Hans has a new girlfriend (well, new-ish). He met Helga online (she lives on the West Coast) through his art gallery site. From all indications they're perfect for each other and she makes him delirious with joy. All of which is fine and dandy. I'm glad for him. I just wish he would shut the fuck up about how gloriously in love he is and how marvelous his ladylove is and how he's never felt this way before and how he wants to marry her and have babies and live happily ever after.

In fact, all my closest friends (within, say, a five-hour drive) are rapidly becoming smugly coupled. My friend Bennett just found a boyfriend. Sorcha is totally besotted with Scott (who I met and actually rather like, so it's not as if I resent it). Maureen and Mercer still glomp all over each other in plain sight. I can't go anywhere without being visually assaulted with Shiny Happy Couples.

Don't even talk to me about Valentine's Day. As if a celebration of all things pink and heterosexual weren't enough for one day, they had to start putting up decorations halfway through January. I swear, if I saw one more diamond commercial ("Propitiate the little woman-- buy her a shiny rock!") I was going to break the TV. Rub it in, why don't you, you corporate sons of bitches.

All of this was probably exacerbated by the fact that while grocery shopping the other week, I saw a girl from one of my classes that I was developing a crush on, attempted to strike up a conversation, and was quite soundly blown off. I figure four monosyllabic responses in a row and a refusal to make eye contact pretty much constitutes a nonverbal "please go away, you're embarrassing yourself."

If I complain about being single, I'm told that I should try to get out there more. When I try to "get out there more," I get blown off. Then it's my fault for not knowing HOW to get out there. I wish my advisers would be a tad more specific in the first place.

Random venues for meeting people-- classes, clubs, friends-of-a-friend, etc.-- are sort of aligned against me; my most generous estimates give me a 15% chance tops for said target being inclined to my gender. Out of that, then, assume that two-thirds of those girls will be bisexual and, most likely, have boyfriends. This leaves me with five percent, of which, say half will already have girlfriends, bringing me to a best-case-scenario of 39:1 odds against.

Now would be a good time to mention that I lose a lot at games of chance.

Should I choose to increase my chances by gravitating towards a more pointedly gay establishment, I'm still at a disadvantage. It's pointless for me to try bars or nightclubs because I can't drink (meds) and can't dance (natural lack of talent). I went to a few meetings of the school's GSA, but it struck me as rather cliquey. The last meeting I went to, I would sit down next to someone and five minutes later, s/he would get up and move across the room. After this happened about three times, I gave up and just sort of watched everyone else talk to each other from the other side of the room.

I've very little chance of attracting anyone with my dazzling outer beauty-- I would actually have to be attractive for that to happen. I suppose a certain segment of the population might have some sort of predilection for geekily androgynous Christina Ricci/Summer Glau* lookalikes, but I have yet to meet any.

You know those coming-out stories where people will fall in love with a best friend / roommate / next-door neighbor / barista / Wal-Mart greeter / etc. and fortuitously find out that the person is just as madly in love with them, and they're still happily partnered twenty-five years later? I want one of those.

Lately I've been fairly depressed by the above ruminations, which tend to pop up every time I see yet another Smug Couple holding hands (which is, oh, every ten minutes or so). My mom complained that every time she called and asked me how I was, I was always "tired," and wanted to know if "everything was okay."

Frankly, no, but I sincerely doubt she'd be much help.

Labels: friends, love/sex