I’m running out of oxygen–that’s how deeply I’m holding my breath in right now. I’m still holding it because I’m afraid that if I have air in my lungs I will use it to say everything I’m so desperately trying to hold back. Unfortunately, a blank page is nearly the only place on earth where I give my thoughts and emotions free reign. Thus, I feel compelled to preface this blog post with the following true statements:

1. I do not hate men. I promise. And, furthermore, I really have met a lot of very nice and charming and otherwise good ones who have never made me think they might really be aliens.

2. I am not angry.

3. I’m going to undoubtedly feel very sorry for this entry about two minutes after it is posted. I usually do. So, should you be one of the unlucky few who, upon its posting, read this before 2 minutes has passed and find something within to which you find exception—fear not! Chances are, the whole thing shall soon be deleted. On the plus side–you could just wait 2 minutes from when you first see this post to read it and then all possibly contrary statements will likely have either been deleted or edited.

Okay. Now that all that has been said…

Men are aliens!!

Let me just be rather bluntly honest for a minute. My social life is non-existent. Crawling into a tunnel at the McDonalds play space and spending five seconds talking to a kid other than mine constitutes the extent of my social life. I can’t even tell you the number of times I’ve been told I need to date, or socialize or “meet people.” I often feel like Wheeza in “Steel Magnolias” when the rest of the women are telling her she needs to broaden her horizons and she angrily replies: “I’m nice to people! I saw that husband of yours just the other day and I smiled at him, I couldn’t help myself!” Maybe I’m not quite so resentful of the human race (yet) but I really do live a solitary life. So I put up an ad on a dating site. Not that I ever –really– intended to meet someone from one of those things again but, quite frankly, I’ve had more success at those in the past than I have in real life. So up goes my profile.

And it’s at this point that we can insert the aliens.

At first, it was kind of flattering, the sheer number of responses. And then I read the e-mails. At first, I rolled my eyes and hit Delete. Then, after several more, I sighed heavily and changed my settings so that I wouldn’t get an email notification when I got a message. Finally, today, my Enough meter exploded. From that site, I deleted my profile. A few reasons why…

1. Insincere flattery isn’t only annoying, it’s disrespectful. You’ve never seen me in person, so how do you know I’m beautiful? I could look even better, or a lot worse, than my profile photo. Writing literally nothing but a sonnet to my beauty doesn’t make me swoon as declare you Romeo; it makes you sound silly. Besides that, how many intelligent men really believe that the best way to impress a lady is to compliment her imagined dress size? While I do want to be pretty, I want to be liked for who I am more. If you wouldn’t say to a woman you don’t know what you’re typing to me in your very first message–what makes you think it’s cool to type it to me? Must be because you’re an alien.

2. Why are you going to email someone without looking at her profile first? I know you didn’t read my profile because clearly stated therein I mentioned the fact that I’m a mom at least three times. Also, to the question “Would like more children?” my answer is yes. Your profile, however, has the following answer to the same question: “Definitely no!” How, then, do you foresee any sort of a meaningful relationship developing? Maybe because you’re alien.

3. Sexual innuendos, on a good day, make me weary. When I don’t know you from Adam, they strongly offend. My bet is that the same applies to most women. Also, never, ever assume you know what I’m thinking or what I want because even those closest to me often have no idea what I’m thinking. What makes you think I’m going to just drop everything and “come meet up” in an entirely different state (which, if you’d actually read my profile, you’d know is a problem because I clearly state I don’t want to leave this town) when I don’t even know you’re a human? Must be because you’re an alien.

Men are, for the most part, decent people. I like to believe that. Mostly, I choose to believe, they hold intelligent conversations. And most of them see children as the precious and beautiful beings they are; most men, I like to think, are capable of actually interacting in good ways to children. Most have matured enough that they are capable of focusing on more than animalistic impulses.

So why do they act like aliens?