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It may be time to get off OkCupid. It keeps matching me with people I’ve already been on dates with. Or, in some cases, people I’ve slept with.

They should really have some sort of “I slept with this person and it didn’t work out so well, so please spare me the awkwardness and don’t match us” option.

Every single one of my friends is married or in a relationship that is headed for marriage. I am the only truly single person at most gatherings. And even if there are other single people around, they’re usually wide-eyed, optimistic singles in their 20s, or 40-something visions of what I’m afraid I’ll become a decade from now.

My camel’s back was recently broken by the tiniest, most predictable of straws… But I should back up a bit.

It’s been a rough couple of weeks. Besides my current romantic dry spell, there has been some turnover at my workplace. In the course of three days, two of my favorite co-workers resigned. Because of their resignation, and in light of the current economic troubles (troubles that have caused us to go without raises for a second year in a row), many of their duties will be — at least temporarily — divided up among other employees. The thing that made these individuals so great was that they had the shittiest jobs imaginable but still maintained an infectiously positive attitude in the office. So now our cheerleaders will be gone, and the ridiculous amounts of work they did will be divided among those of us who relied on them to help us make it through our sometimes-bleak days.

In addition to this, the air conditioning systems in both my car and my house broke. The one in the house was covered by a home warranty, but it still cost a bit to get it fixed, and in order for the system to really work well, I should replace it — it is, after all, nearly as old as me. And that’s several grand I don’t have sitting around right now. As for the air conditioner in my car — that’s going to stay broken for a while. I know I won’t be able to afford to fix that. Plus, if there’s a tiny glimmer of hope in that situation, it’s that my gas mileage has shown slight improvement.

Also, yesterday morning brought the news that a young man I know has been diagnosed with lymphoma. He’s 20, maybe 21 — I think his prognosis is good. However, he’s in for a long and painful fight.

I have also been under the weather lately, emotionally and physically. Allergies have mutated into a nasty head cold, and the stay-cation I took last week left me feeling not refreshed, but acutely aware of just how solitary my life is. I mean, seriously, I spent the better part of a week at home, alone, trying to keep myself busy with projects — such as the thus-far-successful lawn care business I started to make up for the raise I won’t be getting this year — but ultimately, failing.

That brings us to this afternoon.

As I walked up my steps, I saw an envelope in my mailbox. It was from two very dear friends who spent last week in Vegas.

“Oh, you’re going to come back married,” I teased. They played it off.

In the envelope was an announcement of their marriage, along with a photo of them kissing, as husband and wife.

Logically speaking, this was no surprise at all. I had actually called it weeks ago. And, I’ll be honest, I’m very happy for them. I’m happy that they have taken the ultimate step and transformed their loving relationship into a full-fledged marriage, complete with tax benefits and everything.

And then, as I’m reading their announcement, an all-too-familiar feeling works its way up to my brain, by way of my gut.

It’s my sense of self-loathing. It’s always been there. In the best times, it was small and easily brushed aside. In the weakest and worst of times, it grows into an enveloping shroud of darkness.

“They have something you’ll never have,” it says. “You’ll never be happy.”

I try to stifle it, but all the other things on my mind weaken my defenses.

“You’re going to be alone,” it says. “You’re worthless and ugly and stupid, and you’re going to be alone forever.”

So I went outside to mow the lawn. I thought I’d sweat it out. It was still there after my own lawn was finished, so I did another. And then two more after that.

And then I found myself back at home, putting away my mowing equipment in the dark, the voice of my self-loathing still reciting its defeatist mantras in my mind.

So here I am, trying to silence the self-loathing by writing about what triggered it — the announcement of a wedding.

Usually, I hear about an engagement, then I receive a wedding invitation, and then there’s a period of emotional adjustment before the ceremony that allows me to be happy for the couple, even if I don’t make it to the actual ceremony because of my fear that the cloud of self-loathing will be given free reign via an open bar. The weddings themselves don’t upset me, but everything that weddings and marriage represent provide great fodder for my sense of self-loathing.

Logically, I knew this was going to happen. I knew these two were going to get married. I knew it before they did (really, I did.) Emotionally, though, it blindsided me like a freight train on a baseball diamond — it was out of left field and there weren’t even any tracks nearby to warn me of the possibility of a collision.

I tried talking to a friend about it. She said, “it’s not about you, and don’t you dare tell [the bride] that you’re sad that they got married.”

She’s right. It isn’t about me. But she’s also wrong — I’m not upset because they got married. I’m upset because I was caught off-guard by my own emotional response to learning of their marriage, which came on top of a lot of other emotionally-taxing things.

