Ever since I’ve began to get some feeling back in my hands once I started tying up icepacks to them, a thought occurred to me.

Women are to blame for all of my health issues.

Wait, I’m going somewhere with this. See for guys, when it comes to taking care of ourselves and improving our general health, we’re pretty much… what’s the word, a bunch of schmucks.

We could wake up with the left side of our bodies completely paralyzed, but as long as it doesn’t stop us from getting our clothes on and driving to work, we won’t really think much of it, the same way we won’t concerned much if a car backblows 3 quarts of oil out its exhaust pipes, as long as its considered otherwise drivable. Minor things like half body paralysis (or a black cloud of smoke bellowing out of the engine of a car) don’t really bother us too much, so long as we can still get from Point A to Point B.

Women though, have this tendency where if they so much as suffer a mild discomfort, they’ll go into a complete system shutdown while they conduct extensive full body scans to determine what’s going on. But more importantly, they’ll do that for the people they love too. It’s what helps them make great mothers and doctors.

Unfortunately for me though, Mommy thinks I’m quite old enough to take care of myself now, yet I still have to reminded that there are things out there such as bandages and Tylenol, so no, I don’t have to go to bed with unbandaged scrapes oozing blood onto the spreadsheets, or wail over a pounding headache that a little Motrin IB could have fixed up right away.

Had life not have been so cruel, had I met a special girl early on, she could have kept me healthy, bandaged up my wounds, and kissed all the booboos, especially the one that was in my heart. So I blame women, (or rather the absence of one), for my current plight. You could have fixed me up and made me a better man, but instead, all that’s left of me now is a wounded rabid animal hellbent on ridding this planet of your vile kind. May the skies rain down hellfire and brimstone on all you filthy harlots of Babylon, all because one of you just couldn’t wubs me.

YOU GIRLISH MANIACS!!!! DAMN YOU!!! DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!!!!

And I don’t mean bland either, I mean boy howdy f’ugly ugly.

Seems I always have to do some considerable digging before I can find a profile of someone who didn’t look they were the product of a genetic experiment gone horribly wrong. Why is this? Out here in the real world, I don’t have to take two steps before running into a bonnie lass I’d like to club and take home (and I would too if it weren’t for those damned assault laws.) Yet when it comes to these online dating sites I feel like I’m trapped inside a Twilight Zone rerun.

Now before you go bashing my head in with a 2 x 4 here, I happen to think the men on these sites are even uglier… including me.

I’m convinced part of it has to do with the fact that if you got a girl who is A) drop dead gorgeous, and B) has a heartwarming personality of an angel from heaven, then why in God’s name would she need to use an online dating site? Men from all over the world would stampede to her hometown and start gouging each other’s eyes out for a shot at her. She’d have the pick of the litter.

Nope, what we’re seeing on these sites are the leftovers. Girls who couldn’t attract a guy’s attention probably because they all mistook her for being a guy. Or maybe because they weren’t enthralled by the thought of listening to her rant on about feminist power and why all men should be disemboweled just for being men. Or maybe it’s the mention of an angry ex-husband who owns a gun and likes to drink, all while assuring her prospects that yes, he really did stop drinking this time, and he fully realizes that it’s over between them, so no need to worry.

Mainly though, I think it’s the profile photos they choose to use (the recent ones, not the ones showing how you looked when you were ten years younger and 300 pounds lighter, as if I’m expected to believe those 90s outfits are still stylish even today.)

Look, I understand not everyone is photogenic. I know one girl who tends to look pretty bland in photos, but in real life she is absolutely gorgeous. Sometimes, the camera just wants to be mean.

But when I see some of the photos these girls pick out to use on their dating profiles, I’m seriously convinced many of them have a drinking problem. It doesn’t help that the photo they chose to use actually shows them being drunk either. And yet I can’t tell you how many times I keep running across pictures like this. They’re always in some kind of bar somewhere, holding up kegs of beer and making contorted facial expressions at the camera that tells me either someone just grabbed your bunny boons, or you truly are one batsh*% crazy chick.

It’s not even cute when men do it, but when girls do it it’s downright scary. Here’s some advice ladies (and I use the term loosely): those profile pictures of you giving the camera the finger because you were completely hammered from sampling 13 different alcoholic drinks don’t make you look pretty. They don’t make you look cute or sexy or whatever it was you thought the picture was meant to evoke. If you want the kind of guy who’s never seen a “Girls Gone Wild” video, then please STOP acting like you were one of the girls that starred in one.

Ok, now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, how about the sober photos? Here’s the thing: if the only photo you put up is a shot of you 100 feet or so away from the camera, so far away in fact that your image doesn’t take up more than 3 pixels of space on my monitor, then give it up. I know you’re ugly. Why else why would you use a photo that not even the forensics labs at the FBI could successfully enlarge?

