I just stumbled upon a journal post by Boxxaroxx, and since I'm starring in it, I'm going to take time out of my busy man-hunting process and respond. :)

He muses that "The picture she paints of herself is not unappealing, but as she goes on and on, AND ON with the description of what she wants -- and what she does NOT want, you begin to get a feeling that she may be a little more jaded than she lets on."

Just to clarify, I haven't screened and rejected 1,600 applicants, as Boxxaroxx says. To date, there have been 1,808 unique visitors to www.myheroquest.com. The vast bulk of them never contact me, which is the whole point of the exercise. I'm not a good match for 99.99376% of the population, so the site does its job--discouraging men who aren't a match, and encouraging the very few who may be.

I'm a professional marketer, and I look at this as a marketing exercise. I'm a "product" and somewhere out there is a "customer" who will be thrilled to find a woman with my "features and benefits." There's only one "product" available, which means the "cost of acquisition" is going to be pretty high. Not everyone is "qualified" to test-drive this "product."

My process certainly isn't for everyone. If you're a very normal, average person, with a normal, average 9 to 5 job and lots of free time, there are going to be a lot of normal, average people out there for you to choose from and lots of time for you to date and evaluate. You're going to have a much easier time of it than I've had, lucky you!

But I'm neither normal nor average, and I have very little free time. So I've automated my search to the extent I can, just as I've automated other aspects of life. The less time I have to spend on the process, the more time I get to spend on the results (the man!)

It's a shame that my process made Boxxaroxx feel cynical. That, in itself, proves my point--he and I are not a match, and that's perfectly okay.

If anyone should feel cynical, it's me. But I don't. I'm still as blazingly optimistic as I have always been. :)

~Kathleen

1. Because I wrote it to help drive traffic to my profile, and most of the traffic was from women. :(
2. Because no matter how many times I explained that I was talking about *my own personal experiences* and not making sweeping generalizations, most people assumed the latter.
3. Because I prefer to behave in a more adult manner than the person who insulted me.

Move on...nothing to see here.

*EDIT*

Crap. Tried to switch to "moderated" comments and OKC deleted all the *existing* comments. Uhm...thanks for the warning, OKC.

*Sigh* Sorry, everybody who said something.

"WOW" is such a tiny word in comparison to the Star Trek IMAX experience, which is all about BIG. Big sound, ginormous picture, insanely great writing, top-notch performances, amazing casting, and only a couple of completely gratuitous CGI monsters.

Saw it Wednesday night on the IMAX at Irvine Spectrum Center in Orange County, CA. (I'm in town for my monthly client meetings.)

Yowsa! It was almost worth the 7-hour plane trip out here just to see the movie. Frankly, for a geek like myself, it approached the level of religious experience. :D

In fact, it was so good that I got tickets for the Friday night 7 pm show. (My client expressed an interest in going so I got one for him just in case.)

Well...turns out his plans have changed and he can't be in two places at once.

So, if you are single, male, and have a match percentage of 75% or higher, email me and tell me why you should be my date for the 7 pm showing of Star Trek on the IMAX screen at the Irvine Spectrum Center. :)

Forgive me Cupid, it has been three months since my last journal post.

And what an eventful three months it has been! Yowsa.

In late January I picked up a new marketing/PR client--a startup holistic matchmaking company headquartered in Southern California. To help me understand the services they offer (something akin to an "extreme relationship makeover"), I met with their PhD psychologist (the matchmaker), their life coach, a neurofeedback/brain health expert, and a hypnotherapist.

I love what I do for a living. And on some very special days, I feel like I should be paying the *client* because what I'm doing is so fun and rewarding. The past three months have definitely fallen into that category. It has certainly been exhausting, working 12+ hours a day (hence my absence from OKC) but very, very rewarding.

The cool thing is that I was essentially "auditing" the matchmaking process so I could write about it. But it has been wonderfully, unexpectedly life-changing nonetheless.

I'm still the same person (I think). But I've left behind a lot of the fears, doubts, insecurities, and baggage that really interfered with my ability to sustain the kind of relationship I want.

I've also become strangely...nicer. Until recently, I had a pretty acerbic, sarcastic sense of humor. A pretty self-deprecating wit. Then the hypnotherapist pointed out that "self-deprecating" was awfully close to "self-defacating" (eeeewwww) and that perhaps I could find a way to be funny that didn't involve metaphysically crapping on myself. (Again, eeewww.)

