there comes a time in life when a man must put on stretchy pants...

...it's for fun.

okay, so i know i'm the youngest of the bp girls (i feel like i'm referring to us as gasoline girls), but my body is changing before my very eyes...i no longer wear pants any more. at age 27, my waist has decided to disappear. so i have decided to do away with pants, which may or may not make linda feel slightly uncomfortable. hehe. as i write this, linda and i have four open tubs of ice cream on the living room table. i have already finished the strawberry container. one down--three to go.

hey, korea counterparts, can you send us some good korean food? those pictures are looking mighty fantastic.

ok on to more pressing and embarrassing matters: that elusive little thing called LOVE...or lust, or desperation. call it what you will.

we talk about it all the damn time: how we're hypereducated spiritual women of color who want to (dare i say it!?) change the world in some kind of manner, and are forever dating or pursuing men who seem to either not appreciate us or get us or just want to use us (well, i guess i should just say me). soooooo...suffice it to say, my ass has not had a boyfriend in ten years. my last boyfriend was high schooled out jeff, who at 17 told me that he loved me right before i left for college. i looked at him with dubious eyes, and said, "jeff, we're 17. we don't know what love is." and then we broke up.

but i lied! i knew what love was...or at least what i wanted it to look like, because i was secretly "in love" with a boy from guam for years, and i followed him to college ala felicity porter, who in a single act of desperation, drops her life plans to pursue a boy who barely knew her name. what were we thinking, felicity?! except i didn't have nancy on the tape recorder. hey we know where this story is going. i play the kling-on for about 6 years before waking up and realizing that his no was really a no despite all his nonverbal cues which led me to believe otherwise. and heartbroken, i started having yearly flings with random boys who would cross my path to dull the pain: the first, a 5 foot indian man who taught me how to properly smoke a cigarette (i wasn't inhaling). he asked me to be his girlfriend, and when i waivered for a second, he withdrew his request and a year later married his next girlfriend. DENIED! the second, a canadian med student, also indian. i felt like i was kissing a wet fish. that was shortlived. the third, an old reconnection from guam who was now a pothead law student in chicago--korean american. he kept insisting that he didn't want a relationship: just sex. i kept insisting the opposite. we parted ways after he gave me an ultimatum. i know--i really know how to pick the good ones. my friends just kept saying about the last one: WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU DATING A KOREAN MAN?

i met a boy earlier last year around february, and thought he was so cute and sweet and funny as hell, but after asking him out several times as i did the last three (coming on too strong? i thought it was the 21st century? hehe), realized that he thought nothing of me more than as a friend. i think i emasculate men, maybe? so i reluctantly gave up on men...again.

but umm...about six months ago, after my 27th birthday, fed up from waiting for loser guys who don't know what they want, and even grosser guys that i randomly met by chance, i decided to be proactive about finding a guy. i have decided that i don't believe in soulmates. or maybe i believe in multiple soulmates. there's more than one guy out there. thank you, free will. so after conferring with my roommates (linda being the yes-man said: WHY NOT? LIFE IS SHORT!), i decided to join the exciting world of online dating: EHARMONY.

i decided to go for the intellectual but CUTE route: my profile said that i was into "social justice, finding humor in every situation, helping people realize their full potential, live music, sugar...preferably in the form of cookies." cute? maybe not...ok. but i laid it out! i said, hey world, the most important quality i'm looking for is sincerity. my profile told strangers that they would immediately notice my quirkiness and that the 5 things i couldn't live without was God, my friends, my family, music, and of course noodles.

i was publicly searching! OH THE SHAME!!! how embarrassing! but wait, how thrilling! after filling out 8,000 questions about my personality, eharmony started pairing me up with random guys: some good looking, some...NOT SO MUCH. i kept hoping that no one would recognize me! but what an exciting world, where i can choose and pick the men that i wanted to date. the power was in my hands! the first guy that eharmony matched me up with was robert, age 34 from chicago.

eharmony said:

Something Robert wanted you to know is:

• If you are looking for a real man that will treat you like a woman should be treated, than you have found that guy. If you are looking for a bad boy, I can do that, too, but I really do not want to. In other words, I am trying to have a mature relationship with honesty, love and loyalty, not one filled with games.

i realize as someone who's all about words, the smallest things can turn me off. "If I'm looking for a bad boy," you can fulfill that? Hmmm...not interested in finding out what that looks like. so, then i moved on to the next guy. there was brian, matthew, peter who were in the suburbs, but sounded like nice guys, but then they closed me immediately. what a shot to my self esteem! no power anymore...even eharmony was making me feel like the ugly girl once again.

then i stumbled onto brandon's profile who said he was "passionate about God's redemptive plan for humanity." hey, i'm all about redemption!

