Nine Reasons you may be single

Okay, I'll begin with the requisite update on my duel in order to keep things interesting. Heretofor, I have not received a reply to my very legitimate request for dueling rakes after omlettes. I'd added the omlettes to try and increase the likeliehood that the duel will take place. However, our basement was not flooded on our return from Ocean City. Like most Americans I enjoy grousing about how hard my particular lot in life is, or, at the very least, talking about how things have gone downhill nationally. The hard part about not finding water in your basement, or having someone slight you at work or whatever, is that it really gives you nothing to speak about, no hardships to overcome and thus no interesting stories, or convoluted belief systems structured around the world's general inidifference to your happiness, which, to the best of your knowledge/desire, it should be all about.

Random aside in which the author breaks down an MSN article.

9 Reasons you may be single-My time is too valuable to spend reading the actual article. S has suggested that I become an efficency advisor or logician laureate of the United States in my next job, largely due to suggestions that I'm about to offer up for free here.

Slightly related comment based on speed limits in small towns. Why are the speed limits when you're traveling through small towns on old country highways always lower? Anyone who has seen Deliverance knows that the main thing people in small towns hate is the presence of outsiders. Ergo; wouldn't it stand to reason that the speed limit should actually be increased from say 55 to 75 when a person is driving through a small town and thereby decreasing the amount of time spent ruining that town? It's just logic, plain and simple.

Back to the 9 Reasons you may be single.

1) You are not married or in a relationship. People are going to constantly think that you're single if you're not married or in a relationship. Get in the ball game already. If you're not in married or in a relationship, get in one. This may be the largest prohitive factor when it comes to you still being single.

2) You don't go out on dates. As a non-single person, I've discovered that one of the key components that keeps you single is not going out on dates. Listen, I've been there. I understand that the allure of a four hour run of Bravo reality television and that last treasure in FF14. However, not going out on dates makes it tough to date people. This is all gold here, and I'm giving it away for a pittance.

3) Nine is an obscenely large number.

4) You talk about yourself. In general, the one person in the world who everyone in can agree is the most interesting is themselves. Don't waste time talking about yourself. If someone else tries the same tactic with you, ie refusing to talk about themself and deflecting all conversation back to you it's imporant to swtich tactics, create a false person, speak freely about them, give that person, who should be totally unrelated to you, a good job, and a dog, and a good measure of mental health. Then, at the end of the date, reveal to that person that you just made up all that stuff you told them about yourself, and ask them what they think of it, thus, deflecting the conversation back to them.

5) You may still be single because you haven't read this article about Iran in the Atlantic. Develop an opinion about important things like nuclear capability and willingly accept that it's a necessary part of being involved in a democracy. Insist on keeping your mind flexible and open to the possibility of change.

6) Watch lots of television but then hide that fact.

7) You do not have a bar in your basement. I can't stress how important it is to have a bar in your basement if you plan on not being single. A recent survey of club managers, made up right now, found that 97 percent of them were married or in some kind of relationship.

8) Nine. Really? Come on MSN.

9) You're a misanthrope. Hey, look, as a people moving misanthrope myself, I know it can tough to meet people when your first reaction is to hate them. It generally makes conversation difficult when you already assume you're speaking with a cockroach taking up space. My advice to the misanthropes is to pretend like everyone you meet is an elderly person crossing the street with a cane. Sure you still dislike them, but at least you can muster up enough kind-heartedness to help them across the street and by the time you've reached the other side, and they've told you all about their cat's vasectomy gone wrong you'll probably have figured out that they aren't so bad and that what you had originally mistaken for an old person is an attractive young man in a tasteful collared shirt.

Good luck!