Another cool change...deep-seated contentedness and happiness. Which, ironically, has made me a lot less driven when it comes to finding a man! I would love to be in a relationship, but I've become a lot more choosy and a lot less desperate. My standards are higher; but I'm now a lot more flexible on certain things that used to be "must-haves." I'm still figuring out what those things are. And when I do, I'll update my profile to reflect it.

And now I'm definitely a personal growth junkie. I've spent the past few months dealing with people whose focus is helping people improve their lives, and it's...delicious. :) Being around self-aware and constantly improving people is so invigorating! Consciousness is sexy. Introspection rocks!!!

Who knows what could be around the corner?

I had a date Thursday night.

(Wooohooo! Alert the media!!)

I met my date here on OKC, and again, OKC's matching system was validated for me. He and I are an 80% match, and the conversation was wide-ranging and interesting. We discovered we had even more in common than we knew; and also discovered a few dissimilarities. All in all, a great experience.

(Which, odds are, we won't repeat anytime soon. While he could be the right man, now is not the right time because of various things happening in his life. *Sigh*.)

Anyway.

One of the things we talked about was barricades...those layers of previous hurts, disappointments, misunderstandings, and other negative experiences that create hard candy shells around our hearts.

My date's barricades were about heart-high...I noticed them immediately when we met. It was like a scene from that old show Home Improvement. My date was like Wilson, the next-door neighbor who's always obscured by a fence. You can interact with him, but you never get the whole picture. Or enough of a picture to fully connect.

Now, this isn't to say that I don't have my own barricades, of course. I've had some relatively horrific experiences with men, dating, relationships, etc. And the subconscious is nothing if not a generalist. If one man lied to me, all men are liars. If one man cheated on me, all men are pigs. If one man hit me, all men are dangerous. Etc., etc. (Isn't it interesting how we generalize the bad things, not the good things? One man was wonderful and caring, so all men are wonderful and caring...)

So for me, getting to know someone new is always a balancing act. There's the appropriate level of paranoia a single woman should have when meeting someone new. And then there's the inappropriate paranoia generated by the reptile brain and past experience.

The tough thing is telling the difference.

One of the great things about the date was that the man and I had a pretty interesting discussion about our respective barricades. Self-awareness is hot. :)

Seeing someone else's barricades up close gave me more of an awareness of my own. It has also set me to thinking about my own "must-haves" in a relationship and in a partner. It's possible that I sometimes use my process to hide behind, instead of to narrow the field to a man who's a great match.

I'll have to do more thinking on that.

Well, this New Year's Eve won't be *nearly* as much fun as last year's. I had minor surgery this afternoon, so I'm home working on the PowerBook instead of dancing at my favorite New Year's swing dance event. C'est la vie.

Actually I'm quite enjoying myself. I'm taking the opportunity to go through the 5,000+ work-related emails I received this year and file, delete, sort, reply, etc. It feels good to purge and make room for more money-laden emails in the New Year.

I used to suffer from CHAOS (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome) and I found my cure at www.flylady.net. Flylady is a gently loving de-cluttering coach who has helped me find peace in my home through letting go of objects I no longer have room for or love. Yes, it sounds "woo-woo," but I truly believe that you have to get rid of the old to make room for the new (even on a spiritual level).

We human beings can only pay attention to a limited number of things at a time on a conscious level, and clutter tends to sap our mental and emotional strength. Letting go used to seem scary and intimidating; now I look at it as freeing.

And I have found that letting go of objects (and the negative emotions they might represent) has also helped me release attitudes, beliefs, and even people and relationships that no longer serve me.

Several years ago, I was complaining to a friend about not having a man in my life. My friend looked around my stuffed-to-the-gills living room and said, "well, just where would you put him?!"

So, Man Of My Dreams, feel free to show up in 2009. I've made room for you. :)

Fellow OKCitizens, what are you going to let go of for New Year's?

Geez. What happened to the year? It's December, and I still have about four months' worth of stuff to do before the end of the year...which is two weeks away.