So, if you’re the happy couple and you’re reading this (as I know you sometimes do) you know who you are. I’m very happy for you, and I wish you nothing but love, joy, and happiness for the rest of your lives and beyond, and I love you both.

As for me, I’m hoping to exorcise the demon of self-loathing that, in an emotionally vulnerable time, has taken off its shoes and is trying to settle in.

I am aware that this blog is unexpectedly going down (unlike any of the girls I’ve dated — hey-o!) and I have no idea why this is happening.

So I guess just hang tight while I figure some stuff out, maybe?

I don’t know. Luckily for you, though, I haven’t been on many dates lately. So I guess that’s something.

Recap: Jamie’s mom hated fat people. I come from a fat people. Jamie’s mom hated me. Jamie had mommy issues.

Okay, are we all up to speed? Good.

Jamie’s older sister, who also attended our college, was a total ho-bag. Her name was Karen. Karen had herpes. It was a well-known fact on campus. When anyone would say Karen’s name, the eventual qualifier would be, “Karen? You mean Nasty Karen?”

Yep. That’s the one. Nasty Karen.

Nasty Karen never had any problem finding a boyfriend. We’re pretty sure she just hung out around the county jail waiting for guys to be released. Seriously, most of her boyfriends had prior convictions. I suppose if I spent enough time in jail, I may want to stick my junk inside Nasty Karen, too. Jail time does weird things to people.

When Karen found out that Jamie and I were dating, she was pissed. When she found out that Jamie said she loved me — and that I said I loved her back — she was more than pissed. She was reality show mad.

What do I mean by reality show mad? I mean the kind of ridiculous anger that involves things like yelling, screaming, various misdemeanors, and threats of bodily harm. You know, TV gold.

The problem, though, was that this wasn’t TV. This was real life. And it was coming from Nasty Karen, whose most recent boyfriend just got out of jail for assault.

Yes, she really did threaten me. Well, I should say she threatened to have her big, bad, fresh-out-of-jail boyfriend come after me and “kick my shit.” Her words, not mine.

Have I mentioned that I was an RA at my college? If not, I was an RA at my college. I lived in a dorm and was responsible for stupid shit like making sure the doors were locked, and telling people to be quiet after midnight.

As an RA, I had become pretty friendly with the campus police. They would stop by my room on occasion to make sure everything was going well on my floor. Now, these weren’t intimidation tactics by any means. The police on our campus were genuinely concerned with the safety and well-being of the students. If a student was being self-destructive, they wanted to know so they could intervene before it reached a point at which an intervention involved ambulances or handcuffs or criminal charges.

Their intentions were good, and their usual approach was passive and friendly. However, they could scare the shit out of someone when they wanted to.

One of the officers — a guy in his 40s named Dave — stopped by one day and asked how things were going.

“Well,” I said, “this girl I’m dating has a sister who goes here who absolutely hates me, and she recently threatened physical harm.”

Luckily for me, the threat came via e-mail, so all I had to do was press print.

“Wait,” said Dave, “is this ‘Nasty Karen?’”

Yes, even the cops called her that. It was a small campus.

I confirmed for him that it was indeed Nasty Karen.

“I’ll go have a talk with her,” he said.

I never heard from Nasty Karen again… But I did begin getting e-mails from Karen and Jamie’s mom, telling me what a disgusting creature I was, and how big of a chicken I was because I called the cops on her daughter.

I replied, pointing out that I wasn’t afraid of her daughter, but that the ex-con she was fucking this week was really the source of my concern.

I also pointed out that the guy was black, which was sure to make mom even more angry than the fact that her daughter was dating someone with a criminal record to begin with. It was not my finest moment, but Jamie (and her sister, obviously) were the only non-racists in their family.

“By the way,” I added, “Your daughter has herpes, and just about everyone on campus knows her as ‘Nasty Karen.’”

She wrote more e-mails to me after that, but I just deleted them. I didn’t have the time or energy to deal with her. I did, however, have plenty of time and energy for Jamie, and we spent nearly every waking moment together until Thanksgiving break.

As I had mentioned earlier, I was an RA, and every RA had to stick around for at least one long weekend during the school year. That year, I ended up with Thanksgiving. I had to spend Turkey Day in my dorm room. It was mostly miserable, especially when Jamie called me on Saturday afternoon.

“I have to tell you something,” she said, “and I need you to promise you won’t get angry.”

Of course, that’s never a good sign, and I told her that no reasonable person could make that promise.

“Well,” she said, “I’ll just tell you then — I kind of slept with someone.”

That someone was her next-door neighbor, who was 17 and a senior in high school. Apparently they had gotten drunk and/or high on Thanksgiving night and ended up naked.

