Professionally, I'm a graduate student in engineering with a BS in physics seeking a PhD.

Even though my pictures don't show me smiling, when I'm interacting with other people I usually do wear a big, dopey smile.

I'm biracial: half of my family is south Indian upper-caste Hindu, and the other half is central and southern Italian Catholic of peasant extraction. I was raised a Catholic, and in the end, my attitude towards Catholicism is pretty ambivalent, though as I said I'm a firm non-believer. If you want to know more, feel free to contact me, though it's something I haven't completely worked out myself.

I like things and places that are a little off-kilter, like coffee houses with an indie vibe, street fairs, events that might be described as "multicultural," and the like. As banal as it sounds, I really am open to new experiences and am hoping that you can expose me to some.

Also, I like connecting seemingly disparate ideas and making something new. I'm crazy about synthesis, and I love frameworks that take a variety of things and fit them together in a logical way (for example, Douglas Hofstadter with Goedel, Escher, and Bach). I don't get enough synthesis in my life, so maybe you can open me up to more such experiences and ideas :)

Though I don't do it much right now, I have done a bit of traveling, having visited both my relatives in India and Italy as well as traveling to China (including Tibet). I've also visited a large number of the states as well as Canada and Mexico.

I also sing. In terms of choral range, I would classify myself as a tenor 1, though I can't hit the high notes as easily I hope to be able to someday. My falsetto is strong enough for me to sing as an alto. Other vocal talents include being able to pronounce words in languages I don't speak better than most people can as well as having a voice that naturally carries, which can be inconvenient at times.

I love music, mostly classical. In fact, if you catch me in a candid moment, I might be whistling a tune I'm making up off the top of my head. From the relatively little bit of visual art I've been exposed to, some artists I am particularly fond of are Vermeer, Monet, Chagall, Goya, Caravaggio, Giotto, and Cimabue (in no particular order).

If you would enjoy cuddling naked while making ironic and maybe insightful comments about people, life, and other variegated topics, I think we would get along swimmingly.

Finally, I haven't been out of the closet as long as most people my age (thanks to the stifling embrace of Holy Mother Church).

Oh right... once, a big drunk southern guy thought I was Sanjaya from American Idol. Yes, there are actually two young half-Indian, half-Italian skinny gay males in US that are perpetually in need of a haircut; go figure...

shuffling around the instruments in my lab pretending to be a dutiful lab rat, being thankful that my adviser thinks enough of me to be patient, and trying to find distractions that will take my mind away from the stresses of coming closer and closer to graduation...

I want to write (good) poetry and compose music. I also want to develop my voice, even though I don't think it'll ever be very strong.

I also want to find a special certain someone, though I must admit for the time being I'm willing to settle for something between friendship and a true relationship...

Editors

• ralphracoon

physics I guess (or at least that's what I've been told; I hope it's true), bsing well enough in physics to survive, as well as other stuff. For example, I can sing decently in the tenor to alto range if I take care of my voice.

I can pronounce words in foreign languages that I can't speak much better than most people can.

I also cuddle like no one's business.

May I lick you?

after my my brown skin would probably be my eyes and enormous nose. After that would probably be my hair, which hopefully is not too messy...

I'm too indecisive to pick favorites, and laundry lists are boring, I guess.

As far as literature goes, I like old poems and new novels. I love the Best American series (the short stories, the science and nature essays, etc.) and new modern short stories. I sometimes mix it up with poem anthologies. Books I've read recently include The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell as well as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith (Jane Austen's classic coming-of-age tale of romance spiced up with zombie ultra-violence!).

I mostly listen to Classical music, and I eat pretty much anything placed in front of me (though I will have snooty things to say about it if doesn't taste good.)

Speaking of food, I'm trying to cook more for myself now.

what little I have left of my mind, my body, the few friends and close family members I have, a computer with access to the internet, music, physics, and the cat who I took in from the street last September.

whether everything's going to be alright or not, my regrets, music, making sense of the tiny fragments that make up modern life, how different things are from the past and whether these differences are positive or not, and physics (but not hardly enough) among other thoughts that swirl around my brain like a noxious cauldron of bubbling suicide drink; you know, the concoction you used to make as a kid by mixing all the different fountain drinks together in a single cup.

probably at home alone and not concerned about it. Or out with a buddy.

I often wish I were Jewish.

I'm sensitive. Sad or moving stories can bring me close to tears, and stories of injustice can bring me to anger. I just want to love other people, even if it's hard for me, and I want other people to love each other... or maybe I just want them to love me :p

I've never been in a relationship, but I'm a mature, reasonable person, so I'm, err, open to learning...

I'm still fairly intimidated by graduate school, but then again I'm hardly alone in this. I am, however, way too lazy and way too much of a procrastinator, but I'm going to seriously work on fixing that.

Oh: and finally, I can touch every square inch of my back with my hands thanks in large part to my unusual proportions. And my nurples are different colors.

When I was a child, I had an irrational fear of computers... I Google'd it, and apparently (but unsurprisingly) it's called "cyberphobia," another misuse of the "cyber-" root.

and only if you can identify one or more of the drinking songs in Brahms' "Academic Festival Overture."

Nah, I'm just kidding... message me if you want to, unless you are on the rebound, in which case you should not contact me or anyone else on this site for our sakes.

Also, if you are over 40, please don't add me to your friends' list or contact me. I am not interested, and there are plenty of people on this site closer to your age.

I'm especially looking for friends in the Maryland DC suburbs.

PS If you know what I mean when I ask you to be my Walter to my Perry, you get bonus points.