Finding love in massively multiplayer online games

There was an article in the Wall Street Journal two weeks ago about people who got married who met in "massively multiplayer online games."

A year and a half ago I was an avid player of one of these games, Final Fantasy XI (FFXI). It was a fun game, but there weren't very many female players. And people estimate that half of the female players you did see were actually male players pretending to be female. Yuck!

But based on the Wall Street Journal's endorsement I thought that maybe I should give this another try. I needed to find a game with a better male to female ratio.

I read good things about a game called There.com, so I installed it it, but everytime I logged on it made my computer crash and I had to reboot. I guess I need a newer computer.

Then I tried The Sims Online (TSO). TSO supposedly has the best male to female ratio of all massively multiplayer online games, but hardly anyone plays it. I can see why. It's pretty pointless. There's nothing to do. In FFXI you would join a team of other players and kill monsters. Only with good teamwork was it possible to kill them efficiently. As you killed monsters you would very slowly but surely move up in level and become morer powerful, allowing you to kill more powerful monsters. Unlike in the real world where you work and work and nothing happens, in FFXI your work is rewarded. I think this is why some people find these games so addictive.

In TSO all you do is stuff like make dinner, eat it, go to the bathroom, take a shower, sleep. I mean this is the only virtual world ever invented that is more boring than real life. But this virtual world does have a better male to female ratio than the real world. And the females are easier to talk to. Everytime I log on, my virtual roommate, MsTina starts chatting with me. MsTina is a 23 year old from Alabama and she's married to a construction worker. I told her I was 23 also. There's no point telling her I'm an old man. It's not like we're ever going to meet anyway. For all I know "she's" really some fifty year old gay guy. What's the difference?

MsTina asked me if I was dating any girls, so I told her about Marseille. She said I needed to plan my date with her long before I go on it, and that I should buy her flowers. MsTina means well. It's very sweet.

Last night I met another female sim named Celestial Skye. Skye is from Denver and she says she's a manager at a call center. She didn't say how old she was and I didn't ask. After I "hung out" with her, she gave me $10,000 sim dollars. I guess this makes me a sim gigolo or something.

The best thing about the Sims is that no one has to see what I look like in real life, and I don't have to perform sexually. All I have to do is type on my keyboard, which I am pretty good at.

I don't think I'd want to marry someone who is such a loser that they play this game.

Marseille

I went on two dates with Marseille last summer, before I even started this blog, so I never wrote about her before. Unlike in most cases where I get scared to call the girl back after two dates, I really liked Marseille. She was so cute. But alas, after our second date, she seemed to ignore my attempts to contact her again. End of story?

One trick I learned from Yoko is that she sent me an email even after I was ignoring her. So the thought came to me, "hey, I can send Marseille an email. The worst thing that can happen is that someone who isn't going to go out with me anyway thinks I'm a loser."

So I sent Marseille an email. More than two weeks passed and it was ignored. Oh well, I guess she really couldn't stand me. But then, I received the following email:

Virgin:
I apologize for the delay in responding - I'm out of town, with limited access to the Internet, through the 30th.
I'd like to get together again when I'm back in the City, if you're still willing.
Best,
Marseille

I was so happy that she wrote. The joy of hearing from her was a reminder of the joy I felt when Madison, my first date ever, agreed to go out with me.

So I sent her the following:

Yes Marseille, I'd still love to get back together with you when you're back in town!

Where out of town are you? Are you enjoying the trip?

And Marseille wrote back later that very day:

Virgin:
I'm off to Italy, Greece, and the Czech Republic - I'll tell you all about my travels upon my return! Have a great couple of weeks, and I'll get in touch when I'm back States-side.
Best,
Marseille

Isn't that so cool that she gets to spend two months travelling around Europe and doesn't even have to work? I can't wait until she gets back "States-side."

Don't talk to strangers

This is what my mother told me when I was a child.

I remember once being at the supermarket with my mother, and while her back was turned some man was talking to me. When my mother saw that I was conversing with a "stranger," she yelled at me and told me never to talk to strangers.

Yes, she spent a lot of time telling me never to talk to strangers, never to get into a car with stranger, don't believe anything a stranger tells me.

I really took the instructions to heart. When my mother then introduced me to her friends, I would clam up and not say anything. After all, if I never saw them before then they were strangers to me, I was just following orders. I was completely mystified how one adult could be a bad "stranger," and another adult a good "stranger" whom I was allowed to converse with.

I believe this was really bad child raising on the part of my mother. I suppose there's no harm in telling this stuff to a child who's naturally extroverted, but for a child who is already shy, like I was, I think this is devastating. I managed to reach the age of eighteen without being kidnapped by a pervert, but I was a shy and socially inept eighteen year old, not so good at interacting with people and dreadfully afraid of girls.

Of course there are other factors at work, but I really do think the message "don't talk to strangers" contributed to my problems. People are born naturally extroverted or introverted, but I believe that social phobias like shyness or fear of sex are also the result of our environment when we are young.

A good parent would try to encourage a naturally timid child to be more open and not make the situation worse by instilling fear.

Tying up loose ends

For those people who have read all my posts about the girls I dated and want to know what happened.

MIRIAM

I did see Miriam a second time, and we had a nice day visiting the New York Historical Society, one of my favorite art museums. She even paid for dinner. Which was quite tasty too.

The problem with Miriam is that I just can't stomach going out with a girl whose hair is going gray. I know I'm committing the sin of being a choosy beggar, but it is such a huge turnoff.

OBJECTIVIST GIRL

I met the objectivist girl, and although she wasn't quite as pretty as suggested by the photo, she was still kind of cute. Unfortunately I really felt like there was no chemistry at all, The conversation was very forced and uncomfortable. I'm surprised, I thought we'd have a jolly good time talking about The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, but I guess not.

YOKO

She sent me an email which I ignored.

CARR

This loose end makes me sad.

I think that this post was the last time I mentioned her. I met her for lunch, which was probably the last time we met. When we parted, I didn't know how exactly I should end things, so I kind of gave her an uncomfortable hug and peck on the cheek.

When I first me her, her appearance kind of freaked me out. She was skinny in an unpleasant anorexic looking way, and this was accentuated by the sleeveless top she wore. And her hair was a mess and her outfit was pretty unconventional. If she is in any way cute, it's only her personality which makes her cute and not the way she looks.

Yet I grew to like her and I saw her several times after our first meeting. Three additional times I think. I like her enough that I'm sad about not seeing her again, yet seeing someone on four occasions and not knowing what our relationship is supposed to be, I found this really confusing and pyschologically uncomfortable.

And I feel bad that the stock she bought on my recommendation went down. I emailed her apologizing, and she said don't worry and hinted that she'd like to see me again.

No girl as fun as Carr has ever seemed to be interested in me before. So yes, I am very sad about not writing back to her after that. Genuine tears came to me eyes while I was writing this post.

Dating optimists like to say that eventually you will meet your soulmate. I always wonder what happens if you meet your soulmate but you blow it because you are too shy/afraid to forge a romantic relationship. What if Carr was my soulmate? For a long time I thought that Jenny was my true soulmate, but I got over that eventually.

I'm returning to blogging

I've decided to return to blogging.

It occurred to me that the stories from this blog would make a great book. "Great" in the sense that I think someone would publish it and people would buy it.

So not only will I blog about my current dating situation, there will be more emotionally painful posts explaining my past, shedding more light on how I came to be the way I am.

The comments are still riddled with the usual "I think this blog is fake," and revealing that I'd like to make this into a book will only convince those that all along there was an ulterior motive. This is not true, at the beginning I had no idea that anyone would want to read this and I was just hoping to use the blogosphere as a free psychoanalyst.

One of the primary reasons why my commitment to this blog flagged is because of the many mean-spirited comments which made me feel worse than I already felt. If this blog was merely a fake persona then the comments wouldn't have gotten to me because they would have just been people insulting a fictional character.

The existence of so many disbelievers reveals how little most people understand the other people around them. Women, for example, who primarily associate with sexually agressive men (because the shy men are too shy to have female friends) judge all men based on a non-representative sample of the total universe of men.

On the other hand, I also get comments from men who are virgins or who lost their virginity late in life, and women who were in romantic relationships with older virgins (but few women have had such an experience), and there has never been a comment of the nature "hey, I'm a virgin and I know what it's like and I know your blog is fake." No, the comments from people who understand older male virgins have so far been appreciative.

Miriam calls me

Who is Miriam? I met her for coffee a weekend and a half ago, and we "hung out" for quite some time and we had an early dinner and I even paid for the dinner. It only cost $21. She's a doctor--a specialist in fact--so she probably has enough of her own money to go Dutch in the future.

