28 and counting

I'm not really that conscious about my age -- usually.

I'll be turning 28 soon and thinking how to go about celebrating it has unexpectedly stirred up many startling realizations. My little cousins are now in college... the last batch of freshmen students I taught in UP are now looking for jobs... almost everyone I know has either gotten married, has a partner or has a kid.

Everyone that is, except me.

This just confirms what my family and friends have come to acknowledge as the greatest failure of my life -- the fact that I am a relationship idiot.

To this I actually have a ready reply - "It's not a problem, I'm happy."

But am I?

Of course it wouldn't hurt to have someone to cuddle with on boring Saturday afternoons. My problem is that I have such high expectations. Now, before my great but terribly honest friends start laughing, let me qualify this to refer to my standards.

The standard is really simple. A good enough looking person with a good amount of wits, a great sense of humor and a way or at least a plan to sustain their own lifestyle and who isn't a Lasallite.

I've dated the whole lot of them -- great lookers, brilliant minds, rich brats. The tough part is finding someone who's all that or least some good measure of all that. To date I have held out, kept the faith.

But turning 28, has for the first time made me feel that I'm really not getting younger and that maybe my hopes are as horrible a delusion as my belief that Doug Kramer could eventually learn to play basketball.

For a 28 year old, balding almost pauchy, at times disinteresting guy to find someone to spoon with - must one willfully lower one's standards or will this step down come naturally with age?

Then again, maybe I should be asking if I fit the bill.