Stages of Desperation: your descent into the abyss

We all know that one person who grows more desperate the longer they remain single.  Their intense desire to have a relationship and get married begins to slowly warp the mettle of their mind. The more desperate they get, the funnier they become.

Mr. (or Miss) Desperation, this one’s for you.

Your very normal descent into desperation looks something like this:

• You must have a 10, because you deserve it. Nothing less will do

Nothing wrong with wanting someone attractive, and when you’re still in high school, you might not realize that the opposite sex is, in fact, also human. We can forgive the foibles of youth.

• You are now willing to tolerate minor skin blemishes if the candidate is has an incredible personality and a long list of personal accomplishments

This is a much bigger step forward than it appears, because now you are beginning to acknowledge that other people are more than just pretty things to look at. Good for you.

• Hair color becomes optional
• British accent no longer mandatory, but still nice
• They don’t have to captain the lacrosse team or lead the cheer squad

At this point, if your rapidly-declining standards do not yield a good candidate, you begin to take drastic action:

• A 9 would also work, you suppose. It’s close to 10.
• You begin allowing 8′s to talk to you too, just to keep your options open
• You begin allowing people into your presence who hadn’t already been pre-marked as options

Making friends is, in a way, the boundary line of desperation. You would make them come to you, as they ought to, if you had utter confidence. But confidence is a luxury of the lonely. And you’re tired of being single.

• You reluctantly attend a party with the robotics club, just to scope it out for a hot-ish mate who is also smart. Money is a good substitute for looks.



• You agree to a (very secret) date with the president of the Prime Number Club. He looks like Napolean Dynamite, and you don’t understand a word he says, but a guy this smart is bound to be rich someday…

It is important to note that money is the second tier of attractiveness, the cheap substitute people use when they want to console themselves that they had to settle for a 6 or 7. Some people have been known to settle for a 3-4, provided the money was good enough.

People who can’t even marry into money become truly desperate. Reduced to simply looking for people, they become hungry fish, biting even unbaited hooks. You start chasing anybody you know.

• (men) You start asking out older girls
• You re-date ex’s who might meet your new minimum requirements
• Friends’ ex’s
• Friends (and you ask yourself why it took you so long to think of this)

Now your life is not only devoid of romantic relationships, but you are also friendless (because you dated your friends). In your abject desperation, you start looking for new ways to lower your expectations:

• You begin giving brownies (AKA: the signing bonus)
• Twice-divorced (with three kids!)
• Thrice-divorced felons still serving their second term

But this is not the lowest depth to which desperation can fall. Oh no, not by a long shot.

• Join e-harmony.com
• (Women) date younger (or shorter) men
• Start friending random girls on Facebook

• Polygamy
• Russian mail-order-brides
• Listing yourself as a mail-order bride

Ah, the silly things we do for love. And then, out of nowhere, this clown comes looking for you:

"Hello, gorgeous. Where have you been all my life?"