Miriam can best be described as "frumpy." She wears glasses. The scariest thing about Miriam is that she has all these gray hairs. A woman in her mid thirties shouldn't have gray hairs. Hasn't she ever heard of Miss Clairol? She really needs to pay a visit to my hair stylist. She also needs to lose a few pounds.

I was kind of shocked to hear from her. This is surely the first time in my life a woman called me on the phone after a first date after which I never called her. And it was a double shock after reading all those comments about how I'm so despicable that no woman could ever like me.

And I discovered that Miriam has been reading my blog. No not this blog!!!! My other blog that no one reads. When you write about important stuff, like the war in Iraq and the next presidential election, no one wants to read it. But then I start a blog where I write about my sexual problems and I get hundreds of visits a day. It's sad that the other blog will never be as popular as this one.

Objectivist dating

This girl contacts me via the online dating service, and she's several years younger than me, so what's the catch?

I had a 45 minute phone coverstation with her, and 30 minutes of the conversation was about Ayn Rand. She's a big Ayn Rand fan. She read every single one of her books. Wow, I'm so impressed.

She's probably homelier than her photo suggests. I can't imagine a really hot girl being interested in Ayn Rand.

Of course I should be delighted that an intelligent objectivist girl is interested in me instead of being concerned about her appearance. Except I worry about not being attracted enough to get it up.

The return of Yoko

A commenter wrote:

Virgin, I gotta say, if there's one good thing you did this year, it's get rid of Yoko. That was perfect, how you did that. So don't feel as though you didn't accomplish anything.

Well unfortunately, it turns out that I didn't even accomplish that. I figured after the last email I sent her, that would be the end of her.

But then out of the blue I get another email from her. She said I got the wrong impression of her. But then she made it clear that the cab rides home were non-negotiable. I was feeling lonely and unwanted, so foolishly I agreed to take her to dinner.

She comes up with the address of this sushi place (which was actually quite good I'd go there again), and the prices would have been reasonable if she didn't order a huge amount of all the most expensive sashimi on the menu. After the meal she suggests a movie, so we take a cab to the movie theater and naturally all the movies are sold out because this is Manhattan. Then she wants to ride in a hansom carriage, so $40 later we are back where we started and then I have to take her home by cab.

A few days later, repeat the same thing, but at a different sushi restauarant.

But then I discover that this weekend was her birthday. Two thousand years ago, a fellow by the name of Ovid warned men about women and their birthdays.

Be careful not to make your first advances on the birthday of your mistress, as that is the time for making presents, and you will certainly be out of pocket.

as translated from the Latin in 1896 by Henry T. Riley. It may have been written two thousand years ago on a different continent, but things really haven't changed that much.

So she tells me she wants me to take her to the Water Club for her birthday. With trepidation I look it up in Zagat and the guide says that it "only" costs $59 per person. Well, okay, that didn't sound too bad. But the guy who estimated the cost of the meal didn't calculate the cost of a meal with a spoiled Japanese princess with the appetite of Homer Simpson.

When she asks the waiter if they have any caviar, I know I am in for a night of great financial pain.

And then for the main course she orders lobster, of course. The waiter asks if she wants the two pound, three pound, or four pound lobster. I'm thinking please pick the two pound lobster, please pick the two pound lobster. She picks the three pounder.

When the waiter bring us the desert menu, I ask her if she wishes to share a desert. Most women actually prefer this because they don't want to get fat. But Yoko doesn't let worries like that get in between herself and a $10 desert. So I have to order two deserts.

With tip, the meal costs $275.

And now she wants me to take her to see the Yankees on Wednesday and Friday. And she says "only get the best seats." God forbid she'd have to sit up in the $20 seats. (I remember when it used to cost only $4 to see the Mets. What happened to $4 seats?)

Tomorrow I am going to email her and tell her that she needs to find a boyfriend with more money. I would do it right now, but I don't want to ruin her birthday.

I have learned the following from all of this:

(1) I had no business complaining about the cost of a $10 bouquet of flowers.

(2) I'm never dating an Asian girl ever again. Only white girls from now on.

(3) The Water Club is a pretty nice place, and one day I hope to take someone really special there. Except I'm thinking now that the "valet" expected more than a $1 tip for hailing us a cab, I hope he doesn't remember me.

Flowers and the city

Flowers are sold at just about every street corner in Manhattan. Who's buying all these flowers? Men certainly aren't buying flowers for themselves (except maybe gay men).

In the photo, a blonde woman shops for flowers. She is probably married and wasting her husband's money.

If buying flowers for women helps one get laid, maybe I should be doing this.

My advice for other men is to only buy flowers for women if you intend it to be a short term fling. You don't want the woman you marry to have the epectation that she's going to be getting flowers from you all the time.

Hello blogosphere

I took a sabbatical from blogging. I can't say for sure whether this post means I'm coming back, or if it's just a temporary reappearance.

While I was away, someone left a link to an article about asexuals. I was not an asexual because when I was in high school I got hard ons from looking at girls just like everyone else, I was just too shy and scared to act on them. And of course it didn't help that I was unathletic skinny and not so great looking. I didn't notice my sex drive declining until after the age of thirty.

I feel sympathy for the people in the article who are stigmatized because society tells them that it's not normal to be asexual. Being homosexual is considered more normal than not being interested in sex at all.

All the news that's fit to print

Continuing on the theme of criminals who get laid a lot, the New York Times profiles a Mr. Brannon:

Curtis E. Brannon, told a story so commonplace it hardly bears notice here. He quit school in 10th grade to sell drugs, fathered four children with three mothers, and spent several stretches in jail for drug possession, parole violations and other crimes.

We can only imagine how many women he had sex with who didn't get pregnant.

WOMEN JUST NEED SPERM

Continuing with important articles from the paper that has all the news that's fit to print, we have a piece on single mothers who get pregnant via artificial insemination.

People in New York change sex partners quicker than the crosstown bus," Karyn said.

I'm sure not enjoying any of that. Karyn meant that good looking people in New York change sex partners a lot.

Artificial insemination apparently makes women more interested in casual sex:

One woman, a 40-year-old graduate student in biology in the Midwest, told me shortly after her first insemination: "One of the things that was so powerful about deciding to have a baby on my own was saying, I'm taking charge of this piece of it; I'm not going to wait around for a guy to give it to me. And my feelings about what I want from men right now are really changed. I don't actually want a big relationship. Now I want occasional companionship and sex."

On a recent date, between inseminations, this woman noticed the difference. "It was one of these dates where the guy's just telling you his sad story and his complicated relationship with his mother. In my previous dating life, I would have been, like, I'm not going to get seriously involved with a man like this. I'm going to get rid of him. This time I was, like, I think he's hot, so if I just keep listening, maybe eventually we'll have sex. And we had great sex. It was really hot." At one point, she had sex with two different men in the same weekend (both times using condoms) not long after an insemination.

And for the freakiest part of the whole article:

Q., the former yeshiva student who ended up choosing the 6-foot-2 German rugby player as her donor, developed severe hypertension during her pregnancy and had to be hospitalized several times. Her symptoms lingered even after her daughter was born, and she became preoccupied with what would happen to the baby girl if she were to die. Her brother and a sister are selfish, she says, and her mother is elderly. Last fall, she went to the Donor Sibling Registry and got a shock: the Aryan bodybuilder with the leaping sperm has fathered 21 children (and counting — he is still an active donor), including four sets of twins. These children are all 3 and under, and their families — four lesbian couples, three heterosexual couples and six single mothers — have formed their own Listserv, where photographs of the children (all blond, with a strong familial resemblance) are posted, and daily e-mail messages are exchanged about birthdays, toilet training and the like. They are planning a group vacation in 2007.

21 children all sired by a 6'2" bodybuilder from Germany? Jesus. That's more then five times as many kids as the 10th grade dropout drug dealer.

The fat ugly apprentice is fired

I feel bad for Brent, the fat ugly apprentice, because his flamboyant personality is a reaction to the world disrespecting him because he's fat and ugly, and it seems like his team immediately took a dislike to him in the first episode based to a good extent on his appearance.

Unfortunately, he really did shoot himself in the boardroom by being undiplomatic in the way he attacked Tammy the project manager.

At least Brent didn't cry in front of the cameras, unlike a lot of the women, including Andrea the tall statuesqe "multi-millionaire." I bet she wouldn't be a multi-millionaire if she were short fat and ugly like Brent.

The morally deserving do not get laid

You must be another bitter guy who wants to decide that we all like having sex with Preppie Murderers.

If you ever did have sex with a murderer, how would you know? It's not like he's going to go around telling people that he murdered someone. And maybe some guy you had sex with in the past later committed murder and is now in prison or on the run. I'm sure the many women who had sex with Robert Chambers didn't know they were having sex with a future murderer. Although there seems to be evidence that he also had sex after he became a big news story and before he was locked away.

