Greetings, stranger.

Like parallel parking, internet dating is not something I like to do (and I am as shitty at internet dating as I am at parallel parking), but, after being thru with college, there are only so many ways to meet people.

So I extend my invitation for you to lazily glance over my profile and make superficial judgments about my worth as a human being.

I'm a twenty-something guy. I graduated from Ohio State with a Political Science degree, went to Seattle for two years and then came back here because of a strange personal calamity.

Now I'm here scheming to get back to the West Coast. I feel more at home there. Ohio is nice in many ways, but my life here reminds me of being in a coma thus I am eager to leave.

I'm also a Russian, I'm sorry I may look like a nice WASP in my pictures, but I come from a country that is associated in people's minds with alcoholism, crime, dictatorship and prostitution. These associations are unfair and capture only one side of the Russian reality. Its certainly there but should't define a whole people.

I've lived in America since I've been twelve, I have a slight Russian accent, I don't wear Adidas tracksuits and carry a Vodka-filled flask. But a Cold War residue of Russophobia might linger in you're heart. And if it does. I don't know... go fuck yourself.

It's ridiculous to write words and post pictures of yourself in an attempt to get people to like you on a website. I hate the whole process, much of what I read on here is so corny and pointless.

As I wrote in a message to a girl in here, "Any idea of self people have about themselves is an illusion. Online dating is making yourself into a product. So its creating a lie on top of the illusion." That's why my attitude is what it is.

Don't worry. I'm not an angry person, not as angry as this profile can make me sound. Just tired of the bullshit. I am Zen, in a sense of a Zen master who hits his lethargic pupil. Though I don't believe in violence or hitting people. I don't even believe in using the word "pupil."

important things and not so important things

I'm good at catching things when they fall.

People notice my height. I'm tall.

Blue Velvet is my favorite movie. I love how that film weaves together the banality of life with evil and misery. Its a really original film.

***

"So you can stick your little pins in that voodoo doll
I'm very sorry, baby, doesn't look like me at all
I'm standing by the window where the light is strong
Ah they don't let a woman kill you
Not in the Tower of Song"

Leonard Cohen verse

1) the vague presence of empathy in the world
2) freedom to make changes in my life (not being stuck)
3) Buddhism
4) intelligent people
5) ability to learn new things
6) yo mama (last but not least)

"Form is emptiness and emptiness is form."

Just dropped some Buddhism on you.

One time I gave a beggar $20, he looked up at me immediately and asked, "Got a cigarette?"

....you're open to meeting in person. I realize needing to talk to someone for a while online to get to know them. I won't hound you from day one with Starbucks invites. (Won't hound you ever with anything, not that type)

But I also don't want to write a novel in OK Cupid messages. I did that before and now have a writer's block.

You don't really know a person until you meet them.

I mean, you don't necessarily know a person after you met them.

But anyway, friend. Writing gets old is what I'm trying to say.