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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.

As I mentioned earlier, Jamie and I had a long history. We had been friends for several years before that one fateful August night when out of nowhere, she kissed me. We already knew pretty much everything about each other. I think that’s what made the physical part of our relationship move so quickly.

At our school, the dorms were not air-conditioned. Most dorms weren’t then. At this particular school, the university is just now retro-fitting the dorm rooms with individual heating and cooling units. Back when Jamie and I were there, the only thing the university provided was heat, and it was always turned on about a week after it started getting cold.

The first cold snap of that autumn was pretty intense, so Jamie stayed with me most of the time. And, other than our occasional trips to class and to the cafeteria, we spent the rest of that time in my room, under the blankets, huddling together for warmth.

I should point out that my definition of “huddling” is a very loose one. I should also point out that even though we were mostly unclothed most of that time, we did manage to keep each other nice and warm.

It took us a while, though, to get past the weirdness of having seen each other naked. Well, okay, maybe I was the one with the weird feelings. I had known her since she was a flat-chested 14 year old tomboy. And because we were only together at the same high school for one year before I graduated, my mental image of her was still just that kid. Sure, we saw each other occasionally while she was in high school, but by the time she reached college, she was 18 and a total bombshell. About 110 pounds, maybe 5′ 3″ tall, and because she ran cross country and track, very toned. Some of my friends said she was out of my league.  WAY out of my league.

And to those individuals, I replied, “yup, and you should see her naked,” a line that might have angered most girls, but it just made Jamie smile.

And that smile is the thing I liked most about her — and it showed up frequently. Walking across campus, hanging out in my dorm room, eating in the cafeteria, in bed — especially in bed…

Everything about Jamie was wonderful, but the smile was a totally unexpected bonus.

But there was one thing that could send that smile into hiding in under a second: her mother.

TO BE CONTINUED…

The site is back up. Something went wrong somewhere along the way, and it totally screwed everything up. Thankfully, I have a very talented friend who knows all about this stuff, and he went in and fixed it right up.

And good timing, too, as I’m sure you were all starting to get bored.

New post tomorrow!

Saint Louis is a very “sticky” city.

When I say that, I could very easily say I’m talking about the humidity in the summer months, but I’m not. I’m talking about it being an emotionally sticky place. Many people come here for school or work and end up staying. And those of us who are born here — the odds of us getting out of here alive are not in our favor. Saint Louis is not a remarkable place, but it’s a good place with good people and good neighborhoods.

And there’s nothing wrong with the emotional stickiness of the city that keeps people here. If anything, it’s good for the city.

It’s terrible for single people like me, though.

As you know from my earlier posts, I am not big on babies. Or kids. Or children of any sort. I don’t feel an evolutionary need to pass my DNA to a new generation — at least not right now. And that’s a problem.

You see, eHarmony asks all its members how they feel about children. My profile has always said “no” to dating people who have kids, and “maybe” to wanting kids of my own someday. Recently, my opinion regarding having children has changed, so, out of a sense of fairness to my potential matches, I stated that I do not want children.

My honest-to-god opinion on kids is this: I don’t want children now. I’m not sure if I want children in the future. Maybe, if I meet the right person, I could see myself having children, but I’m not going to go out and say without a doubt that a long-term relationship absolutely must result in marriage and children. Therefore, I think it is better to say “no” than “maybe” at this point in time.

Before, when I was a “maybe,” I received six or seven matches per day. Nearly all of them — I’d say at least 95% — said they definitely wanted kids. The rest were maybes like me.

I switched my match settings last week. Since then, I have received two matches.

After a discussion with some friends who came to Saint Louis from other places to attend grad school, I attribute this to the locally-grown population.

Many of the single women in my age range (25 to 31) who are on eHarmony are from Saint Louis originally, they went to school here (or nearby), and they have decided they want to stay here. Why? Because their families are here. Their friends are here. And all their friends are having babies here. And those babies are growing up here.

I admit, I’ve put down roots in Saint Louis. I own a home here, I have a pretty secure job here, and I have a really well-established circle of friends — friends who also own homes and have stable jobs here. I’m definitely stuck to Saint Louis. Unlike most of the single women in my age range, though, I don’t hear the ticking of any biological clocks.

So, my choices are basically as follows:

1. Have a wide selection of potential partners who want different things than me, or
2. Have an extremely narrow selection of potential partners who want the same things as me

In the interest of being open and honest with my potential mates, I chose the second option.

And damn, it’s frustrating.

Jamie and I have a long history.