Obviously you missed the whole point of my last post, which is not that all women desire to have sex with a murderer. It was in response to the assertions that I'm somehow not morally deserving of having sex. This example was to demonstrate that being morally deserving has absolutely nothing to do whether a man has sex.

If one believes in Catholicism, then there is probably an inverse correlation between being morally deserving and having sex, because at least three of the seven deadly sins, Pride, Greed, and Lust, would lead to more sex.

Blame the fat ugly apprentice

In last week's episode of the Apprentice, Stacy, a pretty woman, develops an intence animosity for Brent who is fat and ugly. Probably the reason she hates him is because he's fat and ugly. Brent confronts her away from the others and tells her to stop cutting him off, and then she tells the group that Brent "threatened" her. Everyone sides with the pretty girl, and they all blame Brent for their team's failure. It seems to me that the apprentices are acting like a bunch of kindergarten kids, ganging up on the kid who is different.

Dondald Trump sees that Brent was not the real reason the team lost the task, and he thinks Stacy is full of shit for pretending to be threatened by a fat ugly laywer when Stacy is a defense attorney and deals every day with genuine criminals. So Stacy and Pepe the project manager get fired, and Brent sticks around. Of course Donald doesn't want a fat ugly apprentice working for him either, but Trump always keeps the colorful people around for the first half of each season because they are good for ratings.

A COMMENT ABOUT MEN WHO HATE WOMEN

Commenter said:

"girls don't date guys who hate girls."
That is not true. Getting women has nothing to do with hating them or not. Misogyny is nothing to be proud of, but it has nothing to do with sexual success (some of the biggest womanizers were and are misogynists, but alot of them aren't).

He (I'm guessing that he's a he because women just don't seem to get it) makes an excellent observation.

I was thinking about that comment and I was thinking of all the scumbags who have lots of sex with women, such as Robert Chambers, the Preppy Murderer, who had lots of sex with women, but I find it hard to believe that he didn't hate women based on the fact that he raped and killed of of them.

That's a lesson about the type of men women really want to have sex with versus the type that they pretend to like in the comments they leave on blogs.

It wasn't so bad

I was on a date tonight, and it wasn't so bad. I'll have to write more about it in the near future. I know some people are dispapointed that I haven't written much recently, because they surf the web looking to get pissed off about stuff and I haven't given them anything to get pissed off about. So I promise that the future post will be "judgmental" and full of "misogyny" and even "racism" (she happens to be Chinese). In fact, the Chinese angle really needs to be explored, I'm not sure how I feel about that.

In the meantime, if you want to get pissed off about something, I recommend this excellent post by my favorite blogger.

Gay Oscars, gay decade

The gay cowboy movie may not have won the Oscar for Best Picture, but this still was a pretty gay Academy Awards with both Capote and the gay cowboy movie going in with a large number of nominations and Philip Seymour Hoffman winning the Best Actor award for his portrayal of gay writer Truman Capote.

This is the decade where it's cool to be gay, but it's not cool to be an older male virgin. It's ironic that the vast majority of Americans claim to believe in Christianity, yet gay people who sin (according to the overwhelming majority of Christian religious leaders) are considered to be cool, while virgins are looked down upon and mocked, as in the horrible movie which inspired the name for this blog.

Gay men are often good looking with extroverted personalities, two qualities that will get you far in America. In contrast, older male virgins are nearly always shy and ugly, the two most hated qualities. No one cares what happens to shy and ugly people. So even though there may be almost as many older male virgins as there are gay men in the same age range, no one cares about the problems of the virgins.

Groundhog Day

Groundhog Day is the movie where Bill Murray relives the same day over and over again. And that's how it is with my dates. All the dates I went on last week were similar to dates I've been on in the past, so there's no point writing about them in detail (only to get blasted for being too "judgmental").

And to answer the question from the last post, the answer is (c).

Preview of the week ahead

I was on the phone for over three hours tonight with this young woman in her twenties. Wow, either (a) I'm a really interesting person to talk to; or (b) she's weird; or (c) she's really desperate. I hope that answer (a) turns out to be the case.

I will be seeing her later this week, along with two other dates, so there will be plenty to write about!

Annie Hall

I watched the movie Annie Hall today (only $9.47 from Amazon.com). In case you're not familiar with it, Annie Hall is a Woody Allen movie from 1977. People must have liked it back then because it won four Academy Awards: Best Picture (beating out Star Wars), Director (Woody Allen), Actress (Diane Keaton) and Original Screenplay.

Woody Allen plays a neurotic Jewish guy (basically the same character he plays in all of his movies), and Diane Keaton plays Annie Hall. The movie is about their relationship.

The movie begins with an opening monlogue in which Woody Allen makes two observations that I agree with 100%:

1. "[Life is] full of loneliness and misery and suffering and unahappiness, and it's all over much to quickly."

2. "I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member."

More than one commenter to my blog has mentioned observation #2.

I think the funniest scene in the movie is when Annie Hall orders pastrami on white bread with mayonnaise, tomatoes, and lettuce. And she did it without any hint of irony; it's no wonder why she won an Academy Award.

A guy like Woody Allen, short, balding, nerdy and with an incredibly annoying personality, would never even be able to get even a single date with a woman as cute as Diane Keaton in 2006. This either means that (a) women were different back in 1977; or (b) this is just Woody Allen's fantasy and in no way reflects reality.

I leave it to my always knowledgeable readers to suggest which of these two interpretations is correct.

Women are spendthrifts

Here's an article that says something that men know but women don't seem to realize: women are spendthrifts.

Hayden says the shop-'til-you-drop syndrome is more than a harmless female pastime; it also deprives woman of the opportunity to grow money through investing. In their 20s and 30s, when their male counterparts are buying homes and investing in mutual funds, many women are spending on clothes, cars and decorating the apartment.

Unfortunately, the article also contains a lot of psychobabble.

IN THE UK, WOMEN PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE

Here's an excerpt from an email I received from a British woman. I hope she won't mind me sharing it.

What is with paying for all the dates? Is this a NYC thing or an American thing? I live in the UK and across here it works the other way round - you each pay for yourself the first few dates. If it goes further and you start dating properly, then he might treat you to a few drinks or dinner,but it seems crazy for one member of the couple to have to pay for everything at the start when you don't know if you're ever going to get a return on your investment!

NYC women seem greedier than then in the rest of the country, but all over the U.S. women expect men to pay. Also, as women get older, the expectation of getting free stuff from men increases.

Outside of NYC women usually offer to pay (but if the man accepts the offer he's considered a cheapskate), however in NYC women rarely offer, and often they don't even say "thank you."

MISCELLANEOUS BLOG UPDATE

Someone speculated in a comment that I was no longer a virgin. Unfortunately I'm still a virgin. I haven't had anything write about, and the be honest, I'm mentally tired from being insulted (almost entirely by female commenters) with every post I write, so I was taking a break.

Too personal?

In response to my last post about my investments increasing in value by $38,800, sugarpunk wrote:

to me that is a HUGELY personal question and/or answer to put on a blog..

I wrote about being a virgin and masturbating and sexual dysfunction, and that's not too personal, but somehow this is?

The blog is anonymous and I can write about whatever I want. How much money I made in the market is probably the least personal thing I've written here. It's the only thing in this blog I wouldn't be ashamed to tell my mother.

RETURN TO INTERNET DATING

The girls I met though non-internet sources, Carr, Shannon and Alicia, aren't panning out. Shannon didn't return my phone call, and I tried again, but that's it. She knows how to use a telephone and if she doesn't want to call me back after two dialing attempts, then she's not worth the trouble.

One commenter said that the more dates I go on the better off I am, and although it's hard to tell the good advice from all the crap advice I get, this sort of sounds reasonable.

$38,800

That's how much my investments are up since the beginning of the year. This probably sounds like a lot of money to some people, but not to NYC people who make more money than this each month as salary. You need a lot more money than I have to attract hot gold digger babes.

Carr bought some stock that I recommended to her, which is sort of flattering because not many people actually listen to my advice. Luckily the stock price already went up since she bought it; I'd hate it if she lost money on my account.

Lust for money same as lust for sex

People have complained that I write too much about money when the blog is supposed to be about me not having sex.

However, researchers at Stanford University have discovered that lust for money is the same as lust for sex:

Late at night, in a basement laboratory at Stanford University, Brian Knutson made a startling discovery: our brains lust after money with the same neurons that they crave sex.

It was May 2004 and Knutson, a professor of neuroscience and psychology at the Californian university, was sending student volunteers through a high-power imaging machine called an fMRI.

Deep inside each subject's head, electrical currents danced through a bundle of neurons about the size and shape of a peanut. Blood was rushing to the brain's pleasure centre as students executed mock stock-and-bond trades. On Knutson's screen, this region of the brain, the core of human desire, flashed canary yellow.

