trying something different

I have unsuccessfully attempted the following dating strategies over the past year:

• dating out of convenience ("hey, he's the only one around!");
• dating out of a desire to reclaim misspent youth ("he's only seven years younger...and so what if he doesn't have a job?);
• dating someone because of a supposedly spiritual connection ("we aren't having sex because we're doing this right this time");
• dating for the social credit ("if I date him, then my standing will go up in this community"); and
• dating out of boredom ("really, is there anything better to do?").

It occurred to me his afternoon -- or, really, last night, as I was looking at the Date and Dash options and saw one of them was ONLY for folks with at least an MA -- that it would be infinitely more fun (and, one would hope, satisfying), if I actually dated:

• people with similar intellectual capital (so to speak);
• people who enjoy doing the same things I do (literary events, plays, indie concerts & films, etc.);
• people who are successful at what they do (not necessarily materially but definitely spiritually) and/or have already figured out what they want to be when they grow up; and
• people who know not only what postmodernism is but also why the (right-wing) media portrayal of the entire subject is both tiresome and inaccurate.

Since I've finished grad school -- with not one, but two, MAs -- I've not dated a single person who even had a college degree. And every man I've dated for the past 10 years? I've made more money than they did. (And I don't make THAT much. And I don't care if you make squat as long as you're passionate about what you do -- but none of them were.) Something made me think, today, that perhaps it's because I didn't think I deserved anything more. (Not that blue-collar or non-degreed folks are "less" -- just that there is a lack of a shared experience that has proved problematic.) I think (mostly due to my childhood, during which my parents wouldn't let me talk at all about my intellectual accomplishments) I've spent a lot of time downplaying who and what I am, and that needs to stop. So, then, the rules are updated:

1. If you want to ride this carousel, you've got to take some action to make it happen. No free rides.
   
2. Paying customer or no, permission to ride the carousel is solely at the discretion of the operator. (That would be me.)
   

More, I am sure, to come, as I muddle my way through this whole "being true to myself" thing. (Note: as I write this in my flannel nightie and fluffy slipper socks, I'm enjoying life quite immensely. I heart myself.)