We went to high school together. She was two years younger than me, entering her freshman year when I was a senior. For reasons that still remain a mystery to me, she latched onto me like a barnacle on a trawler.

“Whatcha doin’?” asked the eager young Jamie the first time I met her. I was in the library for my journalism class.

“Uh, hi?” I said.

“You’re Sam, right?” she said. I nodded. “I’m Jamie. Whatcha doin’?”

And from that moment, a relationship was born. Kind of. It just took a while to come to fruition.

We were an unlikely pair from the onset. I was a doughy nerd interested in journalism, theater, and trivia competitions; she was a three-sport athlete – cross-country in the fall, basketball in the winter, and track in the spring.

I knew sports existed, and could often be found on the sidelines taking pictures for the newspaper and yearbook, but that was about it. I was more interested in the more cerebral things, like politics, movies, and weekend-long games of Risk.

Mind you, all throughout high school, she and I were friends and nothing more. I dated other girls, and she dated other guys. And, for the record, the nature of my relationship with Jamie did come up in several conversations with the girls I dated. The tone of those conversations was always the same — suspicious. I later found out that Jamie’s boyfriends had similar suspicions about me.

Thank goodness she never came to visit me at college. That would have really raised suspicions, even though nothing was going on. Nothing at all. At least not until her freshman year in college.

During the fall of my junior year in college, I received an excited phone call from Jamie.

“Guess where I’m going next fall!” she exclaimed.

“Uh… Harvard?” I asked, honestly not knowing she was interested in my school. Plus, she was a really good student. National Honor Society and everything.

“No, dumbass,” she said, “I’m going to be at the same school as you!”

Obviously, we were both excited by this. Soon enough, the start of a new year came, and on my first night in a single dorm room, I received a knock on my door.

“Hey you!” said Jamie, as she skillfully executed a gravity-defying flying bear hug. “I’m so glad we’re here together!”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m glad you got accepted. That’s pretty cool. We’ll get to hang out just like old times.”

“Yeah,” she said, “about that…”

“About what?” I asked.

“About the ‘old times’,” she continued. “In the old times, I had a boyfriend. And you had a girlfriend.”

“Okay,” I said, “your point is?”

“My point, dumbass, is that I dumped Keith last week,” she said, staring up at me with a pair of sad blue eyes. “So, are you seeing anyone?” she asked.

“As a matter of fact, I’m not,” I said.

“Then there’s something I want to give you,” she continued. “Something I’ve been waiting a long time to give you…”

And right there, in my dorm room, on a hot august night, was the first time Jamie and I kissed.

It was one of many firsts for that semester.

TO BE CONTINUED…

I’ve received a few messages regarding my whereabouts. Some folks who seem to come onto this site merely to tell me what a terrible, horrible person I am (and please, don’t stop coming – you’re all my special little snowflakes) have implied that I have run out of material.

Not so.

See, I don’t make money from this blog. Therefore, I need to pay the mortgage somehow. This is where my job comes into the equation. We’ve been busy lately, which is something for which I am very, very thankful. In fact, I’m currently staring down the barrel of a few more projects. Good times indeed.

In addition to work, there has been my personal life. I had hoped to start posting again last week, when I was off for Thanksgiving weekend, but there were some family issues that came up – family issues that culminated in a funeral.

I have been on a few dates recently. More about those later, though.

Anyway, I can’t say for sure that I’m going to be back and posting every day or every week for that matter, but I am still here. It’s just that life is a funny thing – it has a tendency to happen.

You all remember Emily, right?

I forgot to tell you the best part of the Emily saga. About a month after she and I broke up, and a month before I met Kelly, Emily texted me out of the blue one Wednesday afternoon.

“Hey — I’m engaged!”

I had deleted her from my phone, so I had to text back.

“Congrats – and who is this?” I wrote.

“It’s Emily, silly. I’m engaged! Isn’t that great?” she wrote back.

“I saw. Good luck with that.”

Barely a year after going through a divorce, and just a few weeks after informing me that I was nothing more than her non-gay gay boyfriend, she expected me to be excited that she was marrying the guy who she had been seeing the whole time I thought we were dating. A guy who she had only known about as long as she had known me. I felt my response was the most diplomatic thing possible.

A week passed and, again, out of the blue, I received an e-mail from her.

“I’m engaged! Aren’t you excited for me?” she asked.

