Mind over Matter, Love over Logic

I've spent enough time and energy on dating to know how the long-winded search for love works. You trudge through the first date, working your charm and presenting yourself as if interviewing for a job - if you want the job badly enough, your mind nervously goes into overdrive and exaggerates everything you do and say. If you don't really want the job, but you feel like you still might want it as a fallback, you still state your best qualities, but take on a demeanor that is relaxed and relatively uninvested, leaving the person on the other end of the "interview" either thoroughly impressed by your attitude or completely turned off. Afterward, you follow through with the text treatment - or the "follow-up" - for a few short weeks, and continue dating until one person either takes a step forward or waves their white flag and runs in the opposite direction.

As it turns out, I'm normally the one waving the white flag in surrender.

Relationships, to the dismay of many delusional hopeful, optimistic rom-com lovers, take work. It's a process that begins to feel like a second job (or perhaps a third or fourth, depending on your lifestyle), leading to a more disillusioned perspective on love than your 5-year-old, Cinderella-watching self would know what to do with. And as a result, we're utterly dumbfounded when we finally encounter a person who accomplishes something so mind-boggling, so absolutely unthinkable that we're stopped in our tracks: the realization of finally feeling "the zsa zsa zsu."

The saying goes that "opposites attract," and if that is in fact the case, then why are so many people surprised when they go through date after date seeking a manufactured connection with someone? The feeling of love is, inherently, an inexplicable emotional phenomenon. So vague, so ambiguous a concept, that the world's greatest creators of fine literature have spent their entire lives deciphering its meaning and its role in life and its everyday events. Such an intriguing thought, that bloggers like myself dedicate a wall in their bedroom to post-it notes questioning how relationships work (or perhaps that's just me?).

Finding myself in a head-scratching situation of my own, I can't help but question one thought-provoking idea about our lovers: Can you love someone you have nothing in common with?

Like any other chronic dater, I have a checklist of sorts laid out for when I meet someone. By my fantastical standard, they need to be effortlessly charming, alluring in the way that they speak, headed in a forward-moving direction in their life, and they need to have a grasp on my admittedly dry sense of humor. It's human nature - especially today - to put on the table all of your romantic requirements. Otherwise, by contemporary logic, it's like trying to run a brand-new, high-tech video game on a 1995 Macintosh computer: it just won't work.

But what happens, when you find someone who catches you by surprise; what happens when you discover a person who manages to make you smile and laugh, while all-at-once failing the system performance test you've put every other prospect through with the utmost caution? Is it possible, with all of today's neurotic dating tendencies, to leave your head in the dust, and act with your heart?

We've become so consumed by the idea of flawlessness in today's world that we sometimes forget to stop and consider what happiness really means to us; moreover, what it means to "settle" versus what it means to accept what we actually want. Does a person really fail to meet our ideals, or do they fail to meet the standards of the other players in your game of life? Sometimes, embracing love and all of its joys, means tossing your checklist in the trash with the rest of the waste.

Don't let others - or the pessimistic voices in your mind - tell you that you can't love someone. More often than not, those that walk through life alone are the same people who try to take control of love as if it is a horse that can be taken by the reins.

The next time your stomach flips and your heart races, consider one crucial thing: "Do I love this person based on my criteria, or someone elses'?"

If the answer is the former, then hold on tight, and for the sake of your own happiness, never let go.

Questions? Comments? Post below or send a tweet to @BrotherlyLover

And another one bites the dust...

Finding a fish in the sea that isn't a piranha is proving to be a much, much rarer occurrence as time goes by. Numb your frustrations for a brief moment and consider how many dates you have actually gone on in the past year. Now consider how many have materialized into anything substantial. (And no, casual sex does not count.)

Most dates are doomed from the get-go: with each passing second-rate loser, our expectations for a first date either 1) increase to an unrealistic standard, or 2) diminish to a level that begs for a poisonous relationship of screaming matches and infidelity. You can't win, but you can't give up. In the end, it's painstakingly paradoxical.

What's worse, modern day pop culture drowns itself in the elusive dream man. Katy Perry is crooning corn ball lyrics about "the one that got away," and Snooki is drunkenly falling over herself in Venice searching for her perfect juicehead dud stud muffin Jionni. Our beloved celebutantes have unknowingly made themselves banners for what it means to have a "normal" relationship.

"All the good ones are gay or taken," moans the average boy-done-me-wrong female of today. In my case, the adage is more along the lines of, "All the good ones are straight, refuse to leave their boyfriend, or fantasize about leather daddies." Where oh where have the good ones gone?

I experienced a gathering recently where it became a serious subject of queer conversation to discuss an unknown, bewildered, recently-"out" gay man who had arrived at the affair by his single-self and soon after left without a single person having acknowledged him. Apparently, a "catch" is so extraordinary, so scanty, that it is to be studied and analyzed to death rather than actually pursued.

Well no f**king wonder we all end up with terrible dates.

In gay man terms (and for others as well, admittedly), I speculate three particular types of men we encounter that we are perpetually drawn to despite their absolute repulsiveness:

1. Narcissists. We don't want to like these types, but there's something about their "let's talk all about me" charm that keeps us coming back. Whether it's their constant ranting about their jobs or obnoxious flexing of their muscles (newsflash: I've eaten marshmallows firmer than your biceps), they're the nicotine of relationships that eventually make us go insane.

2. "What do you mean your dick is only one and a half inches above the national average?" These are the men that, no matter how hard they may claim to try, simply won't be satisfied with anything that comes their way. You're too thick, too thin; too emotionally attached, too distant - it's always something. And God forbid you fish for conversation with substance; it's the crime even the most corrupt lenient judge will never acquit you from.

3. Closet-cases. I'm often times bemused by the number of people I stumble upon who make mention of being closeted. One must eventually wonder: if X person is advertising themselves on X website or regularly attending X gay bar, how "closeted" can X person truly be? These are the fish that deserve the unwarned hook caught in their gills; any jerk with a credit card can blow a locked closet door wide open. These folks are the end-all, be-all of "wasted time."

Finding the consummate lover for yourself, the "good one" that hasn't gotten away yet, is as difficult as finding the ideal person to bring home to a Jewish mother. You can settle for the Roman Catholic that meets half of your standards and offers the proposition of faux-blissful romance 'til your golden anniversary, or you can hold out for the dubious possibility that you'll eventually stumble upon "Mr. Right."

But one thing unquestionably remains true. If you've been nodding your head in agreement to all of the above comments, realize one very important thing: you're one of the good ones.

Have questions or comments? Contact Brandon Baker at brandon.baker@temple.edu.