And then there’s the dark photos. You know, the webcam shots of yourself that you took at 2 in the morning with only the glow of the monitor to light your face. So now, not only can I not be convinced that you’re pretty, I’m also starting to wonder whether you’re really alive either. Really, when your profile pic looks more like the ghostly image of an angry Lizzie Borden than anything resembling living flesh, I can only suggest one thing: instead of putting it up on Match.com, send it to Ghost Hunters instead. They love that sort of thing.

*Sigh*

I really shouldn’t complain though. If surfing through a sea of mind bending ugliness is what it’s going take to drive me offline and actually try approaching girls in real life, then maybe this is just the kind of medicine I need.

My blog is ruined.

I resisted for as long as I could, but I finally succumbed to the pinkness. Danielle at Pink Internet Marketing recently offered up a chance to win a Pink SEO Bear for bloggers everywhere, and being enticed by promises that the bear would help me get girls (not to mention the fact that I simply can’t resist a cute face), I decided to enter as well.

But let’s get one thing straight here. I HATE the color pink. HATE it, a’ight? I mean it’s just sooo… well… pink. Me, I dig dark colors. Blackness defines me. My car is black, my computer is black, my hair is black, and my leather jacket (when I get one) will also, of course, be black. Being ensconced in the darkness makes me seem more mysterious, more manlier, and maybe, just a bit more dangerous too.

But now I just HAD to go and pinkify my blog didn’t I. Ugh… It’s ok though, I’m sure this will wash off eventually, and my blog will soon return to its normally dark and mysterious self.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a sudden urge to go window shopping for some Prada shoes.

Slate isn’t yet on my block list, which is why I was able to come across yet another one of their lame articles, this one espousing on the issue of sex and religion in the lives of American teenagers.

The central emphasis of the article of course was on the usual liberal notion of how promoting abstinence encourages even more booty calls. But then I found this particular gem:
 

What really matters is not which religion teenagers identify with but how strongly they identify. After controlling for all factors (family satisfaction, popularity, income), religion matters much less than religiosity. Among the mass of typically promiscuous teenagers in the book, one group stands out: the 16 percent of American teens who describe religion as “extremely important” in their lives. When these guys pledge, they mean it.

So let me see if I have this right: those who actually take their religion seriously are far less likely to be plowing the field. And this is newsworthy… why again?

If anything, it only reinforces the rather obvious point that a large number (if not the vast majority) of young people claiming to be Christians today are pretty much full of it. They may pay lip service to God, attend church regularly, and speak the language of “Evangelese,” but they are about as much Christian as this bottle of Pepsi I’m drinking here. Look, you guys want to roll around in the hay, or get hammered at college frat parties and wake up in strange places the next day, or flash truckers driving the opposite way, or unabashedly drop f-bombs because it makes you feel like a Soprano, then go right ahead. Just don’t call yourself a Christian. It really frosts my cookies when you do.

I think part of the reason why I get all bent out of shape over this is because it doesn’t exactly make my search for THE ONE any easier. I want to meet a nice CHRISTIAN girl, but now that even bra burning, baby killing streetwalkers are touting themselves as children of the kingdom, this sort of makes my efforts to find a virtuous snuggly pie a little daunting, to say the least. Honestly, if the profiles from dating sites like Match.com were to be believed, then just about 99 percent of the women on there are Christians. But if I’m to be the 31st guy in the supermarket express line that is the sex life of many of these “Christian” Match girls, then I think they might want to do a little more soul searching to discover just what exactly their true religion really is.

Yep, there’s really no other explanation for why I keep going back to online dating sites. As much as I bashed and thrashed eHarmony in the past, what do I do?

I sign up for another 3 month account.

After seeing the truly bizarre matches I’ve been getting, I came to my senses before it was too late and cancelled my subscription. I have to give eHarmony credit for making it relatively easy to cancel and get a refund, so at least here there was nothing gained, nothing lost. So what do I do now?

I sign up for 3 months with Match.com.

Where’s the nearest exit sign so I can find my way out of this damned stupid body of mine? Yoish. Despite paying less and getting to choose my matches now, I’m still trying to figure out why I’m doing this. I also signed up for several other sites that allow me to post a free profile, but I won’t even think about paying for their services unless I get contacted by a REALLY good prospect, or by Jessica Alba herself.

I guess this is my way of putting myself out there while I fight my health battles, and maybe by the time I get my body under control and in shape again, I will have already met someone online that I’d be ready to meet in real life.

One can dream anyway, at least.

As much as I don’t want to, I think I have to give up the notion that there is a girl out there willing to accept my imperfections upfront and even help me improve on them. I always thought a lot of women liked the idea of changing a man (a la Jerry Maguire), and that they would appreciate a guy who was honest, even if he wasn’t perfect.

