I like open-ended, free-flowing, confessional chats with buddies over spicy food and beer. Deep friendships are important to me. I am a compulsive reader interested in science, philosophy, and the history of ideas. Weight-training is one of my hobbies. People are often surprised to learn that I grew up in a small town in Texas, where I helped out on my family's ranch.

Fiction: Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty, Sinclair Lewis's Elmer Gantry, Nick Hornby's How to Be Good.

Science and philosophy: Ian Hacking's The Emergence of Probability, Richard Dawkins, Marc Lange's Intro to the Philosophy of Physics, Daniel Dennett's Freedom Evolves and Consciousness Explained, Ian Ayres's Super Crunchers, Steven Pinker, Steven Landsburg's More Sex is Safer Sex, Tim Harford, Erving Goffman's Stigma, Nietzsche, Neil Pickering's Metaphor of Mental Illness.

Artsy stuff: Donald A. Norman's The Design of Everyday Things, Scott Schuman's The Sartorialist.

Memoir and essays: Elizabeth Marshall Thomas's The Old Way, David Sedaris, John McPhee's Irons in the Fire, Ted Conover's Newjack, Benoit Denizet-Lewis's America Anonymous,

History and biography: Louis Crompton's Homosexuality and Civilization, Edward Larson's Evolution, Ansary's Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World through Islamic Eyes, Tom Wolfe's From Bauhaus to Our House, Sylvia Nasar's A Beautiful Mind, Gleick's Isaac Newton.

Politics and society: Mark Kleiman's When Brute Force Fails, Alain de Botton's Status Anxiety, Colin Ward's Anarchism, everything by Richard Posner.

TV: The Wire and Big Love are amazing. I've been watching True Blood too, but with less enthusiasm. 30 Rock is a reliable laugh.

Music: Kid Cudi's Man on The Moon, Girl Talk's Feed The Animals, Kanye West's Late Registration, OutKast's Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, Beck's Guero, Rufus Wainwright's Poses, Teddy Thompson's Up Front and Down Low, Hagen Quartett's Beethoven: String Quartets Opp. 127 & 132.

Food: spicy Indian food, cheap Mexico-style tacos, and fancy pizza.

Movies: the entire Bourne series, The Lives of Others, Doubt, O Brother Where Art Thou, There Will Be Blood, The Fog of War, The Departed.

My favorite blogs and websites: Matthew Yglesias, Marginal Revolution, Will Wilkinson, Bookslut, The Onion, Who is IOZ?, Language Log, Kottke, Crooked Timber.

Favorite podcasts: Bloggingheads, EconTalk, On The Media, Audible's New Yorker, This American Life, Philosophy Bites, Onion Video, All Songs Considered.

Eating dinner with a friend. No shame staying in to read on the couch or watch some netflix, though.

I tend to go for confident guys in their twenties.