The more things change, the more they stay...

unchanged.  That's what I'm pondering this morning and it relates mostly to...

Internet dating.  I haven't been on a date at all in nearly ten years.  Oh I've gone out with friends in groups, or in one on one situations with women that were strictly platonics.  Damn, reminded me of one of the few decent jokes in the James Bond film "The World is Not Enough" when Bond is asked about his relationship with the woman behind the theft of a nuclear bomb loaded with plutonium.  He says their relationship is now strictly plutonic. 

So while I was bored last night, I surfed around the web and touched on a few dating sites.  I won't mention the sites, and I wasn't really looking for a date.  Nor am I repeating my experiment of years ago, and seeing if women will respond more readily to the profile of one man over another when everything else is the same, save financial security.  More on that later.

If everyone who claimed to like long walks and bicycle rides in their personal ads actually owned bicycles, there must be a lot of bicycles out there gathering dust in utility rooms, garages or basements.  And there'd be a lot more people out walking, holding hands in romantic locales like the beach near sunset or at night.

If everyone who puts in their ad they want someone they can communicate well with, and share the future with, they'd all be happy with one of the first few people they hooked up with, since they've all learned to become such great communicators because of their past relationships.

Many, when asked to provide a brief history of themselves make a joke about their life is too complicated to be described briefly, or some other play on the word brief.  A lot of those are writers, and didn't someone once say "brevity is the soul of the writer"?

Photographs on dating profiles should come with an expiration stamp.  I remember one blind date from long ago where when the woman turned out to be five years older and looked very much different than the photos we'd exchanged said "well, I feel five years younger so I don't think I was being less than honest."  When asked why she'd supplied a five year old photo, she said "I didn't think you'd come if I'd sent you my current photo."  She was correct in that assessment, btw.  Not because she wasn't attractive, but at the time I wanted to date someone my age or younger, and because her profile had been interesting, I stretched my upper age limit to two years older than I am.  Her dishonesty made her 7 years older.  In my mind, at that age, it was too big a gap.  I still was thinking about kids, and her age kind of ruled that out.  So enough about dishonesty in dating profiles.

Another thing I'm pondering in this is what's up with guys and their obsession with lesbian women on on-line dating sites.  A friend of mine who belongs to match.com, who is a lesbian, showed me her "matches" a number of years ago and within the last few weeks.  Both times, when she searched for women seeking women, there were some guys who popped up as matches.  So either they're confused and labelled themselves as women seeking women, or they're deliberately trolling for lesbians because they...I don't want to speculate on their real motives.  Just note it as inappropriate and move on.

Another thing I'm pondering about this and then I'll move on, are people who have very specific notions of what they want and if people don't fit into those parameters, reaching out to them is a waste of time.  There were personal ads in the L.A. Times that were big back in the mid to late 1990s.  One of them that ran for months on end at a time, and overall for at least three of four years was from a Jewish woman (I'm not picking on Jewish people, it was just one of the things I remember about her).  She was 5'2, but wanted a man who was:  5'10" to 6'4 (no taller, no shorter) who was in very good shape, with a full head of hair.  "No baldies, no fatties" in her ads.  He had to be a Reform Jew, employed, financially secure and physically active.  Now I see nothing wrong in wanting specific things, but when your laundry list becomes too long, the chances of you finding anyone who meets all those criteria shrink considerably.

Someone on Twitter just asked if I could go back and change one day in my life, which would it be and why.  The answer is easy, but to explain why is complex.  Back in late 1983, I was stationed in Mississippi and I got orders to go on a one year tour of duty in South Korea.  While I was at personnel, the clerk pushed me to choose what's known as a "follow-on" assignment.  Pick the U.S. base you want to come back to, after your one year tour was over.  I didn't want a follow-on assignment, but was pushed and pushed until I finally chose a base near Las Vegas.

Then when I got to Korea, I loved the new job and was offered a chance to go to Japan for a three-year controlled tour to move our unit's headquarters there.  I would have been part of a two-person advance unit working almost completely free of local supervision.  It would have meant almost certain early promotion.  But because I had that stupid follow-on assignment to a base that wouldn't release me from it, I lost out on the opportunity.  I've learned since then to not let people push me into doing things I shouldn't have done.  It was too late though, that brought about the end of my military career.

I suppose I should be grateful.  Had that not happened, I'd have never spent 17 wonderful years working at Crossroads.  I'd have stayed in the military, retired after 20 to 28 years of service and started a new career.  I'd have a nice pension now.  And no, I'm not complaining.  But I would like to see how that would have worked out, if I'd been smarter on that day.

Life has no do-overs.  Act in haste and repent in leisure.  Cliches to be certain, but well-worth studying and following.