by Michael Avila

Created on: August 21, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

I just finished meeting my third match from the LoveMatch site I joined last month and it appears the feeling was not mutual. What I mean to say is, I definitely felt something, but from the pained expression on her face when I asked if she'd like to meet again, I could sense she had other plans for her future, and none of them involved me.

The funny thing is, the two women I had met previously on this site had expressed their hope that we might meet again soon, and it was yours truly who had to do all he could to keep from jumping out of his seat and running away.

Isn't that the way love is though? (Note: I use the term 'love' as merely a point of reference. You may wish to call it something else.) We covet what is unattainable and that which we easily obtain we can't wait to get rid of.

I am in my forties now and have come to the realization that, more than likely, I will never meet the woman of my dreams. Oh, I may meet her, and possibly even shake her hand, but beyond that she will want nothing to do with me. And please, can we at last and forever put to rest the part about being "just" friends. There is no way to be just friends with someone you truly desire. Either you will go insane and end up being committed, or you will commit a desperate act and end up having to plead insanity.

The question I must ask myself then: Can I survive the rest of my life being single? Or should I just take whatever comes along and be done with it? (Well, that's actually two questions, and the second one may even be trying to answer the first one, but I digress.)

I have male friends who are married with children who repeatedly say to me through gritted teeth that they wouldn't want it any other way, that they don't understand why I don't find someone and settle down and get right with the world. "Don't you want to be happy like we are?", they might ask. If I'm feeling lonely when they say this to me, I start to wonder if they may have something there. I even might tell them: "You know what, you just may have something there."

On the other hand, if I'm feeling good about myself, and I hear their kids screaming up a storm in the next room and their wives asking them if they're ever going to fix the "damn" toilet, I leave their houses grinning ear-to-ear and the world looks new to me again.

Choices, choices. To be or not to be.

Such is the eternal dilemma of the single male.

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