we emailed a hundred times back and forth about God, relationships, and social justice. he seemed extremely interested in me and sounded very passionate about life and God. but something about him seemed so strange: he was going to a training school to learn how to live in a world full of non Christians. and he felt like everyone should do it. am i crazy or does that seem counterproductive? he hated politics and pop culture. i gingerly told him that i taught a class on the connection between mass culture and politics. i could hear the silent "UMMM..." ewwwww...i think i liked the idea of a relationship more than the reality. he wanted to talk on the phone. i hemmed and hawed and tore my hair out, conflicted at the thought of having a boyfriend for the first time in YEARS. mary was there the whole time, cheering me on. linda couldn't keep any of the guys i was talking about straight in her head. to her, i only knew three guys: the lunch guy (the sweet guy who stood me up for lunch one day after asking him out several times. i was so humiliated!), the intense guy (brandon), and the asshole (my last fling). anyway, he never picked up the phone. :( so we emailed for a month before he started to flake out completely. i was frustrated, but maybe a part of me likes the chase anyway, so i moved on to the 20 or 30 guys in my queue that i had yet to look at their profiles.

then i found erik, who incidentally looked EXACTLY like one of my students!!! YECH! but his eharmony profile said: I am not into casual dating nor being with someone who still in love with their ex- it reminds me of the movie Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion. I am excited about life and look forward to its experiences, good or bad. Having quirks and fears is a part of being human; I hope you have some just like everyone else does. :)

that doesn't sound so bad, right? unlike brandon, he wastes no time; he doesn't want to email back and forth. he immediately asks for my number, and impressed by his directness, i give it to him.

my friend susan decided she liked erik more: I like Erik a lot better than Brandon. Brandon is going to make you join his church and then ban you from wearing any corrective lenses because that's from the devil. Then he'll bring you to his captain at the HC to bring healing to your eyes. I am so not into Brandon.

Well, ichat with him. See if he's as intense as he comes off on email.

we set up a date for the following weekend. but before the date, i decide to follow susan's advice and called him for a little chat. the following ensues:

i find out that he is italian-polish. he looks...mostly polish. actually he looks like one of my students, whose name is also eryk. YUCK. his myspace page looks like some hippie weirdo's car bumper. there are multiple pictures of beagles as well as support ads for mentally ill and depressed people. a glittering .gif file of the american flag waves back and forth at me, asking if i'm patriotic enough for my country. it's like times square on crack.

the conversation was utterly painful. i listened to another version of aar0n hanf0rd, champaign's resident intelektwal snob, drone on and on for an hour about chernobyl's effects on people today(thyroid cancer!) and the fact that affirmative action should be done away with because people of color need to learn how to work for it. he asked me what my passion was and i told him my passion is helping people of color to achieve equal educational opportunities in our corrupt education system, which makes me a big advocate of affirmative action. I'm not sure he understood.

he asked if my mom was from north korea. I told him south. he's like, "COOL." he said, is she from see-ool? I said, "seoul" like "sole."

he asked me what my favorite color was (is this an interview?), to describe my best friend, and also asked "guam's north of hawaii, right?" WHOAAAAA.

he asked me where i am in chicago. i said lincoln square. he said lincoln park?
lincoln SQUARE

is that the loop?

NO , LINCOLN SQUARE

hyde park?

LINCOLN SQUARE... (holy SHIT)

so he mentions that he works for the tollway and he kept saying "i'm so overqualified for this job. everyone tells me to go to law school, but you know...I may work for the tollway, but I'M A STATE EMPLOYEE. all my paychecks are from springfield. i work for the state too, and so i told him "i think mine are too." he says, "no, but does david thompson sign yours?"

"ummm...yes."

he asked several other questions, all the while whispering and wheezing at the same time, if that's possible. finally i couldn't take it anymore when he says, "hey, so sunday. where do you want to meet?"

so i decided to be straight and tell him...you know...erik, i'm glad you called bc i realized you and i aren't a good fit. i actually think you're really smart though so if you ever come to the city, definitely call me and let's chill but yeah... i dont think it's gonna work

and he says, OK

OK
OK
OK

and then i said THANKS FOR CALLING

and he's like OK
OK
OK...like really pissed off. and really, how many times can you say "OK"?

he hangs up on me and then goes straight to eharmony and then said

• I don't feel that the chemistry is there.
• I want to pursue other matches at eharmony.
• I think the difference in our values is too great

Reflections: i felt bad, but seriously he's against affirmative action and asked if my mom was from north korea. i mean, come on! plus he's so weird, and not in that weird-but-you-are-insanely-

cool way, just weird in the damn-your-myspace-page-looks-like-a-13-year-old-boys-page. I still feel bad for rejecting him.

Resolution: i'll nail this "i think you're a great guy" speech yet

Analysis: DAMN, THERE ARE A LOT OF WEIRD PEOPLE OUT THERE.

So alas, my social experiment has ended. Eharmony OBVIOUSLY did not work out, and some things you cannot force.

ohhhhhhhhhhhhh...this post is way too long and disjointed. but for you ladies, i will keep writing. see ya soooon.