Hey Shmuz,
I think your profile looks pretty good. You are way too young for me, of course, but I wish you luck. Given my editorial bent, I would change the following, just to make your profile easier to read:

"Attention: I'M REALLY PICKY. :)
My name is Susie. I'm a senior in high school. I'm pretty shy and insecure at times, so the guy I'm with has to be able to deal with that, and also a bit of stubbornness.
I love being outdoors, playing sports or whatever. I love to draw/doodle, it's how i express myself.
Being a good conversationalist is key, and so is a good sense of humor. You have to be able to laugh at yourself every now and then.
I'd REALLY prefer someone living in my area. If you don't, then dont expect much. I'm sorry, but long distance relationships dont work for me.
Wanna know more? Hit me up."

Hope you'll forgive my taking the liberty. Again, good luck!

Looks pretty good. You are very specific as to what you want, which limits the number of people you'll meet. That said, if you really know what you want, that might be a good thing.

I have a knee-jerk reaction to the "just be taller than I am" line of a rather hostile nature, but at least you didn't preface it with something hypocritical like, "I don't care what you look like."
Good luck!

I actually think your profile's pretty good, B_S. You seem to know who you are and what you want right now. You'd look better if you smiled in at least one of your photos, though.

Maybe if you just shortened your profile blurb. You could probably summarize that entire paragraph into: "Looking for girls with low self-esteem. Will mistreat you and leave when I'm bored. Message me if you miss your last abusive boyfriend."

Hmmm ... I suppose it isn't any one thing so much as once they start to add up. I can deal with baggage, we all have some, but once enough of it starts to pile up, one has to assume that all of this craziness didn't collect around her by coincidence.

So, we've pretty much established in one of the threads below that most of us feel it's unreasonable to ask your girlfriend to give up her dildo.

So, asking your boyfriend to give up porn - reasonable, unreasonable?

Ummm... it could be just me, but it sounds like this guy is pining over a movie star or the like, which is way beyond pointless, and a little sad. Angelina Jolie is not just waiting for some guy she's never met to say he's in love with her, and neither are most celebs. Further, if it is someone you know via their media presentation, then you probably don't know them at all.

Give it up, dude. Try dating people you can actually meet/relate to. It's far more satisfying.

I'd never ask a girl to do this. That said, why is it that so many women feel alright with demanding that their guys give up porn if so many of you feel so strongly about YOUR toys? We're very visual creatures, and a picture on the screen is no more competition for a real woman than a 6-inch piece of vibrating plastic is competition for a real man.

Yep, according to your Dr. Reilly, I too should not exist, since my parents (happily married for almost 40 years now) are Catholic and Jewish respectively.

I'm sure these generalisations were the product of serious thought by Mr. Reilly, but they are still blatant generalisations, and humanity just isn't that simple. Whether people split up because of personal conflict, cultural conflict, racial identity, or any other factor, it's never that easy to predict.

The good Dr.'s theory is not born out statistically at all. As it happens, the only major prediction regarding divorce which has ever been demonstrated to be statistically significant is marrying before the age of 20, and even there a given couple may well break the curve.

I say, if you truly love each other, go for it. Why limit dating or marriage by something as superficial as race? Now, if you actually can't identify with each other, that's different, but then why would you get married in the first place?

Lol, if the rock was "whence I came", wouldn't I have already crawled out from under it? Thanks for your feedback. I'll totally disregard it as useless, but I appreciate your taking the time to reply all the same.

Obviously, obviously, and somehow I'll live through that disappointment. Sorry, you did ask, and that was as polite as I could bring myself to be. I thought you deserved to know how offensive to the eye that profile was going to be to anyone who values language. Good luck.

Gah. No offense, but your profile is an editor's nightmare. I don't know where to start. OK, yes I do. Quit with the Caps Lock. Also, one comma is fully adequate for any usage.

Hi Woodrow,
Please forgive my taking the liberty, but editing is something I'm good at, so hopefully I can be of some small assistance. It has always been my opinion that clarity and ease of reading counts for a lot, so, with that in mind:

"I'm looking for a woman to be my best friend and lover. I have two sons, my youngest, who is 5, lives with me part-time (hard to explain, ask me later) & my oldest, 9, lives with his mother.

I need to find someone who loves kids, but who also understands they don't need another mother, but rather someone who cares for them. I'm not against having more kids, but not right now.

I like to stay active by playing sports, going camping, or just going to the park with my youngest son. I'm a carpenter, though work is kinda slow until spring, when I'll be working a lot again. I also love to cook for those I care about.

I have only a few close friends that I've known for many years and I like having people around I can count on, and who also count on me.