Knutson, 38, concluded that the pleasure of orgasm, the high from cocaine, the rush of buying Google at US$450 a share - the same neural network governs all three. What's more, our primal pleasure circuits can, and often do, override our seat of reason, the brain's frontal cortex, the professor says. In other words, stocks, like sex, sometimes drive us crazy.

Alicia, first and last date

Girls with wealthy dads come in two types. The materialistic princess type is most common, and then there's the rebellious "I don't care about money" type which I especially dislike because their lack of concern about money is backed up by the knowledge that there's a Rich Daddy to fall back on. Alicia is the latter type of rich girl. She shares a one bathroom apartment with two other roommates. That's quite a commitment to being poor. Most of the girls in NYC have their own apartment on their parents.

Unfortunately for me, I got absolutely zero vibes that Alicia was in any way interested in me, so I guess she's not. No point calling her again, I guess. Too bad, because she looks pretty nice.

And not to dissappoint the people who hate me because I always mention how much money it costs to date, Alicia did not offer to pay for her drink.

CARR

She wants to meet me for a workday lunch. At least I don't have to worry about having to perform sexually, because we will both have to go back to our respective jobs at the end of the date.

Unlike Alicia, Carr does have her own apartment and I strongly suspect that her parents are helping her pay for it.

SHANNON

I called and left a message but she didn't call back yet. I think she's the type of girl who likes to play games like that.

Shannon probably pays for her own apartment with her salary. Between her, Carr and Alicia, Shannon has what I presume to be the highest paying job.

After the traffic spike

I took down the post about Princess Alicia, not because there was a satellite photo of her dad's house (probably even if her dad looked at it he wouldn't recognize his own house from the air--and sorry, the view of your house from the air is no longer secret info, most of the U.S. is visible at maps.google.com), but because there was too much other specific information about her.

This was done in response to the big traffic spike, which I'm not sure I'm happy about for several reasons.

With the spike has come a surge in obnoxious comments in the nature of "you're a virgin because you're an asshole," which is ridiculous because we all know that men with much more serious personality flaws than myself (excepting my phobia of sexual intimacy and possible sexual dysfunction issues) have sex, and sometimes lots of it. Most men rightly suspect that being too nice results in less sex, not more.

Many of the comments are ridiculous. Some are pissed because my standards are too high and others are pissed because my standards are too low. Comments like these can't possibly be reconciled.

A lot of people are pissed because I notice how women look, as if 99% of men don't notice this. An innoccuous description of Shannon as "slightly heavyset" has some woman pissed at me because she thinks it means that any woman who isn't model skinny isn't good enough for me. And some guy wrote that she's too obese for me to have sex with.

Slightly heavyset means slightly heavier than the typical woman of her height, that's all it means. It was an observation and I never even said that I disliked her weight. I specifically wrote that she was "cute."

Someone was pissed because I observed that Jane had her teeth bleached. I don't get why that pisses someone off. Why would she go to the effort of bleaching them if she didn't want people to notice her perfectly white teeth?

Obviously the blog that some people want me to write would be totally devoid of anything interesting to read. If this blog pisses you off so much, then please do me a favor and stop reading it. But as I've previously observed, some people enjoy getting pissed off, and they surf the web with the intent of finding something to get pissed about. And then, ironically, these people say that *I* have a bad attitude. Ha ha.

What do I want? I just want to have a girlfriend, that's all, and I don't think that makes me a bad person for wanting that. Maybe it's simply not possible for someone who has been a virgin for nearly 40 years to achieve that. Once upon a time I had a problem with only wanting a super-hot girlfriend, and I think have gotten over that, but on the other hand my experience with Rana taught me that maybe I need to be a little more attracted to a girl than I was to Rana. I'm having trouble reconciling this myself.

I stand my by last post, I think it would be good for me to try to move foward with Shannon. If you really want to help me out with a comment, suggest a course of action for the next date with her that will put me in the right direction. I am also still in email contact with Carr and will probably see her again because she said she wants to and I like talking to her, and she also wants to go Dutch.

My new goal: have sex with Shannon

Gender Immigrant said in a comment:

The more I read of your blog the more I think you just need to figure out how to lower your standards, for just a short time, from the lofty goals that you seem to have and just have sex with any woman that will have you.

I agree with this good advice. So therefore, my goal is to have sex with Shannon.

My second goal, in case the first goal doesn't pan out, is to stop evaluating women for their worth in a long term relationship. The only thing important is to just have sex so that, in the future when I meet someone I want to have a long term relationship with or even marry, I won't screw things up because of my virginity.

Shannon, first date

Shannon is one of those IJC girls that the IJC Blogger writes about. She's short (I said she sounded short!) and slightly on the heavyset side, and she chose an expensive place to eat and happily accepted a free $70 evening with no offer to chip in. (And I'm still hungry, I might have to go eat a snack after I finish this post.) I was disappointed to find out that she had medium brown hair and not reddish colored hair as I imagined.

Shannon is kind of cute, and she said I should call her after this weekend. A clear indication that she's interested in a second date. I hugged her and kissed her on the cheek. No lip to lip contact.

MY LAST POST

None of my posts have garnered as many comments. Many of them angry. I attribute the angry comments to people having a big stick up their ass and looking to get pissed off about something.

It was a blind date I had a few years ago who taught me to Google my dates. When I met her she asked me, "is [name of website] your website?" She used Google to find my website. After that lesson I often would use the power of Google, as well as a few other useful websites, to research my dates.

And don't worry, I may be a virgin but I'm not stupid. I'm not going to tell Princess Alicia, "hey, I looked at a satellite photo of Rich Daddy's house."

Googling my dates is not preventing my from losing my virginity, but the two things may be related because not having a girlfriend gives me more time to surf the web and hone my web searching skills.

The other criticism has to do with me making fun of rich people. Hey, if you can't make fun of rich people, who can you make fun of? And really, it does annoy me that there are all these Princesses living in New York City who don't have to pay any rent because they have a Rich Daddy.

This also has nothing to do with me being a virgin. If anything, having too much respect for my date seems to lessen my success. I respected Kelly a lot because she came to this country at the age of fifteen barely knowing any English, and she obtained two graduate degrees and now has a great job. What good did respecting her do for me? It did crap. She said we have no chemistry.

I'M DOOMED

This post at the Nice Guys Finish Last blog explains why I'm doomed never to to have a successful relationship or get married. He writes about his female friend's problem:

She met this "great guy" one of the first guys she's ever met that treats her with respect, kindness and the whole thing. They laugh all the time, have the same interests..they're perfect together (her words). There's just one problem. ...

The problem is that her great guy has a small penis and he sucks at sex, and because of that she's going to dump him. My penis is small and I will always suck at sex even if I lose my virginity. No one will ever want to be in a relationship with me. This whole dating thing is a big waste of time. I'm going to end up like Bob.

Preview of the week ahead

CARR

I'm meeting her after work on Monday. She wants to buy me a drink to reciprocate for buying her dinner the last time. I like Carr, she's fun, she's not like those stuck up "spend money on me" IJC girls that the IJC blogger writes about. This will be the third time I've seen her, not including the night I met her at the club. Too bad she's such a religious fanatic. I hope she doesn't try to take me back to her apartment in the Village to have sex. On the other hand, maybe she'll take me back to her apartment to smoke pot. I wonder if that stuff relaxes you and makes sex easier?

SHANNON

She's the daughter of someone my mom is acquainted with. I'm seeing her Wednesday. She suggested a brand new trendy looking restuarant in our neighborhood. She's in her mid thirties. I have no idea what she looks like, but on the phone she sounds like a short redhead.

KELLY

I have to call her ASAP, but not tonight. I was hoping that she might send me an email offering me encouragement, because I sent her an email on Friday that she never responded to. No such luck. Kelly's the one I really like.

COMMENTS

Thank you Cameron for your good advice.

THE ROLLING STONES

No, I don't have a date with them. But they sure did suck at the halftime show. Paul McCartney was ten times better last year.

Responses to the comments

I said that I would respond to the first five non-anonymous comments left to my post soliciting comments. However, there were only four non-anonymous comments, so I will respond to those four plus the first anonymous comment. It's interesting that not a single comment was left by a male reader. Those comments tend to be more helpful because, as much as men say they don't understand women, I get the impression that women understand themselves even less well than men.

COMMENT BY DENÉ

It's a shame to waste your first response on someone who hasn't fully read your complete blog yet... but here I am. Life is all about timing, isn't it.

:)

If you don't like kissing you're doing it wrong.

It's not a waste, thanks for your comment.