I don’t know why I responded, but I did:

“Emily, don’t you think you’re rushing into this? You’ve barely been divorced a year, you hardly know this guy, and let’s face it — your first attempt at marriage didn’t go over so well. I get the feeling that you’re eager to get married again because of what you told me about your expectations for this point in your life. You expected to have kids by now. You expected to be living in a house in the suburbs. You had a plan, but things didn’t pan out, so you’re marrying this guy because you need to catch up — you need to get your life back on track so it can be whatever you think it should be. At the very least, think about having a long engagement. If you want to get married, fine, go for it, but stop and look at this from an outsider’s point of view.”

A couple days went by before I received a reply back from her.

“Yeah, I’ve heard both sides of the argument. I am a bit panicked about this, and I was afraid, but I’m not going to let fear run my life,” she wrote.

Of course, I wrote back:

“But you are letting fear run your life. You’re so afraid of being alone and childless at the age of 29 that you’re rushing to marry the first guy who has shown any sign of long-term interest. That hardly seems healthy.”

The next reply came a week later, this time, via instant message.

“I am scared of being alone, but I’m also scared of missing this opportunity,” she said. “I don’t feel like I’m settling, but I don’t feel like myself, either.”

“Oh yeah,” I replied. “How so?”

“Well, for starters, the sex is… weird.”

I didn’t want to know. And I told her as much. But that didn’t stop her.

“It’s all missionary, all the time,” she said. “He won’t do anything interesting. It’s boring.”

I was amazed. They had been together for such a short time, and the sex was already boring.

“First of all,” I said, “I don’t want to hear any more about your sex life. Secondly, you need to work these issues out before you even think about setting a date. Bad sex now means resentful sex later.”

“I’ve got to go,” she said, abruptly ending our conversation. “I have to run to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription — and some more batteries for my vibrator.”

“I bet you do,” I said.

In the time since this involuntary reopening of the lines of communication between Emily and me, I realized that the reason I even responded to her was not because I was interested in her or wanted her back. No, I responded because when you see a dumb little kid about to chase a ball into a busy street during rush hour, you feel compelled to save that kid from his or her imminent demise. I was trying to pull this kid out of the traffic, but it was pointless. Her ball was sitting right on the middle stripe, and by god, she was going to go get it, even if it meant getting smacked down by a semi.

I let that kid run into traffic, and I was just waiting for the carnage — which I warned her about — to come.

There are two types of people in this world: people who absolutely adore children, and people who don’t.

I am in the second of those groups. I have no issues with children. I just don’t want to have them at this point in my life. On all my dating profiles, I have kids listed as a maybe. Not a yes, not a no. A maybe. Someday I might be open to having children of my own, but not now. I believe that having children is a huge obligation that requires two very dedicated individuals. And you better believe that if I’m ever going to have kids, I’m going to make sure I’m with the right person first.

Any man and woman can combine sperm and egg to make a baby. But to truly be good parents, it takes a lot of work, and I want to be certain that the mother of my child and I will be equally committed to that partnership before anything else happens.

I realized when Michelle and Laura were talking, that Michelle, as great as she was, came with obligations. Obligations she didn’t choose to have, but obligations she loved and was cared for that would be part of her life forever. And if I was going to play any role in Michelle’s life, I was always going to come second to the kids – and that is exactly how it should be.

Now, Michelle was always forthcoming about her situation. She made no secret of the fact that she was raising two young children. I guess I just overlooked it. I really should have taken that into consideration from the beginning, but I have never claimed to be perfect. I never should have entered into the relationship in the first place. I never should have let things go as far as they did. Hindsight is 20/20. Hindsight is also a bitch, because it gives us insight into how we could have handled a situation differently. It defines us as less than perfect.

Now, because at this point, not getting into the relationship to begin with was not an option, I ask you what my choices are in this situation.

If I had stuck around, I would have existed in a relationship with no future. I didn’t want to raise someone else’s kids. I didn’t want to become anyone’s father figure. I wasn’t ready for that sort of responsibility. It’s a pretty major thing. Staying in that situation would not have been fair to me, but even more importantly, it would be very unfair to Michelle and the kids.

I chose to end it because I would rather be hated for being who I am than loved for being someone I am not. I chose to be honest with Michelle and myself – before ever meeting the kids – because I firmly believed it was the right thing to do. And I stand by that.

When I broke up with Michelle, she was on a business trip in Seattle. I broke up with her over the phone. I am not proud of that, but at least it’s better than an e-mail or a text message. Of course, there is no good way to break up with someone.

There were tears. There were expletives.

“I guess that’s that, then,” she said, followed by a click.

And just like that, it was over.