The Pile of Questions

Dearest Rachel –

I’m sure that you would tell me that I’m a too bit free-spending these days, dropping money on frivolities that I neither need nor even want, if I really were to think about it. Granted, part of it could probably be attributed to the combination of prices going up as our portfolio falls in value; I need to conserve what I have for my old age, when health care (as well as so many other things) will be that much dearer. And I wouldn’t argue with you about such a point; while Daniel and I still may have ‘enough’ to get us by, as the amount constituting ‘enough’ rises with prices, we do have to be more careful.

Still, most of my indulgences are fairly small, and even when combined in a single credit card bill, they aren’t exactly overwhelming. In fact, even an extravagance (if you can call it that, since we had both long agreed it would be an eventual necessity) as remodeling the kitchen pales in comparison to the ups and downs of our portfolio in a typical month. It’s just that the downs that we’re currently experiencing rather consistently should give one pause before reducing our holdings further by spending in great amounts. Add to that the fact that you might justifiably hold out this particular case as an example of throwing good money after bad, and I will offer a mea culpa in abashed agreement. To be fair, though, I most certainly wouldn’t be spending on this if you were still here.

I probably need to explain myself; you probably have questions. Well, we can add them to the pile.

Despite the pretty decisive failure of the online dating service I’d subscribed to, it still seems to be the way of the future in finding someone who is actually looking for the same thing I am – which is to say, a new permanent relationship. Our friends, while supportive, were closer to you than to me (for good reason), and with the new dynamic, while they want to remain friends, that’s all they want to be. It leaves me a bit sad, as our own experience taught me that it’s best to be friends first before trying to move into anything deeper, but each relationship has its own challenges (to put it mildly) with regard to advancing further. So, I have come to accept that, while still trying to balance how to deal with everyone in this friend group. As for making new acquaintances, this has its own difficulties that I hadn’t anticipated, and may take more patience and time than I think I have (which, admittedly, may be a failure on my own part). So, when I looked into another such online service claiming to have a much more comprehensive matching process, I decided to try it out, despite my previous experience.

I’ll give it credit, the questionnaire was extensive, addressing various angles of relationship issues that wouldn’t have occurred to me, but upon reflection, are worthy of addressing. For example, one asked about one’s opinion on leaving a bedroom window open; since I only discovered a window cracked open on your side of the room as I was investigating the situation with the wall heater, I have to conclude that I’m not generally all that concerned (as opposed to those vehemently opposed to, or insistent upon, having it open). Then again, our bedroom (sorry, I still think of it as such) is larger than many people’s living rooms, so that may make a difference.

Some of the questions had a very Rorschach test vibe to them, including a set of pictures, for which one is asked to click on a preference for one over the others. Now, I vaguely get why this would be so, but their insistence on not thinking too hard about the choice suggests to me that I might give very different answers from one day to another. If I were to approach this on a different day, in a different mood, I would wind up with a very different profile to try to match against others – who are also just as vacillating in their ‘true’ preferences as I am, most likely.

Additionally, some of the questions, don’t have the sort of response I would choose to give. There’s one about the climate whose responses run from panic (“we have to do something about this!”) to despair (“I don’t want to hear about it – it’s too horrible”), without any room for healthy skepticism (“I think this may be overblown – either that it’s happening at all, or that mankind is primarily responsible for it”). This, despite the fact that our profile includes a section on political alignment, running from very liberal to very conservative (and, disappointingly, a majority of the few matches I’ve already been presented with wind up in the ‘liberal’ camp, I should add. While I’ve known since college that this is common of men and women, at this point, this is almost like pairing up people of different religions) – you’d think they would include responses that a conservative might make. There’s also a question about believing in the inherent goodness of mankind, which only run the spectrum of various degrees of ‘yes’. From a strictly Calvinist point of view, there would need to be at least a qualified ‘no’ option – after all, one can believe in the doctrine of ‘total depravity’ without devolving into Hobbesian cynicism.

Meanwhile, I wonder if I might be misinterpreting certain questions. You might remember, during our premarital counseling, we took such a test, where one section covered certain things having to do with which of us in the relationship had this or that right or responsibility. There was one about initiation, which I took to mean walking through a first time. Since I had generally studied the mechanics (although more than willing to acknowledge that book smarts don’t necessarily translate to practical ability), I took that to mean this was something I should take the lead in. As it turned out, it was meant to be an ongoing situation, wherein either of us should have the right to initiate things: “Honey, let’s do this.” It was so out of character for me that even Pastor Gerry (who you’ll recall, barely knew me, as he was your pastor) called me out on it, at which point I explained what I thought the question meant. As soon as he clarified what it actually meant, I quickly retracted my answer, and we all had a good laugh about it. There’s no one to explain the question here to me; I might wind up making the same mistakes here as I did back then, but with no realization that I’m thinking of something completely different from what the questioner had in mind.

But as you see, the questionnaire was fairly detailed; and yet, with gaps in it large enough to send matches that I know better about almost instantly. I’ve already mentioned the liberal/conservative spectrum, and their question about religion only allows one category of “Christian,” which seems terribly insufficient. But even beyond that, the essay responses can be quite revealing, and not in a promising way. I’ve met one respondent who listed as her trusted advisor an author, rather than, say, a parent or a pastor, like I would. Okay, she’d moved here from Europe some time ago, so she doesn’t have those kind of roots, so that’s fair. But I looked up the author, and while he’s famous enough to have his books be a part of Oprah’s Book Club mentions (which, for a guy, might well serve as a red flag in and of itself), his philosophy seems to be a jumble of Eastern and Western religion, which doesn’t bode well for either of us understanding each other. Definitely a case of being ‘unequally yoked’, as the expression goes.

Still, there is a promising aspect to this rigmarole; it’s much less likely that a bot or a catfish would go through this process. This is for serious inquiries only. Although, this begs the real question: am I serious about this? It would seem that, on the eve on leaving the country on tour, I’ve chosen an odd time to subscribe to such a service. Maybe I’ve become jaded about whether this will work that I’m not taking it as seriously as I ought to. Then again, I have – against what might be my better judgement – signed up for this, so… let’s see where this goes.

For the moment, though, honey, all I can ask is for you to keep an eye on me, and wish me luck. I’m going to need it.