any tattoos or piercings or any of that. Makes no sense to me.

I'm divorced. Marriage was just about the worst experience in my life. I don't see myself ever getting married again, but I would have, if the girl I talked about above had wanted to. So I can't rule it out completely in the future, but I think it's unlikely.

I don't have any kids, I don't want any kids, and I won't go out with anyone who has kids.

Everything else is pretty much negotiable.

So, if you're the girl looking for the drunken idiot who will come home and beat the crap out of you and your kids every Thursday night, that's not me.

My goal right now is to get some books published and to get the hell out of this country before it degenerates any further into Bushofasciocracy. And if I can find a nice, intelligent, perceptive, creative, and devoted partner, that would be nice.

But I'm not holding my breath....


October 14, 2007 -- I wanted to post a little snip I read today from one of Frank Zappa's last interviews, done in 1993 shortly before he died:

"Time is the thing. Time is everything. How to spend time. We all want something to do with our minds. The choices are a major human preoccupation. The people who find the easiest solutions, like beer and football, might be happier if they had just a little dimension to their lives. But most people, once they achieve a certain level of gratification for time disposal, don't go beyond it. They already know how good they're going to feel when a football game comes on, and they have their beer. They don't want to know beyond that. They build a life around it."

October 13, 2007 -- I've been seeing some posts about profiles and profile pics the last couple days. My thoughts on this, after rummaging through about 840 Mutual Match options::

If your profile is empty, I click No. Automatically. If you can't be bothered to write three sentences about yourself, where's my incentive to want to meet you?

If your profile is full of vapid nothings, I click No. Creativity and intellect are important to me, probably the key things I look for in a friend or partner. If all you can say is "No game players, please" or "I'm easy-going and laid back" or "I'm shy at first until you get to know me," or "Anything you want to know, you'll have to ask me," then I have to assume you're pulling lines out of Meaningless Drivel-Filled Dating Site Profiles For Dummies -- and plagiarism does NOT count as creativity or intellect. OK, five points for having enough brain power to go to Borders and buy the book, but that's all.

If your profile pic contains more than one person, and you do not somehow specify or indicate which one is you, I click No. I don't want to have to guess who's who.

If you leave a bunch of things blank, I click No. It matters to me if you're married or not, or if you have kids, or if you're looking for something diametrically opposed to what I'm looking for.

If the writing in the profile is completely incomprehensible, I click No. I'm in favor of "creative use of language" as much as the next guy, but if I can't figure out what you're trying to say, I'm not going to waste a lot of time and effort on translations. I've been married to a hillbilly, so I know what my limitations are.

Kids is a No, alcohol is a No. They're not for me, not in my life. I mean, I'll be friends with (almost) anybody, but I've been through enough bad relationships to know what to avoid now.

If your profile pic is a down-the-blouse shot, that's a No. Because that sort of pic indicates you're not looking for someone like me.

I never click Yes, because I honestly don't think I can assign a clear and solid Yes to anyone based solely on a pic and a profile. I have clicked a fair number of Maybes when someone comes across as being intelligent and interesting and seems to be -- potentially, at least -- not 100% mainstream. Not that anything has ever really developed from it.

For me, though, I think a person's forum postings are much more useful as a way of getting to know them, than a profile is. Most people don't update their profiles very often, and, as a result, there can be information which is hopelessly out of date and no longer applicable. Forum posts are more "real-time" and people who post a lot tend to be easier to get to know because there is simply more Of them and FROM them readily available to read.

But for those people who don't use the forums, the profile is all we have to work with, IF we ever even find out you exist. And if your profile is all you've got, it might be a good idea to make it as thorough and interesting and attractive as possible. If you want to be noticed here, anyway.

I would still recommend the forums though, if you're at all serious about wanting to meet anyone here.

October 10, 2007 -- Let me just say right up front that, first and foremost, I'm looking for someone I can talk to. I mean, on an intellectual level, about concepts and ideas and beliefs and things like that. Communication is a huge issue for me, and if the communication isn't there, I am going to get bored in 7 minutes and go looking for a bookstore or something. I like bookstores. Reading is fundamental, you know. They even said so on TV.

I don't expect to ever meet anyone from here in person. And that's fine, because I have met nine girls from various dating sites, and eight of them were disasters that would make the Hindenburg look like a picnic. Writers call this "hyperbole." But what it really means is an exaggeration for the purpose of making the point. Whatever. The point, made or unmade, is that I realize (some of) my own stupid mistakes in getting involved with people from dating sites in the past. Basically, I was NOT CAREFUL ENOUGH. I had a tendency to believe everything I heard, and I rushed into situations that no sane human being should ever be involved in. I won't go into too much detail (other than to say that I have no particular desire to date arsonists or Bulgarian bank tellers); if anybody really wants to know the details, maybe I'll write an article or something.