And then repeated that for most of Friday. She hadn’t just slept with someone. They had been fucking each other senseless for the better part of 36 hours before she finally took a break to call me and let me know.

I was mad. She said she loved me. And I let myself fall in love with her. And as soon as she was in another area code for more than a few hours, she cheated on me.

So after all that emotional turmoil, after the vitriol from her mother, the threats from her sister, and spending hours upon hours telling Jamie that there was nothing wrong with her, she took everything we had — which though dramatic, I thought it was pretty solid for a couple of dumb kids — and pissed it all away.

We tried to make up. I tried to forgive her, but I just couldn’t. No matter how hard I tried to glue those pieces back together, my heart was irreparably broken.

And to this day, that’s the most hurt I have ever been.

For some reason, the site was down for a few days. But now it’s not. Or is it? I guess if you’re reading this, that means it’s not.

I haven’t been on any dates lately. I’ve barely done anything lately, to be quite honest. I’m working on it, though. I swear.

Did I mention that I signed up with match.com? I can’t recall if I did or not. Well, I’ve found that some of the people on match.com are the same people on eharmony.com. Great. Fan-fucking-tastic.

At least I’ve got a six month guarantee with match.com…

I am here. I swear. I even bought a membership to match.com. It cost $27 for six months. I had a coupon.

We are in a recession, after all.

Also, I’ve noticed that the spam is not only getting worse, but harder to tell from real comments. So I installed a few new plugins that will hopefully help with that.

My non-dating life has remained pretty busy, which is good for me, but bad for my lovely readers. My ultimate goal is to have more posts about my misadventures in dating than about my lack of posts about my misadventures in dating.

One evening in late October, a knock on my door interrupted my studies. And by my studies, I mean watching The History Channel and using Napster to download as much music as my computer could hold.

I opened the door to find a huddled mass of sweatshirts and ski pants, standing about five foot three, wearing two stocking caps and a series of scarves and mismatched gloves.

“It’s frickin’ freezing out there!” said Jamie’s voice from beneath the layers.

“Jamie,” I said, “it’s 48 degrees out. That’s not cold!”

“Well I’m cold,” she said as she barged past me and began to peel off her layers of clothing.

“If you’re cold now, just wait until January,” I said. “Now THAT’S cold.”

As Jamie took off her last hat and scarf, I noticed that her eyes were red and puffy.

“You’ve been crying,” I said. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t want to talk about it – how cold does it get here in January, anyway?”

“Jamie,” I said softly, “Will you please tell me what’s wrong?”

She sat down on my bed, took a few deep breaths, and began weeping.

“My mom,” she sputtered through tears, “she wants me to come home next semester.”

“Yikes.”

“Yeah. It sucks. She says you’re a bad influence on me.”

“What?” I asked.

Sure, Jamie and I had our “fun,” but we were both going to all our classes, turning in assignments on time, and, generally speaking, being good, responsible students. In fact, midterm grades had just been released the week before, and we were both doing just fine. She had a 3.0 – pretty good for a first semester freshman at our school. I pointed this out to her.

“It’s not my grades,” she said, “it’s my weight.”

Jamie weighed, at most, 115 pounds. Soaking wet. I know this because I had seen her soaking wet (and even supported her full weight once or twice. Let me tell you, sex in a dorm room shower requires a little bit of leverage and a lot of creativity.)

“Baby, you’re beautiful,” I said, kissing her on the forehead as she wept.

“My mom makes me weigh myself every time I come home,” said Jamie. “She’s mad because I’ve gained two pounds since I’ve been here, and she says it’s because I’m spending too much time with you.”

Over the next hour or so, she went on to tell me how her mom and older sister have always hated me – not because I’m an asshole (sometimes I am), not because I treated Jamie badly (because I never did), but because I’m overweight.

And, to put it simply, they hate fat people.

They just happened to have a family member who was really, really into an overweight guy – an overweight guy who just happened to be me.
After I got her a roll of toilet paper (to replace the box of tissues she had already emptied), I sat back down on the bed with her.

“Hey, we are what we are,” I said. “I’m sorry your mom and sister don’t like me, but that’s just too bad. Besides, you’re an adult. They can’t tell you who to like and who not to like.”

“I know,” she said. “You’re right.”

We sat there, holding one another, for an eternity. As we both became sleepy, our silent embrace transitioned from sitting to laying. And then, just before drifting off, Jamie broke the silence.

“Sam, I love you.”