Nope.

This is why guys who lie their asses off on their profiles or in real life get all the girls. Even when they get found out (as they do eventually), the girls are already emotionally invested and stick with them. The result is a lot of unhappy marriages where the women eventually become sadder, older and wiser, realizing they should have gone for that honest nice guy all along. But of course now it’s too late.

So what’s the morale that nice guys should learn from this? Simple:

LIE. Lie your big fat holy righteous ass off. Girls say they want honest, nice guys and are ok with a few imperfections. This is true, but only when a relationship has already been established. Prior to that, your life and personality has to be a resume to them. Every success has to be embellished, and every seeming shortcoming has to be minimized or omitted. You must appear in every shape or form as the perfect guy to them. Just like the mighty moose, you have competition from other male moose who all want to get it on with the same hot babe with the sexy antelopes that you’re interested in. You have to be stronger and better than all of them to win her heart. And if you’re not, you do the next best thing: lie… lie…. lie…. Don’t worry, if you win her heart, she’ll eventually forgive you. THEN you can safely start being the nice, honest guy that women truly want you to be, even though they tend not to realize that until much later on in life.

And that’s the way it is.

I was just reading a blog post by Miss O’ Hara discussing how women should ignore or drop men who still live with their parents because they don’t have the wherewithal to survive on their own or be good husbands. She does allow for mitigating circumstances where the local economy and the real estate market can make this virtually impossible, or if you’re supporting parents going through a rough patch (I think). Still, this type of thinking makes me uneasy. Even if you provide legitimate reasons for staying with your parents, I can’t help but wonder if whatever girl you’re interested in had already written you off on her mental checklist the minute she heard about your living situation, despite you giving reasonable explanations for it. After all, being with your parents tells a girl either A) He’s not rich enough for me, or B) he’s burdened down with caring for his ailing parent(s), so he’ll have no time left over to shower me with any attention. I know plenty of girls will swear until they are blue in the face otherwise, but I suspect they can’t help but think this way. Just as it is supposedly in man’s nature to be the leader, it is also in woman’s nature to be cared for (by the man).

I also think Hara’s reasoning here that snubbing guys who live with their parents can have the opposite effect. A guy could resign himself to believing that is truly no one out there waiting for him, and thus he may lose the necessary incentive to improve his life and gain some independence.

I surmise that this mentality is really borne out of an innate desire to find a guy willing to coddle them, and who makes enough money that they can stay at home and freely sponge off his salary. I personally know a few women who are like this too. Rather than being a help mate, they are instead a burden to their husbands, who find themselves caring for their wives the same way you’d care for a pet dog. Not surprisingly, such wives tend to show a complete ineptness in handling even the most basic tasks of paying the bills, balancing the checkbooks, and so on. Some don’t even have driving licenses, creating yet another unnecessary burden on the husband.

In spite of the exceptions some women profess to make for men who live with their parents, the fact is such a trait is undesirable regardless of whether he has good reasons for doing so or not. The bottom line is that such a man would be unable to care for her because of his financial difficulties, or because of his obligations to his family. In this vein, women aren’t looking for a man to love: they are looking for a man capable of coddling them for the rest of their lives.

And stupid me, I always thought marriage was all about true love, not something to be judged on external circumstances such as what your living situation might be. Would it be so terrible to get to know a guy first instead of immediately writing him off because he lives with Mommy? Maybe he has a heart of gold, but is just afraid of going off on his own, and just needs a woman to encourage him or (God forbid) HELP him find the moxie he’s been looking for. Would that be so terrible? The Bible does say that a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave onto his WIFE. Ideally then, the man is never truly alone wen he goes out into the world, for God himself has said that it is not good for the man to be alone. He is ready to leave when he has ALREADY found someone. Yet the Gospel according to Miss O’ Hara demands that he already be independent BEFORE meeting someone.

Personally, and for the record, I live with my parents because we can only survive for the time being by sticking together. It just hit me that out of all of us, I am actually the only one who is self sufficient. Neither of them can live independently of me, but it is through no fault of their own. There are times when I can sense my mother’s grief and how she feels she has let me down because of it. But sometimes it’s just the circumstances of life, and I don’t believe it’s always going to be like this either. For now I take it as a lesson on how important it is to stick together as a family through thick and thin, and I believe that’s a learned trait well worth taking into any marriage.

Do I resent it at times? Of course, and sometimes more often than not. But the times I truly resent it is when I see picky women quickly ready to pass over me because my living situation is something they find unappealing. I guess loyalty and a sense of duty for honoring your parents counts for nothing these days. Nope, it’s all about showing them the MONEY.