Yyyeahhh...I'm probably above this kind of juvenile post, but honestly, I've been alone for all but one Valentine's day and the rest feel like Hallmark continuously dumping on me for one month out of every year. You can claim that holidays are what you make of them and that Valentines are for friendship and love of every sort, but there is no running from the messages of sex and romance that every grocery store and cable network is going to loudly thrust at you from early January to mid February like clockwork.

I can't believe I'm 25 years old and have only gone on three individual dates in my entire life. Only two of those went beyond that first date, and both ended in nonsensical fashions I can't begin to explain, neither by my own choice.

I'm one of those people who simply cannot be happy outside of a relationship, whose every single dream and goal in life pales in comparison to finding a relationship, and who spends every waking moment going subtly crazy with relationships at least partially on the brain, yet some of the most vile, oafish, ignorant, mean-spirited and pathetic people I have ever met had triple my number of girlfriends by the time they were even out of High School. It's my own fault, really. The idea of introducing myself to someone new is incomprehensibly petrifying. I've never made any attempt to indicate interest in someone, I wouldn't even begin to know how, and I honestly wouldn't recognize a flirt of any sort. My only strategy is to wait and hope that someone else will make the first move, and make it obvious. You can give me "tips" and detailed suggestions all you like on how and where to meet people, what to say and what to watch for, but to me it'll only be unusable gibberish.

I've lost count of how many stupid personals sites I'm on. I just keep signing up with them, browsing profiles and messaging who knows how many people that I've never heard back from no matter how normal, nice, and not at all desperate I try to sound. I've only ever spoken to a single person on such a site that I thought could work, and that became the single most crushing failure I have ever known.

I come off to a lot of people as completely beyond these kinds of issues. I've had people online tell me that they thought I was asexual. No-one really thinks of me as having a libido, perhaps because it just isn't something I see any reason to talk about, but I'm as crazy over this nonsense as any tragic sitcom protagonist. It rules my entire subconscious, and deep down, every single thing I have ever done, including art, is a subtle call for attention in the hopes of finding that one person I'll connect with in just the right way.

People will tell me not to worry because these frustrations are all perfectly ordinary, but these same people have still had ten times my success.

Anyway...five words I thought for sure I'd never say in my entire life: I think the maggots detract.