Email: Catholic and single [JB]

You're probably best served, as a woman, to stay off Internet dating unless it's through something inherently Christian like eHarmony (though scumbags can slink onto there too). I have to realize that I am an exception when it comes to men on the Internet. In fact, that's why I stopped looking for someone with just a bachelor's degree; if I have to winnow through 7 out of 10 college graduates who can't spell much less express themselves coherently, it's just not worth it.

A man who wants to talk about sex right away is a man who wants sex right away. Furthermore, he has boundaries problems and is probably trying to manipulate you into a similar state. What you said resembles what I warn every [man or] woman I speak with and will teach in my seminars: "Men are strategic; they will say or do whatever it takes to get what they want." If any of this makes sense to you, please let me know; I can use the encouragement, since this world has enough naysayers.

Your artistic sense is special and to be celebrated. Yes, writers tend to be attracted to artists and vice versa, because they both have an esthetic intensity and an inner passion that others cannot understand. Though I have lived that all my life, MK first made me aware of that (in so many words).

You can and (I believe) will find someone special. It may take waiting until the moment when you no longer care either way. I am beginning to suspect that such moments of equanimity -- when we can go either way -- are a moment of grace in our spiritual and human lives. I suspect others would agree.

I do agree with you that there is a conservative way to live one's Catholic life, and a less conservative way; and that God smiles on either one, since he did not make us all the same in matters of taste, even if conservatives tend to more often than not turn matters of taste into matters of morality.