Repost: 4%

Sep 7: 4%
I totally shouldn’t have looked.

I was at my parents’ place to watch the latest episode of “Doctor Who” and I noticed the Time Magazine for this week, which talked about having the answers to all the questions you’ve never asked, or however they put it. And I couldn’t help looking through it.

Mostly, that wasn’t a bad thing. The names of some of the “designer dog” breeds were really funny.

But then I found the page about love and sex and whatnot.

It said that most men lose their virginity at about 17, and most women at about 16. Or was it the other way around? Either way, that means I failed life while I was still in high school!

Worse still, then I noticed that fatal statistic that read “4%”.

And it said that was the percentage of people (can’t recall off-hand if it was world-wide or just in the US) between the ages of 29 and 58 who have have never had a relationship. (Or a serious relationship, or sex. The precise details aren’t important in this context.)

That’s how little companionship I have in my miserable state. I’m part of a teeny tiny 4%.

Worse still, I’m not part of that 4% by choice.

Because you realize some–maybe most–of them are part of it by choice. There are still nuns and monks out there. They’re still required to be chaste. I’m not sure, but I think chastity is still part of being a Catholic priest, as well. Now, some of them probably would have dated before entering into their religious vocation, but not all. (I know that in the Middle Ages, a woman couldn’t become a nun if she had already lost her virginity — even if she had done so within the confines of holy matrimony — but that was the Middle Ages. It’s probably changed since then.)

But not me. I didn’t choose to be alone my whole life.

I’ve just never met anyone willing to have anything to do with me.

And I’m already starting to feel like I’m too stupid to ever succeed in graduate school, and that my lack of work experience will prevent me from ever finding a job, and my books suck too much to ever sell, and…

…basically, I’ve failed life.

What I wouldn’t give for a “reset” button on life.

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Also, having something that would make those mice decide to pick up and leave my house would be good, too. I won’t do anything to kill them, because they’re cute and furry and I’d hate myself if I hurt them, but humane traps are totally ineffective, and I got one of those things where you plug it in and it’s supposed to send a noise along the electric lines that makes them want to leave, but I can hear it in my kitchen right now, and of course my cat is just sleeping and ignoring it.

My life really sucks.

I’m not sure how to fix it, though. I’m trying to fix it, but all my attempts seem to end in more failure.

…

I really want that “reset” button option.

Repost: Frustration

Aug 24: Frustration
I think I’ve come to realize, by now, that it’s completely hopeless for me. No man exists on this planet whose standards are low enough that they’d be willing to go on even one date with a woman as ugly as I am. Maybe if I had a really spectacular body they might be willing to put a bag over my head and try, but I’m also the size of a cow (roughly speaking) so most men would rather cut off parts of their own body than even speak to me.

But I still want to somehow experience love. At least on a physical level, even if I can’t on an emotional level. At my age, probably my only chance is to find someplace where sex-for-money is legal and pay some unlucky man to have sex with me. (I’ve heard the rumor that that sort of thing is legal in Vegas, but I’m not sure if it’s true or not.)

I keep wanting to try to find a way to have a real relationship, though. I was cleaning out my e-mail inbox after ignoring it for several months (all I ever get are automatic mailings from stores and utilities where I autopay my bills on-line, so letting it slide for a long time doesn’t really matter) and I found an invite to a college-based on-line dating site. It wasn’t quite sent to my accurate e-mail address, so I knew it wasn’t sent by anyone I actually knew. (I don’t want to go into details regarding what school I attend, but it’s a state university, and my e-mail address contains the school’s initials, but the e-mail had been sent to the name of the state. Er, let me try that again so it makes sense. Since I’ve already established that I don’t live there, let’s pretend that the school was the University of Nevada – Las Vegas. If that was the case, then my e-mail would have unlv.edu but the sender would have put nevada.edu instead.)

Anyway, even though I knew it was basically a junk e-mail, I thought “what the heck?” and decided to check it out. There’s some kind of live feed on the main page telling you every time anyone does anything (including upload a photo or change their profile) so people were able to see my account name and click on my profile even before I had a profile. And it took me a while to get one, because they expected you to have a photo of yourself just hanging around on your hard drive. (Seriously! Who the heck does that? Other than extreme narcissists, anyway.) I had to shut down my computer, grab my iPad, and use it to take a photo of my student ID to get a photo to post. (I detest having photos taken of myself, so that’s all I had. And no way was I going to waste all that time trying to make myself look presentable to take a new photo.) So I uploaded it from my iPad, and the site completely didn’t want to let me do anything, especially not select which portion of the photo would be shown on the site, so my “photo” became a section of my student ID that didn’t actually contain any portion of my face. (Though that’s probably for the best for the sake of the few people who clicked on my profile after the picture went up.)

By that point, I had actually received a couple of messages, probably messages of confusion wondering why I had a completely blank profile, and/or wondering about my user name. I say “probably” because when I clicked on one of the messages, a pop-up window came up saying that I couldn’t even read the messages unless I bought a subscription. Seriously, you can’t even read your messages unless you pay them. I’m used to not being able to send messages without paying, but not even reading them?! What a rip-off!

Once I realized that was the case, I changed my description to grouse a little about the rip-off, because while I know no one will ever want to date me, I wouldn’t have minded at least finding a few friends. (Yeah, I don’t have any of those, either. I’m pretty much a shut-in. Except when I”m in class or out volunteering at the museum. Or swimming laps at the Y. But that’s not a very large portion of my time.) But I”m not going to pay just for an attempt to make friends. Paying for an attempt to find a man…well, that’s a little more reasonable. But just for a probably futile attempt to make friends? No. No way.

I spent most of the intervening time regretting the grousing, so as soon as I got on-line today I went back to the site and closed the account.

It just feels so aggravating. Maddening, even. I don’t know whether to go on a furious rant or go have a long cry. (Possibly both?)

Maybe what annoys me most is that the site had all these questions for you to answer to help you determine good matches for you, and it seemed like half of them were about your sexual habits, and about all your past relationships. I know I’m abnormal for having never had a relationship in my life, but that still stung. A lot.

Taking a step to try to do something about my pathetic, lonely condition shouldn’t leave me feeling worse about myself than I was before I took that step.