Made Of Fail Part Three: I'm Too Picky

The most common assessment of why, when it comes to women, I am made of fail that I’ve heard from friends and family throughout the years of my singlehood is that I am “too picky.”
I’ve never been certain as to the basis for this claim, nor have I ever been entirely clear on what its implications are.
Such a claim would seem to suggest that the world around me is literally teeming with available women with whom I could couple if only I were less finicky and more willing to simply reach out and pluck one at random.
If it is indeed the case that there are available women everywhere I look, the real issue isn’t that I’m fussy, it’s that I’m blind (even with the Gentle Molding), as I sure as hell don’t see them.
What I do see when I look around are married women pushing strollers, immigrant workers who barely speak English (and are probably married), and men. Lots and lots of men.
And I’m pretty sure that most of the people who say I’m too picky aren’t finding fault with the fact that I’m staying within the boundaries of my heterosexuality, so the men aren’t worth consideration.
The total number of available women with whom I have consistent contact can be counted on zero fingers. It leads me to wonder, then, if choosing not to hit on married women – in particular women who are married to friends of mine – counts as being too picky.
Of course, someone could easily jump on the qualifier “consistent contact.” What makes me too picky, it could be argued, is that I’m too particular in determining who I should hit on. I should instead simply take a “shoot at everything that moves” approach and indiscriminately ask out every woman I encounter, however briefly. Bank tellers, cashiers, salespeople, fast food workers, women shopping, 911 operators – anything with a pulse should be considered fair game.
Of course, one problem with that approach is that I usually avoid human contact whenever possible (which, I think, is probably a more relevant issue than my perceived pickiness). Then again, the self-checkout at the grocery store does have a female voice, so is a pulse really a requirement?



I suppose that my unwillingness to simply throw myself at every woman I see can legitimately be regarded as being too picky. After all, should I really be dissuaded by something as trivial as a nun’s habit? After all, women simply love desperation, and it makes them feel special to the 100th living body that some guy has hit on in the past hour. How could a girl do anything but give me her number under those circumstances?
Honestly, though, it’s more of in the way of reluctance rather than pickiness that prevents me from taking the shotgun approach to dating. There are only so many times in the course of a day that I’d be able to withstand hearing, “Eww, no. Get away from me.”
So maybe the solution is to avoid the personal approach and do some sort of mass-mailing. I could cover more ground and avoid the immediate and personal rejection if I sent out some kind of flyer similar to those “Have you seen me?” things that you get in the mail with pictures of missing children.


(The above is in no way intended to trivialize the issue of missing and exploited children)

Getting back to the implications of accusing me of being too picky, I can’t help but wonder what’s really being said.
Is it being suggested that I have some impossibly high standards that no ordinary woman could hope to live up to, as though I’m sitting around waiting for Scarlett Johansson or some Victoria’s Secret model to just show up at my door and pledge her undying love to me? Sure, that would be cool, and the idea can rest safely on the “When pigs fly” pile of life’s hopes, but it’s clearly not the case that I’m holding out for something like that to actually happen, or that I’m turning women away because they’ve failed the Scarlett Johansson/Victoria’s Secret pre-screening.
When you consider that you’re talking about someone who married the first girl he ever dated and who once asked out – and was shot down by – a woman who was, at the time, at only 19 years old, pregnant with her third child, the issue of “impossibly high standards” kind of gets thrown out the window.
Another possible implication is that I have no business having any standards at all and that I should settle for whatever swamp-beast is willing to lower herself to my level.
I don’t think that’s what’s being implied, but it’s possible that a case could be made for that interpretation.
But that does bring up the issue of settling. Some of the people who have called me too picky are themselves married. Did they settle? It seems to me that you’re unlikely to have a terribly fulfilling relationship if you’re looking at your significant other and thinking, “Yep, she’s what I could get.”
To further complicate matters, many of the people who would argue that I’m too picky would be the same people who would tell me not to settle for just anyone.



So which is it? Settle for just any random woman who seems like she might be willing to rut with me, or hold out for the “right” one? How do you go about finding the person who’s right for you without having standards or exercising any kind of discernment in the pursuit thereof?
I suppose the response is that you still have to be “kind of” picky. You just have to avoid going to extremes.
Ultimately, despite what anyone else may say, I don’t think that I’ve gone to an extreme level of pickiness. If anything, the real problem is that, for a variety of reasons, I’m not even bothering to try picking, though how much of an issue can that be when there’s nothing to pick from?