Just about everything in my life is very pleasant and satisfying, except that I have nobody to share it with. For most of my adult life, I’ve lived alone. The reasons for this are complex, and need not detain us. But periodically I do make half-hearted attempts to rectify the situation.
Online singles/dating websites are one of the saddest, funniest manifestations of modern life. Here’s a profile paragraph (unedited) posted by a woman on one of the big sites. I couldn’t resist sharing it, because it says so much, while saying so little:
“I am a happy, enthusiastic, energetic person. I enjoy intimacy and intelligent conversations. I love my work and my life in general, but would love to meet someone who I can relate to on a deep level and have companionship with and who is passionate about personal growth and who is open to evolving their consciousness and participating in a relationship where there is mutuality and respect and where both people feel whole and can help bring out the best in one another. I’m looking for someone who shares many of my interests, values and vision for relationship and who is capable of creating a partnership where we can bring out the best in one another and help change the consciousness of the world by our example.”
The run-on sentence doesn’t bother me unduly. What’s fascinating, and yet horrifying, about this passage is that it consists entirely of cliches. It tells the reader nothing whatever about who this woman is … other than, possibly, that she is a person who has no real interior life at all, other than a sort of half-digested stew of cliches.
Her profile ends with this: “I am a very articulate passionate person and find it easy to express myself.” Uhh, yeah. Can I get back to you on that?
I think I’d be better off with a mail-order bride from Thailand.
Jim Aikin's Oblong Blob 
When I went on Match.com about 8 years ago, I decided to write authentically about who I was. In my profile I said: if you think eschewing obfuscation is a disease of the jaw, then we shouldn’t meet. As a result of that kind of candor, I met my wife who is smart, beautiful and my best friend. So, Jim, I really get what you mean about the cliche-ridden dating sites. Arrrrgh!
Thanks for the support, Jerry. In the middle of a sleepless night, it occurred to me that because I’m the kind of person I am, those little snippets of information in a singles site don’t represent me well. I end up sounding even more arrogant than I actually am … and that’s fairly scary. So right now I’m working on a separate blog — really a separate web presence, not a traditional weekly-updates blog at all — that will allow me to go into more detail about who I am and what I can offer to a spouse. It’s an interesting creative process, and of course writing is a lot easier for me than dating!