*Sigh*

In other news, I went out to California last week for my uncle's memorial service. He was adamant that he didn't want a religious ceremony, and in fact, he didn't want any fuss made at all. For about a week after he passed away, it didn't look like there'd be any kind of memorial. And that just didn't sit well with me. My aunt really wanted to respect my uncle's wishes, but I think she needed something. In fact, I think we all needed something.

So friends of my aunt got together and planned a very simple memorial reception. My mom and other family members gathered together as many photos of my aunt and uncle as we could find, and my aunt's friend Nancy created a huge poster-size photo montage and a looping video slideshow.

I was there with my mom and dad, my brother, my mom's brother and his wife, and about 100 of my aunt and uncles' many friends and business associates.

Several people got up to speak, including my uncle's doctor. Of course, the "event" (we never did come up with a name that seemed appropriate) was sad and I was in tears about half the time. But his doctor had some really beautiful things to say about how hard my uncle fought, and how he knew when it was time to stop fighting. I learned much more about my uncle's last few days, and I learned that he died on his own terms, to the extent he was able to.

So, in terms of having closure, and giving people a time and place to gather together and mourn, and giving us all a chance to see my uncle and remember him in happier times, the event was a huge success. Surprisingly so, for me at least. That's the first memorial service I've been to.

It was great to see how many people love and appreciate my aunt. It really made me think about how I lead my life, which is pretty isolated. I suppose when you think about death, and things like that, you wonder who'd show up for you.

Would 100 people show up for ME? Not right now. I've been so focused on work and getting out of debt that I've lost touch with tons of people.

At one point in the event, when we were managing to laugh at a story about my uncle, I turned to my mom and said, "You know, I'd really like to have one of these remembrances. But I want to have mine while I'm alive, so I can enjoy it."

I suppose that a really wise person could look at every day as a chance to reach out and show people you care.

Why do we always seem to wait until it's too late?

This is the post I wanted to write on Thanksgiving, but wasn't up for it. My favorite uncle passed away last Tuesday morning. And I've had a lot of regrets about not keeping in touch with him.

I'm getting to the age (43) when my parents and aunts & uncles are getting up there in years. Surprisingly, my uncle was the first loved one I've lost. Most of my assorted grandparents died before I was born or when I was very young. (The one who survived was, of course, the nasty, mean-spiritied, crazy, spiteful grandmother...so she didn't fall into the "loved one" category.)

So this past week and a half has been really, really hard. A lot harder than I thought it would be, because honestly my uncle and I didn't get to see each other often and we weren't as close as my aunt and I are. He was a very curmudgeonly man who didn't suffer fools and wore his crankiness as a badge of honor. But he didn't deserve to die the way he did, just wasting away in a hospital for months, first losing his ability to walk, then his ability to eat, then his voice. I don't think anyone deserves that.

So on the one hand, I'm very, very glad he's not suffering anymore. I'm glad he's not trapped inside a body that stopped working months ago. And on the other hand, I'm very sorry that I didn't get the chance to say goodbye.

Losing him has given me so much to think about in terms of the kinds of relationships I want to have and how I want to be remembered. My aunt has been incredible in caring form my uncle. They were married for just over 50 years, and she spent most of every day with him in the hospital during the last three months of his life. She was incredibly devoted to him.

Do I have that in me? I honestly don't know. I've never been in a relationship with a man who loved me as much as I loved him (and at the same time). I don't know what that's like (yet).

I've also taken the time to reflect on those things I'm thankful for. Here's my belated list for Thanksgiving 2008.

• Both my folks are still alive, and though their health isn't great, they are still independent.
• My folks and I have a better relationship now than we've ever had.
• My business is picking up, and it looks like the Depression of 2008 will make my services even more valuable for potential clients.
• I'm learning a lot of cool new things about blogging, PHP and CSS. And I just recently updated my website (www.myheroquest.com) to improve navigation.
• The Interwebs allow me to work with clients all over the world. Business trip to Ireland? Yes, please. :)
• Guns are still legal, and the Second Amendment is still in effect...for the moment.
• I have a solid roof over my head and indoor plumbing, which the majority of humans who ever lived did not have.
• I never go hungry, except by choice.
• I had virtually no damage from Hurricane Ike (besides being without electricity for 9 days).
• My health has been pretty good. I could work out more, though.
• I was born in the U.S.A., guaranteeing me more personal freedom than nearly all women who have ever lived.
• I'm not in danger of being killed by the male members of my family to protect their "honor."
• More and more people are waking up to the scam that is the Federal Reserve.
• Saxby Chamblis won in Georgia, helping ensure at least token opposition to a complete socialist takeover of the federal government.
• My cats haven't learned how to use matches or make phone calls. (On the down side, nor have they learned how to load the dishwasher. They still put the forks in tines-down.)
• I'm sincerely thankful for OKCupid. I have met three wonderful men this year thanks to OKC. And although it didn't work out long-term with any of them, I'm confident that Mr. Right is out there on the InterGoogle, searching for me as diligently as I'm searching for him.

