That's as profound as I'm going to get today.

 

 

Twelve weeks ago today I got a mini-stepper and I started walking and lifting weights and swimming four times a week. I started eating completely differently, like 5 small meals a day and cut out all salt and processed sugars, just whole grains and proteins, and in the last 12 weeks I've lost 42 pounds.

I rule. Hard. If that's at all possible.

When you lose weight you get a lot of compliments, especially from people who don't see you very often. They're always saying "Wow. you look great!" which means, of course, that I never looked great before in all the years they've known me. Or maybe I just look great compared to how I looked 12 weeks ago, and not objectively great in the way they would say a rock star looked great, or an actor looked great in a skin-tight superhero suit. If that's at all possible.

Women who rejected you for years suddenly seem interested, and I like to be charitable and think that losing weight says more about your character and personal discipline than just how you look to other people. They ask me things like "What are your weight loss goals?" and having been overweight for so long it's hard to have a specific number in mind, although when I'm at my most charitable I probably shouldn't say things like "My goal is to look so good that you want to kill yourself" to women like that.

The worst part is not having clothes that fit, especially walking around in big ol' clown pants and baggy shirts. I used to leave my shirts untucked because I looked too big, and not I'm finally thin enough that I can tuck them in except my pants are all saggy so I have to leave them out, and then I look homeless. And I can't buy new pants yet because I'm still (cross my fingers) losing weight and I don't want to have to buy all new clothes in another 12 weeks. I've even lost a whole shoe size, which I didn't forsee....and you know what they say about big feet? I just hope it isn't true.

But I feel like a new man. I look kind of like a new man, although even the people who rave about me the most still all seem to know that it's me.

 

 

Three weeks ago today I joined an online dating thing. I wasn't getting rejected enough by women I knew in real life, so I reduced my entire existence into 19 salient talking points so that thousands of women within a 300 mile radius can reject me more efficiently. They say its all scientific and they "match" you by all these personality points, but I'm still not convinced, based on the ones that they've matched me with, that we're not all just matched randomly on age and location.

The first thing they do is have you fill out a profile, based naturally on what you think of yourself. In a way, this is when it's good to have a background in sales. Because basically it's what you're doing. In a way it would almost be good at this point to have other people describe you, like your ex or your best friend or your mom. And while that would mean that I would probably get a better picture of who it was I was talking to, it would also mean that someone reading my profile would probably get a very incongruent picture of me and read things like "John is a sweet boy and everyone loves him, and in high school he got drunk and drove a golf cart off a cliff, and by the way he's the devil and I hate his guts!"

And it's good to recognize social trends at this point in getting to know someone. Like, why is it that everyone has to be proud of whatever they are, and love themselves? Even people who are depressed just kind of accept it, and say "This is how I am". Overweight people say they're "big and beautiful"....and while both of those are subjective terms, it's also overlooking the fact that they can both be changed. You can't change your race or your family background, but you can get up off your ass and lose weight, and you can get treatment for depression, and you can get help for whatever else your problems are.

Some hot girl says "I'm difficult to get along with" and I'm supposed to say "You're not so bad" and then she takes comfort in that, but afterwards, whatever else she does or say, no matter how much of a total bitch she is, she says "I told you I was difficult to get along with." It's a built-in excuse. It covers every insane, bitchy thing she will ever do, and you can't argue.

Anyway, I've learned to watch for key words and spot the crazy ones, but even so all the profiles kind of blend together after a while. Everyone says their priorities are God and family. Everyone says they're kind-hearted and looking for someone honest who doesn't play games. All that means is that they don't want someone to play games with them. And in the meantime, while they're stringing you along and telling you how busy they are and don't want to rush things, they're devoting their energy to other people they meet online: People who are more interesting, or at least more adept at lying and playing games. Which they said they didn't want.

My problem with computer dating is that I don't look good on paper. I'm not rich and I'll never be rich and I don't want to ever be rich. I have two kids and a crazy ex-wife. I live with my parents and drive a Saturn and I cry at Hallmark commercials./ So I tell them all the bad things about me first, and see which ones reject me. Most do. I call it the George Costanza approach to computer dating.

 

 

I'm really no good at concluding these things. But I remember about a year and a half ago I was talking to an ex-girlfriend and I was telling her how much I had changed since the divorce, and it occurs to me as I'm writing this how much I've changed since I tried to convince how much I'd changed since the divorce. The biggest change being that I can't think of anything I care less about than what ex-girlfriends think of me and how little effort I'm willing to put into trying to communicate with any of them.

 

And that's a good thing, even if it has nothing to do with anything else I've said so far.

 

I don't mean to imply that I've only met losers online. At all. I've met a couple that are totally cool.