About me: Recently I got a couple of kittens, the first pets I've ever had. For their first couple of days here, they spent all their time in hiding, but now they spend a lot of time near me, and often I can't get them off my lap. I'm delighted by their spontaneity. I'm amazed at how vulnerable they are, and how little they notice their vulnerability; evidently I've earned their trust.
But my search for a girlfriend is more complex than that. I want a life partner, not just to share entertainment and bed, but to share a vision and purpose in life. Saint-Exupery said "love consists not in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction." In recent years I've become a political activist, and I'm trying to make it the center of my life. There are 6 billion people in my family; someday I hope to have dinner with them all. Will you carry your protest sign beside mine? I want change, not ritual, so the meetings I attend are not in churches. Watching, shopping, voting are not enough. I admire service (pulling people from the river), but what excites me, what I want to share, is activism (going upstream to stop the $#% who's pushing them in).
I'm sometimes funny. I may burst into song (badly) at any moment. I keep lyrics ziplock bagged on my shower wall. I've already learned Vietnam Rag and Billy Bragg's Internationale; I'm working on Aint No Reason.
If you're looking for a companion for outdoors, concerts, fine wines, travel, it's not me. Proust said "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes." How about a cup of coffee? I do like movies; "Amelie," "Chocolat," and "Little Miss Sunshine" are delightful rebellions against conformity.
I'm looking for: Most of all, I like ideas and words; I'm looking for someone who wants to share long and frequent conversations and exchange incessant email. What are you thinking? feeling? My heroes are Lakoff, Lerner, Waldman, and Zinn; maybe you've heard of Zinn. They're all mentioned in my long essay about the Worldwide Progressive Movement; you'll find that if you search the web.
I'm a math professor, but that's not what I want to do on a date. That's not even how I see myself now. Decades ago I was seduced by math's promises of certainty, but now I see that only the dead are unchanging. Soros says the Achilles heel of an open society is the craving for certainty, the comfort of dogma; Buddha recommended learning to live with uncertainty. Is that like surfing, but writ large?
My political awakening stems in part from dating ads like this. Right after divorce is a particularly good opportunity to take a fresh look at your life, though any day will do. Writing my ad, I felt compelled not only to describe who I was, but to think about what I wanted to become. Will you encourage my becoming, as I encourage yours? I'm surprised that most dating ads are short, as though finding the right partner or finding yourself were of little importance.
Zen strawberries free me from stress, but Powdermilk Biscuits haven't cured my shyness. Actually, it's not so much shyness as unpresumptuousness, and a little encouragement cures it. Chemistry is crucial (send photo), so penpals in other cities need not apply. Friendship first; but, as Morrissey said so aptly, I am human and I need to be loved, just like everybody else does. Will you argue poetry and social theory with me late into the night, and conspire (breathe together) with me?
My beard is negotiable after the third date.