Down, boy! Waaaay down!

What would you think if you read this profile on an online dating site?

About me and who I'm looking for

I'm an easy-going, fun-loving guy. I look totally normal on the outside, regardless if I'm dressed casually or decked out to the nines. I enjoy really good wine, sports bars, barbecue joints, and sushi. I'm passionate about putting on a facade of well-adjustedness, taking care of women who are trainwrecks, and cultivating internal self-deprecation. Oh, Dad got me my job.

Do you have a SAG card you'll never use? Are you a wannabe model who'll never make the second cut? I'm looking for an unemployed woman who's a beautiful disaster, complete with terminal PMS and mascara smudges. I'm turned on by drug use, alcoholism, bank overdrafts, and irresponsibility. My dream girl will enthrall me for approximately seven dates before she starts moping, pouting, acting like a bitch, and treating me like total shit.

My romantic evening consists of the two of us getting shitfaced, slapping each other around a little, getting more shitfaced, and throwing up. I promise great make-up sex after the hangover wears off. My last girlfriend O.D.ed, so I need to find someone quick. Is that lucky someone you?

Would you go out with someone like this? Have you and not known it at the time? Hmm ... I see hands popping up out there in the crowd. 'Fess up. Time to tell our ghost stories ... let those skeletons tango out of the closet.

A long time ago, someone suggested that I write a blog about "dating down." The topic has been in the back of my mind, but I didn't know how to approach it. It's hard to write the words "date down" without attaching judgment to it. I prefer to refer to it as "dating dysfunctional" or better yet, "dating dumb" Because you start waking up in the morning, and that's kinda how you feel -- What's a nice girl like me ... ? The person you're with has earmarkings of normal only you find out that you're not quite their usual catch of the year. In fact, you're quite a step up compared to their usual fare. Er ... how'd they get so lucky to end up with the likes of you? And how did you end up so desperate to take them on?

I think everyone who's had an idea of the traits we needed to cultivate to become marketable material. Read some of the profiles on the dating sites to see the positive attributes to which people attest. If you want to be a "good catch," you're easy-going, even-tempered, and rational. You have a job that gives you a measure of independence. You have a good sense of humor, play well with others, only "drink socially, 1 or 2." You're someone that anyone's parents would approve of, and you are all these great things because that's how you've shaped yourself. People want this, right?

Well ... don't they? Nope. Not all of them. In fact, there's a lot of people who are looking for someone who's just as screwed up as they are. I have a theory that function and dysfunction cannot peacefully co-exist. Dysfunctional people feel, at core, uncomfortable with functional people; they can't relate to us, nor we to them. Magnets are magnets, and they have the same properties, but try to touch the opposite ends and they repel.

You're wondering how I understand this so well. Okay ... so, I remember a time of my life when I wasn't so functional, going through a period of black hole-sucking lack of self-esteem and doing nutty things as a result of it. The man I was engaged to was way, way too on the ball for my comfort level; I didn't feel comfortable telling him about how much I abhorred the differences I saw in myself compared to other people, my lack of confidence in everything I did, even though it seemed as though I had it all together. Inside, I was a quivering pile of chicken gizzards, ready to be tossed out or cut into the gravy. When you feel that way about yourself, a functional person feels like a threat. You might even resent them a little.

Nothing can be done to level the playing field other than to change the players and the game.

Gone are days of the drama-dysfunction queen. Doesn't everyone grow out of that? Ah, you'd think so. But not everyone does. There's been a few times when I see friends go through a long period of deep black funk, and they choose awful, awful men and women to mirror the dysfunction that they feel in their lives. It's situations like that when you really want to earnestly say, "Honey, I know you think you love this person, but doesn't the felony rap and meth addiction kinda get to you?" They date down. They date dysfunctional, sometimes they marry it, till death do they part.

I've dated men, even gotten seriously involved, who secretly craved "the down," and yes, they were dysfunctional. Most of them didn't look like creeps. But their idea of enduring love was my picture perfect of bullshit drama and petty wrist-cutting. The only way I could have held their hearts a little longer would have been to turn into the kind of person I despise. I would have had to yell and hit a lot. I would have had to be needy, passive-aggressive, heavily medicated, and broke. When it came to a record of social misdeeds, I would have had to acquire more than just a speeding ticket. Who wants to do this? Romance is supposed to be fun and fun-ctional, not built on a foundation of mutual depravity.

Since this is Halloween, I'll use a metaphor. You know those cheeseball haunted house re-enactments you see on the History Channel? The docudramas where the nice, well-adjusted couple stay in the blasted house, even though the piano plays all by itself, doors slam for no reason, and shadowy figures loom by their beds at night? I'm the one throwing popcorn at the screen yelling, "Leave, you dimwits!" Cheryl was pruning her roses when she felt a cold chill .. Oh, for the love of God, just leave already! It was then that Mark noticed that the door to the attic was ajar ... Now, here's a novel idea: LEAVE! Life with the dysfunction seeker is like inhabiting that haunted house. They're always trying to spook you, but all you want is a comfortable, stable home. Chances are you are going to leave ... if they don't exorcise themselves from the premises first.

Occasionally a friend will say something that sticks with me for some reason. It could be an old adage or a small thought. "Water finds its own level." A gal pal told me that when giving me sage advice about the entering the dating world. Look for someone with the same sensibilities as your own -- look for someone who shares the same lifestyle, the same social tabus, the same social mores. Don't be satisfied with someone who's dysfunctional.

Because when you do, you're only sinking to their level.