On a note totally unrelated to anything but my frustrated need to rant, I am well (and indeed painfully) aware that standards for finding a woman attractive far outstrip my comparable capacity to pull. And you know what?

I. Don't. Give. A. Fuck.

Does it torment me to no end, knowing that I'll never attain that elusive relationship that I long for? Course it does. But this is what you get when you mix romantic idealism and physical shallowness in a single man...frankly, a mess of ill-founded expectations and an unwillingness to compromise poorly realized principles. Mix and match as one sees fit.

How does this break down, one may wonder (or not, as the case may be, but I'm ranting, so I feel the need to explain regardless)? It's remarkably simple, really. Although what the women I find attractive look like can vary quite widely in appearance, most will be readily identifiable as well above the 'league' of which my own appearance would give ready access to without a shining personality, hugely stuffed wallet or obscenely bulging trouser line (depending on each particular woman's peculiar bent). Based largely on the attitudes of the years in which I was raised and the literature I was prone to reading at the time, we find the combination that leads to my grossly inordinate sense of self-worth and, subsequently, entitlement to a beautiful, genius and compassionate significant other who would supposedly see past my selfish, conceited nature and love me for the person I never bothered to become.

Then we come to the other half of the dysfunctional spectrum, wherein the expectation people have that if you can't get what you want, you have to 'settle' or 'lower you standards'. This, and I don't mean to put too fine a point on it, is complete fucking bollocks. Who, in their right mind, wants to spend their entire life with some one who A) you settled for and as a result you spend the remainder of your life gazing longingly at more attractive people, consequently making the person you ARE with feel like second-hand shit or, possibly worse yet B) you know settled for YOU, who is constantly chafing against the boundaries of a relationship, incessantly looking for something 'better', which is undeniably unlikely to come along but they still retain that irrational and frankly hurtful sense of hope.

Do you see what I'm getting at here? Am I totally mad or am I making a valid point here. Part of the reason I felt the need to lay this out here is because...I'm honestly not certain. Maybe it's a sense of self-destructive derangement that causes me to think in these terms, but this rant best illustrates how I justify the lonely sort of existence I've taken upon myself.

It really boils down to this, I suppose: both too moral and too shallow to 'settle'.

How's that for a paradox.