I'm not one to bear my soul to strangers online. Really, I'm not. It's safe to say that no one reading this actually knows me. But I find myself in the odd situation of not having anyone else to talk to.

I have always been something of a solitary person. And I'm pretty introverted anyway, so that works out. I can be very entertaining in a group of people, and most of people of my acquaintance describe me as outgoing and personable. And I am, when I'm in a group of people. What's interesting is that is being entertaining is also a way of keeping people away from you. And ironically, the more entertaining you are, the less likely people are to get to know the real you. So in a way, it's a defense mechanism.

So...I never was all that outgoing (really) but when I had a traditional job, at least I was forced to get myself out of the house and interact with people on a daily basis. Now I work from home and I'm my own boss. And over the past couple of years I find that I've drifted further and further away from people.

My closest friend is a single parent who works a lot of overtime and is now in a great relationship. So I haven't seen him in person in nearly 9 months. My other closest friends live in Atlanta, Los Angeles and Austin. I have a few friends in town, but we've drifted apart (unfortunately, each one of them has some chronic health problems plus they're all marrieds and I'm a single).

I know a lot of people make friends by being involved in some kind of activity. I used to be involved in a Lord of the Rings fanclub that disintegrated in a rather acrimonious manner, and some folks who I thought were friends turned out not to be, once people started to take sides. I also used to go out swing dancing quite a bit, but, strangely, dancing with someone on a regular basis almost prevents you from getting to know them, because you're too busy dancing to even talk. (This is also a good thing in some cases.)

And since I started a business, I don't have much free time anyway. I usually end up working between 9 and 12 hours a day.

I don't want to appear all mopey and woe-is-me. For the most part I'm very happy with my life, and my solitude is not that big a deal most of the time. I'm so busy I don't have much time to think about it.

Then there are days like today. I went to sales training this morning (where I was in a group, and yes, I felt compelled to be entertaining). It was good to get out of the house and interact with other business owners. As I was walking out to my car, my mom called me on my cell phone to say that my uncle had died.

She had left me a message last night to say that he was slipping away, but I didn't get the voicemail. He was elderly and had been ill since August. So it wasn't a huge shock or anything. But believe it or not, he's the first person I was ever close to who died. Most of my grandparents died before I was born. I've only been to one funeral in my whole life.

My uncle was very specific...he didn't want a funeral or memorial of any kind. I still haven't spoken to my mom's sister to find out what she wants, what she needs. I expected my folks and I would fly to California when my uncle died, but now I'm not sure what we're going to do.

I knew it was coming. We all knew it was coming. My uncle wasted away in a hospital for three months, hooked up to an increasing number of tubes and wires. And my aunt was with him when he died, and I'm glad of that. I'm ashamed I didn't make more of an effort to talk to him during the past few weeks. The last time I did talk to him, his voice was weak and very shaky and it was had to understand him. At least I got to tell him I loved him, which was something I'd never said out loud before (my mom's side of the family doesn't go for sentimental things like telling someone you love them.)

So tonight I'm full of mixed emotions. I'm sad for my aunt and for the rest of my family and for myself. I don't feel like I got to know my uncle the way he deserved. He was something of a professional curmudgeon, so he wasn't a person who really extended himself or revealed a lot of personal stuff. And I'm sad for that too. I'm sad that he spent the last three months of a pretty good life hooked up to a bunch of machines, bedridden. I'm sad that the person he called his "favorite niece" didn't have the guts to talk to him more often, or the luck to learn in time that he was slipping away. I'm sad for his suffering. But I'm relieved he's not suffering anymore.