I love to play music and am currently learning to play guitar after playing drums for 12 years. My roommate plays bass and we play as much as possible. I'd like to find someone that can also play or sing."

Being another member of the lip-whisker club, I can't entirely agree with those above. Choices we make with personal appearance are at least as personal as any other choices we make in life, and you look like a reasonably handsome guy to me. If you like your mustache, rock it like it's the coolest thing since sliced bread, and then it will be.

Good luck!

Thanks for all the feedback, guys, I really appreciate it! I'll get some more pics up tomorrow.

You're definitely cute. This is just my take, but making your blurb easy to read counts for something. I'd make the following changes:

"The name is Sara. I'm a crazii, outgoing, full of energy kinda girl. I’m fun and easy to amuse. I love snowboarding!! Well, I love falling down. Ha ha hah, I'm still trying to learn.

Don’t judge me because in the end you will be wrong. I'm usually an open book, but a lot of my pages are scribbled, some empty, some torn. It's your call if you want to judge a book by its cover, but I think I'm worth figuring out.

I’m not punk, prep, skater, jock, scene, or any other stereotype, and I never plan on being one. I make mistakes, but who doesn’t? I live life to the fullest. I act like a retard in public places. I’m an embarrassment to my friends. They love me anyways. I ain't Mike Jones so keep my name out your mouth *****.

I hate backstabbers and all the gay drama. I'll be there for you, but don’t expect me to know everything. I don’t drink, smoke, or do drugs. You WON'T intimidate me, so don’t try. You think I care what it is that people think they know about me? Ha. Ha. Ha. Don’t make me laugh, because I won’t stop.

I don’t know what I would do without my friends - they are pretty much my everything. I want a fairytale, but what girl doesn’t? I never wish to marry, well maybe to the right guy, but he'll have a hella of a time proving he is.

I’m not popping any kids outta me, but if I do end up with one, might as well go for two. I figured out that people aren't always what they seem to be. I love to watch movies and hang out with my friends; it’s a good way to pass the time. I also love photography. I take way too many pictures. I can keep secrets but I won’t tell you mine.

Life goes by fast, if you don’t stop to take a look around, you could miss everything. I don’t like to plan ahead, cause if it doesn't happen, I feel like I let myself down.

This is my life. Choose to get to know me. Trust me, it’s WORTH IT."

Hope I haven't offended with my editorial instinct. Good luck!

Just curious to hear what people think of my profile. I think I need to swap the photo out, but I'm never sure how I come across ...

Just thought I'd put this out there - if I proposed getting as many of us MD Just-Say-Hiers together for a big group outing next month in DC or one of the outlying regions of MD, would people be interested?

At the end of the day, while they make a lot of valid points, pick-up artists just annoy me. I can be, admittedly, a somewhat shy and awkward guy. Surprisingly enough, I'm fine with that, and it hasn't ever been a major hindrance to me. I'm bright, I'm sweet, I'm not hard to look at, and I know what I have to offer.

Frankly, the most use any of these "dating manuals" was to me was in helping me avoid the women I didn't want to be dating. Yes, I can do "smooth". Perhaps not quite as convincingly as a guy twice my height with good cheekbones and deep soulfull eyes, but I'm a damn good public speaker, and you'd be surprised how easily many women can be swept off their feet by words alone. I have tried it, and I'm not bad at it.

I also don't do it. Every time I've played the game, I've regretted it. Why? Because I ended up with game-players. Bollocks to that. I prefer to just date the women who want to be around me when I'm acting like myself. Go figure.

Syndel - But is autonomy, at least in the sense of independence, truly to be desired? We could quibble over translation and word choice, but I find this aspect of your note more interesting.

Certainly no man or woman, save the few of us willing to live lives of true solitude, can ever truly be autonomous. From birth to death we are beholden to someone, influenced by our love for others, dependent upon others for things that we need, and reliant upon friends and loved ones for the support which gets us through the day.

Admittedly, you answered one point of the post just by expressing familiarity with the story (yes, I'll admit it, I have a soft spot for well-read women who are willing to argue about obscure literature with me), but I'm also interested in your take on another aspect.

To offer one concrete example: You have had a terrible week, you're PMSing, and you are just feeling sore and irritable. Should your guy be asking you what your want, or showing up with aspirin, chocolate, and foot rubs without your having to ask? Which is worth more, the chance to get exactly what you want, or the romance of not having to ask?

The answer to the riddle of the Black Knight from Mallory's Arthurian Tales, "What do women want?", was choice. At least, according to Mallory. Obviously, women today have a great deal more opportunity to be self-determinative than did women in Arthurian times. That said, my question is this: to what degree does this answer still apply?

Ladies, would you prefer to be making the decisions, or to have your guy show some initiative?