Project Mayhem

I am 47 years old. I have never been married. I have never lived with a girl. I am not gay. What I am is a human oddity, a drooling side-show freak in the relationship circus.

“Step right up, ladies and gentlemen; see the human azygos, the mateless mutant of more than 40 years! See the relationship reject as he caroms from female to female; dumping those who love him and being dumped by those he loves. Listen in horror as he describes his tragic love tales like never before unveiled. Tell your married friends! It is an experience They. Will. Never. Forget.”

“What’s wrong?” people ask innocently upon discovering my still-single status. “I mean, you’re such a great guy,” they quickly add, catching themselves.

I used to be embarrassed by the question, stumbling through the answer. “Well, you know, I’ve dated a lot, you know, but it’s just never worked out, you know.”

No, they don’t.

Single year after single year, I have slowly devolved into the relationship equivalent of the Elephant Boy. People at dinner parties whisper and stare when I enter. They turn their heads when I glance their way, avoiding eye contact for fear this socially paralyzed form might approach them. I proclaim my normalcy as I slog my way toward their frightened cliques, howling indignantly, “I … am not … an animal!”

Okay, so given that playing field, where does one 47-year-old guy with a 30-year-old attitude go to find a woman? If you say, “online dating services,” I will club a baby seal, I swear. Online dating is like eating a T.V. dinner; the box has this awesome photo on it along with masterful descriptions: “country-style gravy and tender meat morsels.” But, when you open it up, it’s nothing like you imagined. It’s cold, frozen … ordinary. You try to heat it up, stir it around, add a little this, add a little that, but it’s still freeze-dried, preprocessed wannabe food.

Same with online dating.

Because there are no regulations when it comes to online dating services, the participants are free to place whatever photo and corresponding description they so choose. A colleague of mine went out with a guy once that she met through Match.com and she said the only similarity he had with his photo was that he was male … she thinks. When it comes to online dating services, there are more men and women filling out false reports than steroid-using ballplayers. Where’s the regulation, man?

Online services should do what baseball-card manufacturer Upper Deck did years ago. To prove the authenticity of each piece of its memorabilia, the company places a hologram seal on the item which certifies that Upper Deck personally investigated and confirmed its authenticity. The only way you get the hologram is if Upper Deck’s people approve it. They should do the same for online dating services.

You say you’re only 39? Cool - we’ll just have our investigation team confirm that information and slap a hologram on your profile. Oooops, whoa, sorry, dude, there’s a problem here. Yes, your age is correct … eight years ago! No hologram for you, gramps. And stay away from the college campus!

Oh, I see, miss, you say that photo is a recent one? Excellent. Waaiiiit a minute, honey, it appears that photo was taken before you started hijacking shipments of Haagen Dazs. No hologram for you either.

C’mon, online dating world, help us thwart online dating fraud. I’m tired of frozen dinners.

My name is Jeremy Baka and I approved this message.