And I'm sad for me that I've isolated myself so effectively. I wish I had someone to talk to tonight but I don't. I've left messages for friends, but it's Thanksgiving week and I'm sure people are busy. It occurs to me that I'm following in my uncle's footsteps in a way. I'm not actively curmudgeonly as he was (he called himself a "cranky old shit") but I still have allowed myself to drift away from connectedness.

So what happens when you run out of friends?

You talk to strangers on the Internet. And you wonder how to go about making new friends, and making time for them.

If you're basically shy and introverted, and you work at home, how do you make new friends? How do you do it without sounding pathetic? How do I learn to be less entertaining and more genuinely outgoing?

I LOVE OKCUPID!!! And eHarmony is one big reason why.

In less than two hours, eHarmony's "free communication weekend" will end, and I'm sure thousands more people will have been conned into sending Dr. Warren et al $60 a month. That's a damn shame.

The eHarmony concept--an allegedly scientific matching system based on intense compatibility--really appealed to me, and I actually know someone who met his wife on eHarmony about six years ago. (I have no idea if they're still married.)

So I've tried eHarmony several times, utterly without success. Having spent over $600 on the service over the past six years, I actually had a total of THREE real, in-person dates. (Two of them with the same guy. Who then stood me up for our third date, a home-cooked dinner at my place. But I digress...)

Luckily, Our Noodly Lord, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, pointed me to OKCupid with His delicious appendage, and I was saved from wasting any more cashy money on eHarmony. (RAmen!)

This weekend, though, eHarmony had one of its periodic "Free Communication Weekends" where non-members could communicate without subscribing. And trust me, kids, the vast majority of accounts on eHarmony are non-members. Why? Because non-members allow eHarmony to give you the illusion that there are a TON of guys or gals who are a perfect match for you (thus making it more likely that you'll sign your life away for a membership.)

Yes, anyone can "review your matches for free," according to Dr. Warren's commercial. When you create a profile on the site, there's no way to indicate that you're not a member (and thus, unable to communicate with anyone). If you state your non-membership too explicitly in your profile, eHarmony will flag you for violating their unwritten rule that "Thou Shalt Not Reveal Your Status as Filler".

Ah, but this weekend it was free. So I tried a little experiment. I turned my long-dead profile back on to see what would happen. WOW! Over 100 matches (but you can only see 20 of them at once, so you have to kill some of them to get new ones.) And I could refresh my matches whenever I wanted (not so when you're actually a member...you can only do that once a day.)

Fifty or so matches I killed immediately--guys who give one-word profile answers (generally they're married dudes looking for something on the side.) Or perhaps they did take more than 90 seconds to fill out a profile, but there was an obvious deal-killer like "looking for a woman to have kids with."

Of the 50 or so matches that were left, I started the communication process with them. If they hadn't responded by this morning, I killed them to make room for more.

So...of the 100 (or so) alledged perfect matches eHarmony gave me this weekend, about half were too married or too lazy to fill out a profile. Of the rest, I closed out about 35 for being dads or wanting to have kids. Seven closed me out without communicating. And a whopping total of THREE went any further than the first step of communicating (I closed out two of them, and one guy closed me out after getting to Open Communication.)

Now, I'm not Miss Universe and I don't have a sex tape on the Internet. But I don't think I'm a hopeless hag, either. I think I'm a pretty normal-looking woman of 43 years. And yet only 10 guys out of 100 took any action at all (even if it was "negative") upon seeing my profile. If it's a free communication weekend, and you know you only have 48 hours to contact someone, wouldn't that make "single and looking" people even more active on the site?

So I suspect, based on my little experiment this weekend, and all my prior eHarmony experience, that about 90% of the men on eHarmony are married, fake, dead/cancelled accounts, or non-members.

I have heard that women outnumber men 10 to 1 on eHarmony (which wouldn't surprise me). So, ladies, if you're thinking of giving eHarmony a shot, please don't bother. You're just cannon fodder in the Dating Wars. And OKCupid will do a FAR better job for FREE.

Now, eHarmony might be a great thing for guys...who knows. But overall, for us ladies, I think it's a scam. On "free communication weekends," it's not at all unusual to get 100 matches. But once eHarmony actually gets your credit card number, you'd be very lucky to get 100 matches a month (and again, 90% of them won't be willing or able to communicate with you because they're not members.)

And yes, I'm bitter. I want my $600 back. :-P