Based upon your letter, the problem is not with you. This is true for the majority of lonely men. The problem is that modern women - even some old enough to know better - no longer equate intellectual/emotional intimacy with love.

They "need a hero."

They "want to be wooed."

They want you to talk about shoes, shopping and soaps.

In other words, they want you to be a bizarre mixture of cowboy and girlfriend. It's basically nuts, but then our national, social culture has been batshit for over twenty years.

Bottom line? Every single (no pun intended) man or woman I know who is in a healthy, loving relationship got there by sheer LUCK. What nobody will acknowledge in this God-foresaken "winner take all" culture of our's is that about 90% of finding love has to do with pure, dumb luck. Let me use myself as an example.

In 1997 I met an incredible woman through a traditional match-making service (not on-line, which is a human disaster area). I was between jobs at the time, and here is how the stars misaligned for me:

1. I had just interviewed with the company I would eventually work for, but the COO was refusing to sign job reqs because their industry had just come out of a slump.

2. I had agreed to fly to Rochester, Minnesota for an interview at IBM's giant facility there because I was getting desperate and didn't think the other employer would follow through.

3. My new girlfriend had been viciously dumped by her former fiance three years earlier, so she had abandonment issues.

4. After our second fabulous date I had to fly to Minnesota because my eventual employer still wouldn't sign any fucking job reqs.

5. A week later they STILL weren't signing them, so when my new girlfriend asked if I was going to take the job in Minnesota I told her I didn't want to but might have to if I didn't get the job with the other employer.

That was it. I literally never heard from her again. She is now married to someone else. That's how frighteningly easy it is for everything to go wrong. What the other LWs here with good relationships refuse to admit to themselves is how much of a role this kind of dumb luck - good, in their cases - played in their relationships. After all, that would mean they aren't as charming, smart, good-looking, whatever as they think they are, and we can't be having any of that, now can we?

Just be yourself, continue to seek friendships with women and eventually, if you're lucky, you'll bump into the right one. That's almost ALWAYS how it happens.

It was Noam Chomsky, in his book "Synctactical Structures" that revolutionized linguistics (along with a lot of other disciplines) almost fifty years ago. It was HE, NOT Steven Pinker, who first posited the theory that language is innate. If Pinker is making the opposite claim he is a complete fraud, not to mention a liar.

Columbian or not, American coffee was notorious as swill right up to the 1980s. Starbuck's, Peet's Coffee and the late, great Gloria Jean's Coffee Bean changed all that. NOT Juan Valdez.

Besides, anyone who really enjoys fine coffee knows that Jamaican Blue is the best (and at $50 a pound, it ought to be).

No pun intended.

I sometimes look at clips on beautifulagony.com or youporn.com to get my motor running, but I NEVER masturbate to porn. Never have, never will. Like most women (apparently), I lie down on my bed and let my imagination do the walking. Considering I'm not in the greatest health right now, my once-a-morning wank is somewhat impressive; but I've always had a volcanic libido.

As far as frequency goes, I feel the urge several times a day. I do not and have not diddled myself in the men's room (my God, what if my boss walked in?!). I've just had to imagine cold showers. If I worked for myself or was independently wealthy, and if my health was better, I'd say twice a day would be about right. And it is important for a man's health. Men who regularly ejaculate (with a lover or alone) are less likely to get prostate or testicular cancer.

Slate beat you to this topic by about three weeks.

Slow on the uptake, man. Slooooow on the uptake.

Final Cut Pro and Premiere are unleashing our inner Fellinis.

And I'm unsurprised and unperterbed that she was dragged off. But going after the "pink ladies" in the audience was outrageous. And did you look at the rest of the spectators? Not so much as a bleet out of those sheep.

Man, is this country in trouble.

...the Best in White Bread, watch "Red State Update"!