Part of experiencing your experiences is the fact that they give you clues about what's good for you and what isn't, what you want and what you don't want. I was married for awhile to an absolutely beautiful girl who had the intelligence of a fruit fly; and I found out that didn't work at all. Not just the fact that we had nothing to talk about, but also the incessant buzzing as she hovered over the bananas. It was annoying, to say the least, and Deep Woods Off isn't all it's cracked up to be.

So now I find myself being a little more demanding, a little more selective. Some might call it picky, and I won't argue, because it's true -- I don't want a "mainstream" type of girl. I was trying to explain this situation to a friend who isn't really familiar with the whole concept of dating sites, so I tried to devise a sort of analogy:

Let’s say you have a car, and, as most cars tend to do, it occasionally needs to have some work done. Doesn’t matter what the work is, really –alternator, transmission, intake manifold gasket, whatever – just that it needs something done.

OK, so now you happen to discover an auto repair shop conveniently located right around the corner from your house. And you take your car in there when it needs some sort of attention.

The people at the repair shop are friendly and helpful, the prices are great, and the shop itself is clean and bright and cheery. The only problem is – they can’t fix your car.

“Sorry about that,” the embarrassed but lovable mechanic tells you. “As much as I would love to fix this for you, it turns out we simply can’t get the part we need.”

Now, imagine this same scenario happening repeatedly, every time you take your car in. It might not always be an unavailable part that prevents the repair – maybe they don’t have the right tool, maybe the one guy who can fix your particular car is out sick and won’t be back until next spring, maybe the hydraulic lift thing is out of order and they can’t get under the car to work on it. It doesn’t really matter what the reason/obstacle is – all that matters is that they can’t fix your car.

Well, here’s the problem – the people are great, you’re comfortable with them, you could hang out at the repair shop all day, and have a fantastic time – but that ain’t gonna get your car fixed.

And, in the end, there’s a practical aspect that tends to outweigh the other considerations; i.e., that the purpose of an auto repair shop is to fix cars. If they can’t fix yours, ever, then it really doesn’t matter whether or not they’re able to fix anybody else’s. Presumably, they must be fixing SOMEBODY’S car -- otherwise, how would they stay in business?

But they’re not doing a blessed thing for your car.

If you’re at all serious about having your car repaired, you’re going to have to take it somewhere else.

And this is the analogy I use to explain why JSH simply does not work for me as a dating site.

The people are great (for the most part), the site is well-maintained, the environment is the best I have ever experienced on any site anywhere – but, as a “dating site,” it simply doesn’t deliver.

And I’m not saying that’s JSH’s fault – nor am I saying that it’s the fault of the people there, either. I am not particularly “mainstream” insofar as the type of person I would like to meet, and I understand that the people who have been successful on JSH tend to be (from what I have noticed) older, tend to have kids and careers and established lives and lifestyles that track more closely with what is considered “normal” by society as a whole.

But this is something I have noticed about JSH – the “double-edged sword” of the somewhat older skew of the site. I think it’s undoubtedly true that one reason the site is so much better than others is simply because the members are more mature, on average; this correlates to a certain level of emotional stability, tolerance (if one avoids the Religion and News & Current Events forums), empathy, and support.

At the same time, the older skew results in a membership base that is less conducive to assimilating those who have chosen to live as I do – no kids, no alcohol, atheistic, etc. I have not done a formal study, but I would guess that a higher percentage of JSHers have children (and grandchildren) than any other site I have encountered. This might be just a result of sheer numbers (the older a woman gets, up to the point where she is no longer fertile, the more likely she is to have had children; and a site with an older clientele, all else being equal, will therefore have a higher percentage of mothers on it), but, regardless of the root causes, it translates into a scenario where there are fewer childless women in the “pool” to begin with.

The bottom line of the older skew is that the vast majority of JSH members ultimately “fit” better, for someone like me, as friends than as dating prospects.

This circumstance is somewhat exacerbated by the fact that the "locals" on JSH have refused to talk to me since the day I joined. As I am not interested in a long distance relationship (having attempted several, and determining they simply don’t work for me), it becomes necessary to try to initiate dialogue with some local people. However,