Dear Parfois,

Before I get going, and I will get going, I do wish to repeat an earlier sentiment that I believe I expressed about your profile; and if not, not exactly, will now. Of the now hundreds and hundreds of women's profiles that I have scanned & read and of the couple hundred I've hunkered down to respond to, yours remains one of the few best.

While I am preaching to the choir, allow me for a moment to lapse into that cliché in order to establish at least an e-semblance of common ground. Using this site as a hitching post for mutual booty is, while desirable, to squander its very usefulness through such narrowly defined limits. As you wrote when you lapsed into the warm spot of sincerity in your profile that you'd "like to meet quality people that I can learn from, share stories and experiences with, and perhaps exchange a solid friendship with," that, in its broader sense, is a far more, dare I say, evolved perspective and higher purpose.

And it is in this regard that I can say I have been pretty successful so far. I have definitely met people with top-notch minds and world perspectives unlike, but mostly still compatible, with my own. Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, I have been able to watch how I myself change, evolve, process, deal with, and manage the different situations in both cyber-life and sidewalk-life that I have encountered here or as a result of Match.

For example, without going into the sawdust and details, I have been on actual dates with inconsiderate women who pick their teeth, make numerous cellphone calls, and are generally rude throughout a lunch date; but, even while there is not even a thanks for my taking them out, what I learn is that I am, in fact, a gentleman. Sure, it's easy to be polite and kind and charming when I'm sitting across from a beautiful, well-educated, self-aware person. But the test of who I am really comes when I follow through with a commitment I have made to spend my time with someone whom I can see right off the bat has not had the many advantages that I have had in life, and, as a result, lacks both the grace and poise that comes easily and naturally to me. Then, how do I as a human being behave? Then, how do I as a human being treat who is, when you get right down to, another human being? And how I do that is all important. In the end, it is simply my being a decent person. We will all, and we all do have, dealings with goods and money and people and relationships and items--all the stuff of the world; but HOW we do this is what makes an actual difference.

I have also had brilliant and gorgeous, highly successful Harvard PhD's, whom I have called a mutually accepted end to a relationship with, beating two Fridays later at my front door. And it is here that I learn the painful lesson of not allowing, in spite of a person's obvious intelligence and appeal in many ways, another's personal issues to overtake me, by locking my door before her and drawing that physical barrier between us, knowing, of course that I am not only protecting myself, but that my doing this is also for her own good.

I have exchanged notes with people who are mystical, whose depth and insight draw me to know them and how they view the world better.

I have met fellow travellers whose bumps and bruises feel akin to my own; and feel that I have collected, perhaps, here, of all places, a new genuine friend for life.

I have watched my own heart and mind open up in many unexpected, unknown places; and, while many, if not most, of these encounters are fleeting, they all change me. That, really, is the point: to do things in life that continue to change me. In that way, of course, I continue to become.

So, I like how you put it that you're not selling stock here; it isn't an IPO, exactly. No, you like me, in your way, have done (or do) an initial screening through this site, either with your profile or the responses you get from it. Mine, as it is written, only attracts a certain crowd, if you will, of people. I won't spell 'em out with adjectives. I, like you, am not selling myself to the public. If I were, believe me, I'd do it completely differently. You, on the other hand, go about it by spoofing the Asian Girl image, in essence, by first projecting that in your initial image---elegant, made up perfectly, almond-eyed beauty and all that--and then go on to twist the panties off nearly every FOB rice-dick reading your profile--whether the jerk-off gets it or not. It's simply a different way of screening, but, I think, with or toward the same result: seeking quality people.

And that is where the "crazy and small world" you write of becomes exciting, I think. In a way, it might be something like the Temporary Autonomous Zone that the thinker and writer Hakim Bey writes about, and which I admire. Look him up if you're not familiar with his writings. The vanity and misfortune that can occur is the mistaken and false notion that you or I are the only "smart" and aware and feeling and deep people in the world; or, that there are "few" of us; or, that we are a "dying breed." All that is true vanity. And it is simply, and thankfully, not true at all! We are many, and this putative schtupping site has, more than anything else, spelled not you out (as you forswear you're doing in your profile), but, far far more importantly, underlined how many there are of us in the world to me.

Egbert