What is it about women that they can't stand to see their male friends remain single, anyway?

Take my friend Natalie, for instance - for years now, she's been trying to marry me off to someone, anyone, just so's I got married. She's getting more and more desperate as time goes by. One day in Red Lobster the perennial subject came up, and I asked her why it was so important to her that I get married anyway.

She replied, "Because you need someone to take care of you."

I replied ,"I don't need anyone to take care of me, I can take care of myself"!

Her reply was a sarcastic snort. Our waitress, who happened to witness this exchange, seemed to find it highly amusing, I don't know why.

Okay, the idea of getting me married is insane on the face of it. I mean really, who ever heard of a married reclusive hermit?! Oh, wait, my dad was one. I guess there is precedent. Reclusive hermitism isn't all it's cracked up to be, either. I never planned to be a reclusive hermit, I just ended up turning out that way.

Take it from me, it's not for everyone. But I've never really wanted to get married, either. It would be a massive adjustment at my age. Still, I must say that way back when when I did have a girlfriend it was pretty nice.

Even if I wasn't a hermit, there are still other formidable obstacles to overcome. Take for example if you're straight but single at my age then: a) you're divorced. Leading women to suspect you are impossible to live with. b) never married. Leading women to think you're really strange, and might just shoot up a shopping mall or something some day.

In my case they probably do have reason for some misgivings; while I'm highly unlikely to shoot up shopping malls I am a bit strange, and I probably have less dating and relationship experience than the average high schooler. Caveat Emptor.

Natalie's biggest frustration until lately has been her inability to get me to even approach women. Hey, Mom always told me not to talk to strangers! Besides which, the better-looking they are the more they scare me. Now her biggest frustration is that she thinks I'm going after women that are way out of my league.

First time was at the Gypsy Rose when she made me ask a woman to dance. She pointed out a table of women and said "take your pick". Well I'm no dummy. I didn't want to dance, as the closest I've ever come to actual dancing is when I smashed my foot with the sledgehammer one day. So I asked the youngest, most attractive woman at the table, safe in the knowledge that she would turn me down. Worked like a charm!

Next time was a couple weeks ago, at Sing-Sing. There was a beautiful young woman in her early 20's at the table next to us. The waiter brought out their drinks in little buckets with multiple straws; in a fit of curiosity I asked her what it was. "Long island ice tea!" she replied. "They make them spicy here, they're yummy"!

At least that's what I think she said, it was pretty loud in there. About an hour later their waiter brought out big syringes full of something colorful, and proceeded to put whipped cream on the ends. My curiosity went into fits again.

"Jello shots!" she replied quite chipper.

Soon after that a larger table emptied out and they moved the ten feet down to it. Another hour went by when I got the urge to tell her I thought she was beautiful. I don't know why, I had no intention of trying to hit on her or anything, I just wanted to tell her. So I went down to her table and said "can I tell you something without you freaking out thinking I'm trying to hit on you?"

She laughed and replied "well I probably will freak out, but go ahead."

"I think you're very beautiful," I said.

She said "I'll take that as a compliment."

I said, "Good, because that's all it was."

And I got up and left. Natalie was all over me about this, saying I was shooting way out of my league and that I probably frightened her. I don't think so. Puzzled her likely (puzzled me too!), but she sure didn't seem frightened to me.

But anyway, Natalie said she was real proud of me for actually talking to a woman, but proceeded to give me a big lecture on how I needed to settle for some woman within my capabilities of actually obtaining. She said that a guy should go no higher than five points below his own attractiveness to have a chance, unless he had something else special to offer.

She said that even if a guy was a ten, he'd have to go no higher than a five unless he was also a rock star or famous actor or multimillionaire or something.

So okay. I am, in all honesty, probably about a three on the one-to ten attractiveness scale. My countenance doesn't stop clocks or frighten small children, but it sure isn't going to land me in Hollywood, either. Okay, so 3 - 5 = -2. Great. The scale only goes down to one, so I take it that this means I should limit myself to pursuing non-human primates.

That just isn't going to work, I can't handle a woman with massive body hair, no matter how great her personality is! And what if we had kids?! Can you imagine the ridicule they'd face from the other kids, being of such mixed parentage? Not that there's any reason to think they'd want me, either.

Now, with a few improvements, like some liposuction, a personal trainer, a fashion consultant, image consultant, hair dye, tooth bleach, etc etc and so forth, I could probably climb up to a five. Hmmm, 5 - 5 = 0. So what would that be, almost human?

I don't think that's going to work either; there seems to be quite a dearth of monkey-human hybrids running around. Although I swear I've seen some gorilla-human hybrids, but they were all males. And I bet we'd still be facing that massive body hair problem.

So, what's poor Natalie to do? She's increasingly freaking over not getting me married, but says I can't have any woman I'd actually want (i.e. human, for starters). She says she's giving up for the moment, but we'll try computer dating come winter.

But I don't think that's going to work; I don't think any computers are going to want me, either.