I think that swapping saliva is gross unless you lust after the person you are doing it with. I think that I didn't lust after Rana because she wasn't very attractive and because my sex drive decreases as I get older.

I don't think this had anything to do with doing it wrong, although I'm sure I could have done it better.

COMMENT BY ELLIE

I don't agree with a lot of the things you write, but I do wish you the best of luck. At the end of the day, it is your life and you're free to do whatever you like with it!! :) There will always be supporters and haters...

Thanks.

COMMENT BY A

Hello, Virg.. Please don't take my comments here the wrong way, because they are not intented to flame or hurt your feelings. I wanted to offer my opinions and observations, but I'm very blunt, so I apologize if anything I say comes off as hurtful or harsh.

Your perspective is interesting, which is why I continue reading, but I have to say that there is something about your attitude that really bothers me. I haven't been able to put my finger on it exactly, but it has to do with the way you discuss women, and to a lesser extent, yourself.

It seems to me that you have yourself painted into a corner, where your feelings and thoughts on the situation are clouded by the belief that you are stuck where you are. However, no matter how it seems to you, you are not irreversibly stuck and I truly believe that with enough consideration and effort, you could get yourself out of the corner.

However, as I read, I find it harder and harder to feel sorry for you. There is a lot of "I'm a loser, look at how I suck" here on this blog and while I myself enjoy self-deprecation as a pasttime, it very much sets the tone for the site. Initially, I absolutely empathized with your situation; as I said in my post about your blog, I also have some deep social anxieties that prevent me from meeting people and behaving 'normally' in unfamiliar social settings. The issue I have now is that, all snarky anonymous comments aside, you have a loyal reader base of intelligent people wanting to help you. They ask questions to find out more, they offer some really spot-on suggestions and things to think about.. but so far it seems as if these go mostly ignored. This bothers me, and perhaps the others that pointed this out, that half the time you talk about how you want to keep trying to be with a woman, and the other half engaged in behavior that would indicate otherwise.

Also, I guess maybe I feel that you really objectify women, and usually in an unflattering way. Unflattering to them, and to you. I understand honesty and wanting to describe people as you perceive them, but unflattering opinions, particularly when it comes to 'superficial' traits, are often poorly received by others, especially when doled out in such high quantities. I try not to judge people, and certainly I have my own physical tastes, but as the bulk of what you discuss seems to have to do with looks rather than personality, I have to wonder if the women you've dated aren't picking up on the same signals I am.

I think part of what bothers me is that your posts tend to have a very negative tone to them. Other posts are highly judgemental, not just of the women you've had experiences with, but of all women. Are you this negative all the time? If so, that may be part of the problem.

Also, you have to decide what the purpose of this blog is. Is it a place to vent and bitch about things, or is it a record of your journey to 'solve the problem'? If it is the former, there is nothing wrong with that, but I personally tire of hearing someone complain about something they refuse to put any effort into changing.

If it is the latter, does the solving include changing your behavior patterns, or do you intend to keep doing things as you usually do in hopes that it will happen anyway? I would love to read about you trying something different, stepping outside yourself a little, taking suggestions, and really mulling over everything. If I were you, I would be looking at this from all angles, trying to figure out doable ways of overcoming your fears and inhibitions. I would also probably be in therapy for the emotional issues, and to find out more about how to overcome the distaste for intimacy. In no way do I assume that any of this will be quick and easy, but if something isn't working for you and you want to change it, it is necessary to start taking small steps.

I think the frustration I feel is that I simply want to see you succeed. I personally would love to hear that you met a great girl, she turned you on, and you two got it on. I would be happy and relieved for you. :)

I think you would benefit greatly from trying to open your mind a little bit. Trust that not all women are like the ones you've dated. Trust that all women are not clones of each other. Trust that there will be a girl who likes you just the way you are (hell, if there are girls who like me, there are definitely girls who will like you). I know it's hard when you believe otherwise, but this many people telling you so can't be wrong, can they? Shift your focus away from money and looks, unless you want someone superficial. Allow your preconceptions and stereotypes to be challenged.. you'll find there's a lot of grey area in there. Also, do consider therapy. Not all therapists are awful, and it can be immensely helpful to get an objective, professional opinion on something that's troubling you.

Lastly, the girls I know and have known would think your virginity is so much less of a big deal than you do. There are plenty of women out there who would be understanding and kind about it. There is a definite chance that your virginity won't matter much at all.

Anyway, sorry this is so long, but I do hope you understand where it's coming from and that I mean it constructively. I think you're in a rut, and I'm hoping to see you jump out of it. Keep writing and exploring! :)

Whoa! That's a novel, not a comment.

A begins her novel by explaning that she doesn't like my attitude. Because this is an anonymous blog, I am free to have any attitude I want without worrying about alienating people I know in real life. That's the beauty of anonymous blogging.

Then she says that I ignore all the comments, but this is why I am doing this experiment, to show that this is not true. And I read all the comments even if I can't respond to every one. It's true that I like to respond to the unique comments, because I think that many of the most common points have been addressed previously in my blog.

I have taken advice from several comments. For example, people told me to stop seeing Yoko, and I did, and I have to agree that this was great advice. Kelly is ten times better than Yoko. I was also advised to stop masturbating, and today I am now eleven days the master of my domain. This is working out very well.

Then she says my posts are negative. You'd be negative too if, after almost 40 years, the world just threw rotten lemons at you the whole time.

Then she says the blog has no purpose. I started the blog with a clear purpose, as self-therapy, and I definitely think it helped. As I've stated before, more than once, since starting this blog I came very close to actually losing my virginity, and I would never have dreamed that would ever be possible. Is it still helping? I can't say for sure, but to be honest here, I'm kind of flattered that people want to read what I write, even if it's only because they get a voyeuristic look at my weird sexual problems. I've tried blogging before on topics like the economy and politics, and no one wanted to read anything I wrote.

Then she says I need therapy, which is a very annoying comment. It's not annoying because of the implication that I have problems I have been unable to overcome on my own. That part is true. It's annoying because there's no rational reason to think that this would be anything but a waste of money. I saw therapists when I was in my twenties, and they were of absolutely no help. I wrote about the 49-year-old virgin who was in therapy for 18 years. Obviously his therapy was a complete waste. This blog has been much better therapy, only two months after I started it I came very close to losing my virginity. Why do peope think that therapists have some magic power to heal people? It's obvious that they don't. Other virgins have reported bad experiences with therapists.

Then she gives me a little lecture about stereotyping. "Trust that not all women are like the ones you've dated. Trust that all women are not clones of each other." First of all, I don't think I've ever said in my blog that I believe that all womens are clones, are that there aren't plenty of exceptions to generalizations. But this doesn't mean that generalizations aren't for the most part true. It's impossible to get through life without generalizing people that you don't know. You don't have time to get to know every single person. Occasionally I put in language to indicate that I understand that I'm not talking about every single woman on planet Earth. Recently I used a phrase like"the typical woman," and I was blasted for what I said about the typical woman because not all women were like that. Using the word "typical" implies that it's understood that some women are atypical. Geez.

OK, that's enough of that comment.

COMMENT BY BAMA GIRL

I can't believe that people have that much to say about your blog! I mean I read it all the time, but there is no way I could write five paragraphs in an attempt to comment.

I agree that was an extremely long comment--it was actually 12 paragraphs, but who's counting?

Thank you for your support.

COMMENT BY ANONYMOUS

I don't have a blog address, but I'll put my name at the end here. (Note that you yourself are anonymous, so it's only fair that I don't want my family to see things I comment on blogs either.)

My question: What did you mean when you said that it's better to meet a woman in person than some "woman" who advertises on the "internet"? Why did you put those things in quotes?

Also, why can't you believe that there are women who are shy and late bloomers and nervous about sex, just like there are guys (something that would seem even rarer?)

Marla C.

You don't need a blog address to register with Blogger. I'm not asking people to leave their name, address, phone, and credit card number with their comments. But it would be a lot easier if people just used the feature to use some sort of pseudonym so I can follow the comments better.

"Woman" was in quotes because there is contoversy over whether I should use the term "girl" or "woman." In my mind, when I think of a "woman" I think of some old person that I wouldn't want to date.

As far as posting personal ads on internet dating sites, it seems logical that people who had no problems getting dates wouldn't bother to post an ad. There still seems to be some sort of stigma associated with it. Carr says she met some people from an online dating service that's popular with people of her religion who live in New York City, and they were all losers and one guy stalked her.

I very much wish I was the guy who could go to a bar and pick up a "girl" without resorting to the internet.

