Help Wanted

You know, it's weird how much opposition there is to people living on their own terms. I mean, why isn't it something everyone wants? From outright dictators to democratic socialist governments to controlling parents, it's as if no one understands, or wants to believe that everyone is a person and that people need to live for themselves. There's no way around that, there just isn't. I can't understand why anyone would feel any other way about it, to me, living for others or other people's principles feels exactly like drowning. Today in the paper's Parade magazine, everyone's favorite cellist, Yo-Yo Ma, was talking about the need to move beyond self-interest. He says that there is more to the cello than practicing, you must "learn about the world" and that you are "part of things bigger than yourself". Yo-Yo has recorded more of the cello repertoire than probably anyone in history; he has 50 albums and 16 grammies. Many of his most recent recordings and projects involve "native" and "tribal" musics from around the world. I'm fine with that-- explore whatever silly, screaming, hooping and hollering "world" music you want, some of it is not so bad, especially the Brazilian album. What I do have a problem with is the assertion that until you assume some sort of position within the "grand scheme of things" (whose scheme is it, exactly?) you are not a whole, happy person. Think of all the people who struggle through autocratic households, governments, and relationships just to have someone of immense credibility (due to his talent and intellect) tell them how empty they are for wanting to be self-interested. Yo-Yo Ma's own parents escaped both autocratic China AND Nazi Europe. They have essentially experienced the worst examples of what Yo-Yo is praising so highly. The lesson to learn here is that, well, there are lots of kinds of intelligence. There's one kind that is rare though, the kind that, upon realization of human nature, wonderful, singular human nature, has the honesty to admit that it is the most important facet of life there is, and that no other facet can contradict it without disatrous results.
I have a lot of standards when it comes to dating men, but I think that the most important one starts with this kind of intelligence. That is why i still have no boyfriend, because when I go against this principle, it always ends badly because it isn't something you can hide from. No compromise can make it possible for you to live with someone who differs on so fundamental a level. one of you knows that you are one person on the planet with one life that you cherish, the other is someone who feels that they can surrender their life to the global society, that people are more important than persons.

So, it's out now why I've broken up with my last two boyfriends, and why I simply don't date. I go out, I get laid (occasionally), then they don't hear from me again. I don't do this often, but what else do I have?

Well, this is a casting call, a help wanted ad. I come from a severely controlling family and have had to struggle to cultivate the identity I wanted, from wanting to be openly gay to wanting to be openly talented, openly intelligent, opnely self-interested, openly atheist, openly me. If you're the guy who undertands this, and who understands that it isn't just an odd little idiosyncracy, but the best quality of being human, then let's get together. If you want.