Mantra

No one will ever love me.

This is the mantra that goes through my head lately.

It happens every time I think about SnarkEx leaving me.

No one will ever love me.

Every time I consider my life as a 37-year-old short geeky divorced librarian with two cats.

No one will ever love me.

Every time I look through the meager prospects at an online dating site.

No one will ever love me.

Every time I get rejected.

No one will ever love me.

I was either optimistic or desperate when I re-joined an online dating site yesterday. It's the third time I've paid for a month's subscription, and coincidentally it was exactly one month since my last subscription ended.

I had widened my search to include any women within 250 miles and found about half a dozen profiles that looked promising. One in particular, Short Divorced Lady (SDL) really excited me.

I have an unfortunate combination of dating desperation and selectivity. Even though I'm desperate, I won't settle for just anyone. So when I find someone who matches my tiny window of demographic needs (physical compatibility, politics & religion, humor, education) I jump all over her. SDL fit that profile better than any woman I'd seen on a site so far. Plus her pictures were playful and adorable. Her only disadvantage was that she lives in a large city 170 miles away.

So far I'm 0-for-2 with women who've inspired me to join a dating site. And I've been rejected by half a dozen others. But with blind optimism I paid my money to respond to SDL's ad. I sent her a quick and clever (or so I thought, but what do I know?) message. I thought of responding to a few of the other ads at the same time, but none of them appealed to me as much, and I decided that I might as well go after the one I like the most first.

Meanwhile, I had a busy Friday evening and Saturday morning with tennis, where I lost two matches in less than 24 hours. After starting out the indoor season 12-0, I've lost three matches in one week. The first two were simply against better opponents, but the last match I played, I lost to a guy I'd already beaten a few times. He'd never beat me, until today. So I came home feeling like a loser. But I consoled myself with the thought that maybe it was time for me to lose a few tennis matches but win a few dates. I would gladly take that trade-off.

Then I checked my email. SDL had responded to my message! (This was further than I got with most of the others.) Her message was short: I recently started seeing someone...I hope you understand...

Of course I understand:

No one will ever love me.