And finally to answer the quesiton about not believing that "there are women who are shy and late bloomers and nervous about sex, just like there are guys," it's not that I don't believe it, it's just that it's extremely rare, much rarer than it is for men. If you don't understand why it's rarer for women then you just don't get the dynamics of male/female relations. Men have to pursue and make first moves, women get to just let the men come after them. A woman who is reasonably desirable will have men pursue her and make first moves and all she has to do is go along with them. This is not the same for men. A man who would have some success (if not alpha-male type success) with women if he was agressive and extroverted like he's supposed to be will have absolutely zero success if he's too shy to do what he's supposed to do.

So actually, I really do find it very hard to imagine that a woman who would be the kind of woman that I'd find attractive would be an inexperienced virgin. When I tried to have sex with Rana who I didn't find attractive, I wasn't able to get it up.

Will respond to comments

People say I don't respond to the right comments. So here is your opportunity. I will attempt to respond sincerely to the first five non-anonymous comments left to this post.

Asian white interracial couples

As I walked around Manhattan today I observed all the mixed race couples. It seemed like for every couple in which there was an Asian woman with an Asian man there was another couple where the Asian woman was with a white man. But I saw no couples where the man was Asian and the woman was white.

The absence of the latter type of interracial couple is easy to explain. Once I was hanging out at a bar with these two older divorced white women whom I knew (they were only one or two years older than me and that was several years ago so they were in their mid thirties), and one of them said something like "I could go for a black guy." I couldn't resist the temptation to ask, "what about an Asian guy?" In response they both laughed derisively at the suggestion. I felt sorry for the poor Asian men who were so contemptible to them.

But white men don't have contempt for Asian women. The only unanswered question is whether there are a lot of white men with Asian fetishes, or if white men are settling for Asian women because no white women are interested in them. It's very common in these Asian female/white male couples for the guy to be sort of nerdy looking. The sort of guy that white women aren't interested in. Like me.

Asian girls, on the other hand, might actually like the somewhat geeky white guy. Unlike the typical white woman who is just seeking a casual fling with an alpha male, Asian women are more likely to be seeking boyfriends who would be good husband material: a smart guy who is interesting to talk to, has a decent career, and who would make a good father. This is probably cultural. Asian women born in the U.S. whose parents were also born here probably act just like typical white women, but on the other hand one should never discard the possibility that there are some genetically based behavioral differences.

But this doesn't explain why Asian women would go after geeky white guys when there are so many Asian guys who need a girlfriend. The Japanese girl I dated a few years ago (I should probably write a post about that) told me that she was only interested in white men. And she really seemed to like me. She said she never met anyone as smart as me and that's what she wanted in a guy. It should have been really good for my ego, but I think the message I got was that only Asian girls might be interested in me as a boyfriend. It sure is a shame that white women don't get hot for intelligent men they way Asian women do.

I got a good look at one of the Asian/white couples I saw today. The guy had curly red hair and wire frame glasses, looked slightly overweight and out of shape, definitely a nerdy looking guy. His Asian girlfriend/wife was short and had a bad complexion and was not attractive at all. I thought "ha, the Chinese girl I'm going out with this week is way hotter than this guy's girlfriend/wife and she probably makes three times as much money as her too!" I felt like the Big Alpha Male among the nerdy guys who date Asian girls. It felt good to feel manly like that.

KELLY

Yes, she called me back and I'm taking her to a second tier sushi place for an after work date. Second tier in Manhattan means not first tier like Nobu or Asia de Cuba. Zagat says the restaurant we are going to has a "hopping sushi scene," whatever that means. I hope the sushis don't hop off the tray before I can eat them.

CARR

She called me back too, and she left a message, but she said she's going to be somewhere tonight. It's cool that two girls, neither of whom are fat or butch or otherwise disgusting (although Carr could do with gaining some weight) want to see me again.

Motivations

JOANNE'S COMMENT

Joanne writes:

It sounds like it's all over, Virgy. There's no point in even trying to go out with a woman if the thought of kissing makes you sick.

I've always imagined that I would like kissing, but then when it happened I didn't really like it.

So to answer the second part of the question, why am I even trying to go out with women? Here's a list of some motivations:

(1) Companionship - life is lonely if you're single and getting on in your years. Everyone is married and married people don't hang out with single people. So you're all alone unless you find someone of the opposite sex. And I'm not very good at making male friends. Somehow my virginity makes it difficult to bond with other men. Companionship seems to be the number one reason I like Carr.

(2) Habit - for whatever reasons I wanted to meet girls back when I was younger--perhaps because of the extreme horniness of youth--my mind has become in the habit of still thinking in that frame of mind even if it's no longer relevant to my current situation.

(3) Status - being seen with a beatiful woman would raise my status with my family, friends, and society in general.

(4) Desire to be normal - if you don't have a girlfriend people think you're not normal, and I just want to be normal.

(5) Wanting what I can't have - a lot of people besides me have this problem.

(6) Titillation - it's pleasurable to just be in the presence of a beautiful woman. Lots of men seem to share this motivation based on my observations.

(7) Sex - many women assume this is the "only" thing men care about, In fact, I'm sure that all men care about at least some of the other factors I mention although maybe for some (many? most? nearly all?) sex is on the very top of their list.

(8) Love - I remember what it felt like to be in love with someone, but unfortunately it was painful unrequitted love. Nevertheless, I can only imagine how great it must feel to be in a relationship where you love her and she loves you. It was this which used to be my strongest motivator for trying to meet women, but now I'm not sure. Maybe I can't fall in love again.

ANONYMOUS' COMMENT

Anonymous writes:

just tell me something, when you finally gonna fuck someone????

you are waisting your time with so many dates, pick one girl and work har until you can finally fuck her.

Anonymous makes a valid point. Obviously I'm afraid of physical intimacy and it's easier to just avoid what your afraid of. After my experience with Rana, I'm a little less afraid of physicaly intimacy but now I'm worried about not being able to perform.

And Rana made the relationship easy for me because she made all the first moves. Maybe women do this all the time when men get them hot, but since so few women feel that way about me it just never happened to me before. (However, Catherine made it clear to me that she wanted me to kiss her on the lips at the end of our date--a sort of pseodo-first move.)

Incidentally, I wonder if I'm really still a virgin in spirit, since my penis was inches away from Rana's vagina and she wanted me to be able to complete the act. Until my relationship with Rana, the hallmark of my virginity was that I had never even been remotely close to losing it.

CARR

She sent me an email on Friday. She wrote, "Hey Virgin, how are ya? got your message..... will call you this weekend ..."

KELLY

I called her a few minutes before writing this post and I left her a message on her voicemail.

Kelly

***Warning*** This post contains physical descriptions of how Kelly looks because I think that this is important to understanding people's behavior. Don't give me shit about this in the comments.

I asked her to go to the same bar as I went the first time I met Carr. Unfortunately, this time the bar was all crowded and there was no place to sit so we had to stand and talk to each other. Kelly never heard of the place, which is weird, the bar is attached to a pretty expensive restaurant.

Kelly is cute. Her face is really wide, which isn't that attractive, but otherwise she had cute black hair and unlike most Asian girls who are short and skinny, Kelly is tall and has what seemed like (under her clothing) a nicely shaped body with big breasts for a Chinese girl. She's thin but not too skinny (like Carr). Kelly won't be mistaken for a model but she's cute.

She seems pretty shy. Whenever I gave her a compliment she acted all embarrassed about it, which had the effect of encouraging me to keep doing it. I defintely seemed to engage in more flirting behavior with her than my previous first dates. Whether this is because of her shy demeanor, because she's tall and has what seems like a nice figure, or because I haven't masturbated since Sunday and I'm starting to get a little hornier, I don't know.

I didn't see any evidence of her making a lot of money at her job. She lives in a studio on the UES which sounds like it's smaller than mine, and she said she doesn't go to the Hamptons and she doesn't like to shop and she walks places instead of taking cabs. All she ordered was a club soda because she doesn't like to drink. This is sort of too bad because girls who don't drink usually aren't much fun. Carr is fun because she drinks, and because Carr is so small and skinny she doesn't need to drink a lot to feel the effects of the alcohol.

Anyway there's nothing about Kelly to fully explain why she has trouble meeting men. Surely there's some Chinese guy who'd love to go out with her? Or maybe Chinese guys only like tiny short girls, and maybe white men with Asian fetishes also like their Asian women tiny?

Kelly is definitely someone I want to see again.

CARR

I called her tonight because it has been three days and I am supposed to call her otherwise I'm not playing by the rules correctly and she would get mad at me. I left a message on her voicemail. She seldom actually answers her phone. She seems to go out just about every night except on the night of her weekly religious observance.

A slimy clump of moss

KELLY

I spoke to Kelly on the phone yesterday. I found out more about her profession, even though she doesn't like to talk about it. She wouldn't even tell me what company she worked for, but after our conversation I Googled her and figured out her company and her title.