I may or may not have said this already, but this is my most recent definition of the perfect mate:

• She will be able to drink me under the table. Granted, this isn’t hard to do, as my alcohol tolerance dropped off significantly when I left college, and then again when I turned 30.
• She won’t feel that her life is a waste if she doesn’t reproduce.
• She will know how to make lasagna. It doesn’t have to be good lasagna, either, as all lasagna is inherently good.
• She will know that Sunday mornings are good for one thing and one thing only – sleeping in.
• Also, she will know that “sleeping in” means sex.
• And, most importantly, she will make me want to be the best version of myself I can possibly be. And not for her, but for myself.

Having said all that, I canceled my eHarmony account today. Honestly, I stopped looking at the matches. They were all the same. Twenty-something, blonde, LOVES CARDINAL BASEBALL (TEE HEE), wants kids, is Christian, and has a million best friends who she’s known since first grade.

Please note that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with being that person. It’s just that they are a dime a dozen in St. Louis, and they’re all on eHarmony. And none of them are interested in me, which is fine, because really, I’m not too interested in them, either.

Oh, and they’re always teachers, accountants, or — no, that’s it. They’re teachers or accountants. Apparently those are the only two professions single women between the ages of 25 and 32 have in this region.

So, where do I go from here? Obviously I haven’t been going on a lot of dates lately, for various reasons. Mostly work-related. Because, really, I’m a busy guy.

I am not giving up my search, nor am I giving up this blog. I still do have some stories to tell. I just haven’t had a chance to do any hands-on research in the field lately.

I do have one story for you right now, though…

A few weeks back, some friends of mine from college threw their annual mid-winter bash. It’s a good reason to hang out, eat good food, and get drunk in the middle of the shittiest time of the year. As I was standing there mingling, a group of three people walked in.

One of those people looked very familiar.

MICHELLE.

I freaked out. I turned my back to her and looked for a way out. The back door was in the kitchen. I was in the dining room. And about 25 people were between me and freedom. And I certainly couldn’t go out the front door, since SHE was right there.

I shuffled around a bit, not knowing what to do. The person I was talking to at the time — my friend Angela — noticed my sudden discomfort.

“Sam, hello?” said Angela, trying to regain my attention. “What’s your deal?”

“Sorry Angela,” I said, “but I think I need to leave.”

“You just got here, jerk!” she said. “Why do you need to leave?”

By the way, I should point out that Angela has no concept of an inside voice.

“Someone just walked in,” I said, my back still facing Michelle, “and I’m 99% sure I dated her for a while and things did not end well. Not at all.”

The very last thing I wanted to do at that moment — or at any moment in the years since I unceremoniously dumped Michelle — was face her. Especially if she was with her friends. Her friends loved her, and I’m pretty sure would kill for her. Actually, no, I know they would kill for her. I think they may have already. I didn’t want to find out first-hand, though.

I had lived those years with a sense of relative safety since I bought a house and moved not too long after the breakup, and she never did have the address. And she never did know my real name, either. I mean, she knew my name, but not my full legal name, under which all the legal stuff was filed… But that’s another story entirely.

“OH MY GOD!” exclaimed Angela, drawing attention to us before I could shush her. Naturally, this drew everyone’s attention to Angela — and the guy she was talking to, who was, for some strange reason, not willing to turn his body toward the front door.

Then the host went up to the group and began introducing them to some other guests.

“This is Sarah, Katie, and Jessica — we all went to high school together,” said the host.

“Wait a minute,” I said to Angela, “that’s not her.”

“What?” she said. “What the fuck, Sam?”

I explained the situation to her. She called me chicken shit. And then she called me a couple other things because, for some reason, I decided to tell her the details of the breakup. I think she also slapped me. I can’t be entirely sure. I was drinking.

And then Not Michelle, a.k.a., Katie, came up to me.

“Hey, not sure if you remember me or not,” she said. My heart raced and my stomach began knotting itself up. “Last year you were afraid to talk to me because you said I looked like your ex-girlfriend or something.”

“Oh yeah?” I said, suddenly remembering that at the previous year’s party, I had done the exact same thing. I saw her enter, panicked, found out she wasn’t actually Michelle, and then told the story to her and a couple other people. Or at least I’m guessing that’s what happened, as I was completely blitzed and can’t really say for sure.

“Yeah,” she said, “How have you been?”

And then we conversed like normal adults.

Also, Angela made fun of me until I went home. And again in a series of text messages over the course of the next week.

In the 18 months since I joined eHarmony, I have gone through 587 matches — with zero real success.

So, in case you’re wondering, yes, I’m still looking. I haven’t run out of material, but I have had trouble finding time to write it all down. I’ll get back to the stories soon, though. I promise.

One of the questions I am frequently asked on eHarmony is the following:

Describe an interest you have that you would truly hope your partner could share with you.

My favorite response: “Me.”

I never actually put that as a response, but there certainly is a lot of truth in it.