Dear Good Man,

While I don't know the context behind this email, I think you are definitely being hard on yourself. Call me a cynic if you will but it has been my observation - both first and second hand - that most women don't like "good" men like yourself. We can call it the drama syndrome: how much fun or drama can to be had in discussing Plato or Dostoevsky or co-joining with you in going to a play or a concert when the tantalizing options of being swept off their feet/ being seduced/ being overwhelmed/ being well, well lubricated, are ever present, and are ever important on the scale of what they, i.e., most women desire? This in some cases is taken to the extreme of putting up with men who are given to the emotional and physical abuse, not to mention the whole song and dance - or should we call it science - on how men have to act like jerks (Google the terms "PUA" and "negging" sometime for enlightenment) to hold the interest of most women.

Should this lead to you throwing in the towel or even worse lead to despair? I think not for I am sure God (or the Devil) has given at least some of the females of the species the bright bulbs on the top of their heads to spot a good man, i.e., you. Also since this has devolved into an exposition, with your permission, I will make it into a blog post.

Best of luck on your fiction writing - that is something that will, perhaps, endure time.

Best. Sleepy Relationship Theorist

PS: I also realize that the converse of the above theory, i.e., most women don't like "good" men might be true, given the high degree general female angst on this subject. Which of course leads us all to Woody Allen's quip: "masturbation is sex with someone I love".

The morning he turns 29, he finds himself staring fondly at the many flavors and wonders of dog food in a North American hypermarket (it is a minor part of his most current job task), and wishes that he be born in his next incarnation (assuming the Hindus and the Buddhists have the aftermaths figured out right) as a dog, which is blessed with a few special abilities that would enable him to still read books, enjoy music etc, and also has perhaps a better availability of XXs in his neighborhood.

...

His mother goes to the temple, or so she tells him, and gets a special pooja performed for him. Since now he has his economics figured out, i.e., he brings home a salary that can be modestly boasted about, obviously his marriage is what a significant part of her prayers would be geared towards - the boy has only 365 days left before he crashes out of the Indian marriage market, and he is bloody lost, with his head in the clouds, wanting to be a writer, a world traveler, a cosmopolitan idiot.

...

March 7th, 2009. I have had this tradition of writing a poem on or around my birthday but this year I am so drained, both physically and emotionally, that ironic humor should suffice. Let's see what the year holds, and brings.

Kind reader, you who were searching for "buck naked oenologists" here, please let me know if you find some either online or offline. I wouldn't mind quaffing vino with one such oenophile even though I have no nose for terroirs, appellations etc. The upside, however, is that I tend to become color blind when suitably lubricated.