I'm trying to figure out how much money she makes, I figure that maybe a $165K base salary plus an $80K bonus would be plausible. But who knows? Her industry pays some crazy ass salaries.

It pisses me off that she's only thirty years old and she wasn't even born in this country and she's making a monster $250K salary. That's the job I should have had when I was thirty, and I would have done it a lot better than the people who do it.

And her salary will continue to grow while mine is stuck on a miserable $150K plateau until what I do is outsourced to India or my side business stops making money. People at the top of her profession pull in seven figures. It's like her salary will grow into a mighty oak tree while my salary will be like a slimy clump of moss growing on her bark.

What happens if we get married and she has kid? She couldn't give up her seven figure job to be a mom, I'd have to stay home and be the house husband. I don't think there could be anything more demasculating that than. It's like getting your penis cut off. We'd go to parties and she'd be introduced as the Managing Director at Drexel Burnham Lambert with a seven figure salary and then people would ask "what does your husband would do?" and she'd say "oh he just stays home with our kid." And then she'd divorce me out of disgust for my lack of earning power when all the people she works with are rich and powerful Masters of the Universe, and then the divorce judge, beating a dead horse into the ground, would give her the kid and make me pay alimony to her because women always mop up in divorce court no matter what the circumstances.

Anyway, I'm meeting her after work tomorrow, but we haven't made up what we are doing. I'm supposed to call her tomorrow. I hate these kinds of amorphous arrangements. Does anyone have any suggestions?

CARR

Carr is a geeky girl who likes science fiction, and this of course makes her a lot more fun to talk to. A girl who's into science fiction is really a whole lot more interesting than a girl who's into spending money at Bloomingdales. And she also said she'd teach me how to smoke pot.

We exchanged emails yesterday but she didn't email be back today. I guess I'm supposed to call her because I have the penis. We ended our last date on a rather platonic note, all I did was kiss her on the cheek, and she said something about seeing each other again (and she was sincere about it as far as I can tell).

As people reading this blog should understand, but seem incapable of so understanding, sexual intimacy is as scary to me as flying on an airplane is to someone who's afraid to fly. Most people who are afraid to fly never face their fear, they just don't fly anywhere. I'm sure that Carr is expecting something more than a kiss on a cheek after a third date, otherwise she'll think I'm not interested in her and move on.

YOKO

Haven't heard from her since I sent her the email.

DVDs

Got some in the mail from Amazon.com yesterday. A whole season of a very entertaining TV show. That's 12 to 13 hours of viewing pleasure for only $35. What a deal! That's a lot more cost effective than going on a date where you spend $100 for 2 hours of entertainment. Maybe I should just marry my DVD player. They allow gay marriages now, perhaps in a few years they'll allow that too.

Email to Yoko

I sent the following email to Yoko. Because you guys are so good at criticizing me and telling me when I'm a jerk, loser, etc., you can have a field day with the email:

Dear Yoko,

Hi, thanks for writing :)

I'm sorry that I never called you again after the last time we saw each other, and I feel kind of bad about that. I just think that the relationship that you're looking for, in which the man is the "gentleman" who does everything for you and spends a lot of money on you, and you're the Japanese princess, is just not me. Maybe you need someone who makes more money. Or maybe I just don't like spending money because until two or three years ago I didn't have much. I think my "soulmate" is just more independent you are.

Besides that I really enjoyed spending time with you, enjoyed talking with you, and you look really pretty, and you have a great body.

If you'd like to hang out sometime as just friends, and not going on a formal date, I'd like that, because I enjoy hearing your stories about Japan and your observations about how the U.S. is different.

Virgin

Monday, January 23 update

CARR

I saw Carr again tonight. I like her very much. Tonight was our second date. I apologize for using such a trite adjective to describe her, but she's just really cool. She seems to like me too. She let me know that she wants to see me again, and I'm sure she was sincere about it and not just being polite.

But she scares me because I think she's the kind of girl who would have sex on a third date, and we know how scary that is. At least we know how scary that is for me.

And also, she's not the type of girl who I get a hard-on for. I am going to stop masturbating; hopefully this will make me horny and cause me to get a hard-on for every girl.

As a long term relationship, the problem I have with her is that she's very religious and I'm not.

I like her too much to not see her again. I really want to see her again.

LISA

I previously wrote:

Normally when I like a girl as much as I like Lisa, she doesn't want to see me again. This is not a self deprecating comment, it's an unfortunate observation.

That turned out to be an accurate prediction.

YOKO

She sent me an email today and then she left a message on my voicemail. I wasn't expecting that. I guess she must like me. It feels good to be liked. It almost makes me want to do something stupid, like call her back.

KELLY

I never mentioned Kelly before. She is a Chinese-American girl who moved to this country when she was a teenager. I don't know anything else about her because I haven't spoken to her on the phone yet. Yes, I met her via the same online dating website as I met Yoko.

Unlike Yoko, Kelly has multiple graduate degrees and a better career than I have (which is kind of intimidating).

For some weird reason, these Asian girls seem to like me. Well, it's not that weird because I explained it in previous posts, but people get pissed at my explanations for unknown reasons.

In contrast, I contacted thirty-eight white girls via the online dating service and I got the one date with Lisa who doesn't want to see me again.

COMMENTS

I read all the comments because they automatically get emailed to my special "virgin" email account. But if I responded to a lot of them I'd probably get all pissed off and this would create negative karma that would be bad for the blog

I've considered turning off the anonymous comments. Of course, people could still anonymously create an account at Blogger with a pseudonym, but this tiny extra hurdle might cause the quality of comments to increase a bit.

Blogger lets you type in a pseudonym with your comment without registering; I at least wish people would use that feature.

There were some constructive comments to my hair stylist post in which people suggested that I ask her out. She has a two year old daughter, but she never mentions a husband and she doesn't wear what I can identify as a wedding ring or engagement ring so I don't know what the deal is there. However I am pretty sure that I'm not her type, and also she would rather keep me as a client, because after a date it would be awkward and I'd have to find another hair stylist.

My beautiful hair stylist

The most beautiful woman that I know is my hair stylist. I think it's worth the rip-off prices I pay to get my hair cut in order to gaze at her in the mirror. To start with, she has gorgeous blonde hair, and sure you expect a hair stylist to have good hair, but hers looks really great even for a hair stylist. She has a beautiful symmetrical face with a perfect nose and pale blue eyes. She's tall and thin, but thin with muscle; she must work out with weights. During the summer she wore an outfit that displayed her stomach, and it was very flat and toned.

She always wears something fashionable, but never fashionable in a Saks Fifth Avenue way, but rather a bohemian Village way. She has tatoos on both her forearms and a tiny stud in her nose, and normally I'm not into that stuff but somehow on her it looks right, like it belongs there, and it doesn't mar her beauty.

I have a hard time placing her age; I would guess mid to late thirties but she looks really good for her age. It's so sad that a woman who looks that good would never go out with me. I'm just glad she lets me be her client. The first time I saw her I felt like she was slightly condescending, as if I wasn't quite good enough to get my haircut at such a trendy salon, but after I demonstrated that I always give a 20% tip she warmed up to me. And I think she liked the big Christmas tip I gave her in December.

Once I did go out with a girl who was almost as good looking, but in an Upper East Side brunette kind of way. My mother met her mother and that's how I got set up with her on a blind date. I couldn't believe my luck when I discovered my date was beautiful and had a great figure, and she was also the president of her sorority at an Ivy League college. I couldn't figure out why a girl like that would need to go on a blind date. Naturally she ignored my phone calls after our date until I gave up.

Self-Made Man

Here's a review of the new book Self-Made Man by Norah Vincent. The author is a woman (albeit a lesbian one) who dressed up as man to see what it's like to be a man.

This is what she has to say about dating:

Dating women as a man was a lesson in female power, and it made me, of all things, into a momentary misogynist, which, I suppose was the best indicator that my experiment had worked. I saw my own sex from the other side, and I disliked women irrationally for a while because of it. I disliked their superiority, their accusatory smiles, their entitlement to choose or dash me with a fingertip, an execution so lay, so effortless, it made the defeats and even the successes unbearably humiliating.

This sounds like a book that all women need to read for the dating chapter.

Male sex drive decreases with age

The male sex drive decreases with age. I think this is one of those secret things that no one ever talks about. Most men are in denial about it. After all, society has taught us that being a man means being able to please a woman.

This web page has as good a description of the problem as I was able to find on the internet:

Most males reach their sexual peak at age 17 or 18, and it's a long, slow slide thereafter, becoming particularly noticeable after the age of 30. It's not uncommon for an 18-year-old male to be able to achieve orgasm four to eight times in a 24-hour period, whereas most 30-year-olds are happy if they manage once.

