Bartleby, I could have written this letter when I was about the same age you are. The few dates I went on were never repeated. I was constantly ignored by the male species (I'm female) and I honestly thought I'd die alone.

Finally, I decided that if I WAS going to be alone forever then, by God, I was at least going to make the most of my life, be happy with who I was and not worry about finding "that special someone". On a whim, I put out an ad on the Yahoo Personals. Within a month, I had exactly two replies - one that was, clearly, NOT whom I was looking for, and the other one? sounded intriguing. So I shot back a reply (it had been a month since he'd emailed me, so I started off with "Sorry it took so blood long to get back to you. . . .") and within half an hour, I got a phone call. We talked for four hours. He called back a couple days later, and we talked for another four hours. We agreed to meet that Saturday, and at high noon on May 2, 1998, I met a fairly nice looking man who I felt very comfortable with. At 4 pm that afternoon, we both were struck (for me, it was quite literal - I felt as if I'd been hit on the back of the head with a shovel), and realized we were VERY MUCH in sync.

We've been married for 14 years, 4 months, and 24 days. It hasn't all be roses and butterflies, we've had some very bad moments, but we've weathered the storms and we're still very much together.

In short, don't worry. If you want to change things, maybe start by checking out groups where you and the others have something in common - one great place to start is Meetup.org, another is volunteermatch.org. Sometimes meeting in groups is easier than trying to meet one on one. As for being picky, look at it this way: You're searching for the person who is worthy of YOU. Don't compromise and don't settle. When you do find the right one - and I fully believe you will - you'll know.

Finally, you might want to look into counseling as well. I spent years feeling like I was not normal and dealing with depression - after counseling, I was finally able to understand WHY I felt as I did, and then take the steps necessary to change the things I could, and to learn how to let what I couldn't change just drift away.