I think this is right on target, because it was after the age of 30 when I really started to notice that something was different. For some odd reason, I remember a morning when I was 24 years old and walking through the campus of my graduate school, and I had a raging hard-on because there were two hot coeds in front of me. But that kind of thing no longer happens.

I still have no problem masturbating, and despite what the above quote says, I can do it more than once in a 24-hour period. But maybe the urge to do it isn't quite as strong as it once was. And that's a good thing because masturbating is a real waste of time and mental energy that could be better spent doing just about anything else.

Just as I still masturbate despite my diminished sex drive, non-virgin men continue to have sex even though they have a diminished sex drive. This is because sex for normal men is a learned habit, and even though the raging horniness of the 18-year-old is gone, the habit of having sex remains.

But for the virginal man who has never had sex, I think that the decreasing sex drive poses a big problem. Without the strong sex drive or a long history of positive associations with sex, the act of exchanging bodily fluids is actually pretty disgusting. I didn't enjoy French kissing Rana. To put it bluntly, sticking my tongue in her mouth was gross.

It doesn't seem gross to all of you reading this because you all have so much experience doing it and thus a whole history of positive associations with it. It's kind of like touching a dead body. Gross to you, but to the medical examiner who deals with them all the time it's not gross, it's just his job. (And then of course there is necrophilia: some twisted people get off on having "sex" with corpses. Yes, it sounds gross, but I'm sure that once you get into the habit of doing it, the act no longer seems gross. Not much more gross than tasting a woman's anus.)

It looks like the problem will only get worse. At the age of 65, a man has hardly any sex drive left at all.

If there are any virginal men in their twenties who are reading this, my advice to you is please, for the love of God, start having sex now before it's too late for you.

Carr-Lisa-Catherine update

For the curious, I called Carr and Lisa today and left both of them messages. If I don't call after a certain number of days I've broken the dating etiquette and then I can never call them again. So I was forced to call them today even though I hate the phone calls because I never know what to say.

Carr: even though her anorexicness is freaky and a turn off, and I have no idea what to make of her anti-materialistic grunge clothing, I really liked talking to her, she's fun. I don't think she's into fancy restaurants so I'm not sure where I'm supposed to take her on a date. Although she didn't seem to mind the bar I took her to where the martinis cost $13.50 and there was a guy playing the piano. And she did order a martini with one of those super-fancy overpriced vodkas that the IJC guy complains about. I think that all vodkas taste the same. But maybe I should start ordering that fancy brand so people think I'm with it.

Lisa: she's very sweet, and pretty, and young looking. I think I'd like to take her to see a Broadway show. And I'll get full price orchestra seats for $110 each so I don't appear cheap. I don't want to make the mistake of Bama Girl's date. Besides, I'd like to see a musical too and I don't have anyone else to go with.

Catherine: unable to get over the fact that she looks like a lesbian. I mean, why can't she at least go to a hair stylist and pay for a nicer hairstyle? Carr had a weird hairstyle too, but she's can get way with it because she's more fun.

By the way, none of these comments should be taken to mean that I think any of these girls are somehow beneath me. They aren't. Catherine is a nice girl and I hope she finds someone who appreciates her more than I do. She's better off without a sexually dysfunctional virgin anyway.

Bama Girl's bad date

This post is about Bama Girl's bad date. I don't wish to write negatively of someone who liked my blog enough to link to it in her blogroll. Her bad date post is not at all atypical, the blogosphere is full of girls who write posts where they pile insults onto the men who had the gall to pay for their evening. And this is pretty typical of the conversations I overhear when I'm with women. So I'm just using Bama Girl's post because I happened to read it a few days ago and I'm using it to illustrate a point.

So anyway, let us examine Bama Girl's post:

I agreed to go out with him because he seemed nice and I had no date for Valentines as of yet, so why not. Wow would I regret that decision.

I don't think that I've ever written on this blog that I "regretted" any dates I've been on, and I'm the one who has been paying for them.

He took me to a mediocre restaurant in a terrible location, Patsy's at 59th and Lex. Yeah, that one. Don't get me wrong, its nice, but not first date nice.

I think that Bama Girl is referring to this place which is across the street from the California Pizza Kitchen. The most expensive thing on the menu is only $14.95, so this seems primarily a complaint that he didn't spend enough money. If you are also observant, you will note that, as typical of all NYC Italian restuarants, everything is ala carte, so for a meal where both people order a salad, a desert, and one drink, the bill at this "cheap" restaurant with 8.625% sales tax and tip can still top $80.

There is seemingly no correlation between the price of food and how good it tastes. The place where I took Lisa had more expensive dishes on the menu, but the food actually sucked.

1. While he did attend Law School, he failed the bar three times. Idiot.

Lisa failed the bar exam, but did you see me say she was an idiot, or even mention this as any sort of significant factor? No.

Also, I'm sure that if the late John F Kennedy, Jr. (who also failed the bar exam several times) had been her date, she wouldn't have been compaining about this.

I would understand how this might be a problem if Bama Girl had graduated from Yale Law School and was editor of the Law Review, but I don't see any evidence in her blog that she is a brilliant scholar. (Of course she might be and she just chooses not to write about this aspect of herself.)

2. His mom lives in a trailer in Jersey and she is a chain smoker. Gross on so many levels.

People can't help who their parents are. How did the chain smoking and the trailer come up in conversation? It's not clear, but I've noticed that when I'm on dates, girls often ask me about my parents. I'm assuming that Bama Girl asked some questions about his parents and her date answered honestly.

In fact, I think that her date deserves a lot of respect for being able to rise above his trailer park background and graduate from law school. It's easy for some kid with rich parents to graduate from law school, but not so easy for a guy like her date.

3. He lives in Jersey and plans to live there for a long time. Words cannot explain.

This is why I pay $2000+ a month to live in Manhattan. If I lived elsewhere I'd be doomed to remain a virgin for the rest of my life.

Once again, this seems to be a money issue. Anyone who can't afford to live in Manhattan isn't good enough for Bama Girl.

Maybe her date has enough money to afford Manhattan, but he chooses to be financially responsible and he saves his money so in the future he will have savings to buy a house, raise children, and eventually retire. God forbid that a man doesn't blow 100% of his salary trying to impress women!

4. He bought tickets to Rent because he was able to get a discount through the company. Cheap and proud of it.

Considering that full price orchestra seats to Rent cost $95 per ticket, not including service charges, it's hard to fault her date for going a less expensive route.

I previously wrote in my blog about how Jane got free tickets to a play, and instead of being outraged about how cheap she was, I really appreciated her efforts.

After Rent, he took me home by subway. Which is fine, I don't mind that,

Actually she does seem to mind it. Once again, her date is criticized for not spending enough money.

dumb fuck

I've never said that about any of my dates.

Once again, my intent isn't to pick apart Bama Girl who is a typical girl who lives in Manhattan, I'm just pointing out the incredibly hypocritical double standard in which a small group of bitter women surf the web looking to get pissed about something, and they seem to get pissed about my blog and leave me nasty comments. There are no nasty comments on Bama Girl's blog even though she's a lot meaner than I am. This is the double standard.

Lisa

Lisa is so sweet and pretty.

But she's not what would conventionally be called "hot" or "sexy," and she's ever so slightly overweight (which looks cute on her), and there is even a slight dorkiness about her, and all this is good because maybe she's not asked out by men 24/7 so I have a chance with her.

Normally when I like a girl as much as I like Lisa, she doesn't want to see me again. This is not a self deprecating comment, it's an unfortunate observation.

Carr was still more fun but Carr is just a unique individual. For all I know, Carr doesn't want to see me again either.

And Catherine: she just looks too butch, and Carr and Lisa both have better personalities to boot (even though they are both vastly different). The only thing Catherine has going for her is if I ever buy an old coop or condo, Catherine could install new bathroom fixtures for me.

There's lots of other stuff I want to blog about, like somatypes and Bama Girl's bad date, and there are several comments I'd like to respond to, so hopefully I'll be motivated to put up more posts this weekend.

Bright Pleiades

Carr went to a Seven Sisters school. So did Lisa. So did Catherine. Is this some kind of freaky coincidence?

Like I said in my previous post, Carr was fun. Lot's of fun. After our date, I walked home smiling because I had so much fun talking to her. I never had so much fun on a date, even though it was only two hours.

But does my penis like her? Not really. At least she doesn't look butch like Catherine, but neither is she espcially pretty, and she's too skinny, almost anorexic looking. I don't like girls who are too fat but neither do I like them too skinny. I like the Goldilocks girl who's just right.

But she's low maintenance and so much fun, even though she's nerdy and geeky. I'd like to hang out with her again even though my penis doesn't approve. I wish she could gain some weight but I guess that's not going to happen.

I sure wish I could be more like Fred and get turned on by anything that didn't have a Y chromosone.