Why is it, I wonder, that the laws of the universe have decreed that no one you like is allowed to like you?  Or, more importantly, why is that the people who decide to fancy you are always completely unfanciable themselves?  I am one of the last of my age group of friends to remain single (note, I am 21) and most of my smugly hooked up friends have started trying to set me up on blind dates, or recommend a plethora of friends and cousins and classmates.  These aren’t so bad, I’m lucky to have escaped any truly awful blind dating disasters and the worst that has ever happened is that we just weren’t attracted to each other. 

 But there is another category, and a far more dangerous one!  These are the men who are impervious to hints, bricks, and restraining orders.  These specimens are generally surrounded by a fog of misplaced arrogance that makes rejection and projectiles bounce off of them harmlessly, and blinds them to their own social blunders.  The worst of these blunders, in my humble, professional opinion, is the backhanded compliment: when a man tries to impress you and ends up insulting you.  Whatever MTV’s dating shows may tell you (Mystery has a lot to answer for, in my opinion, and personally, I thought several of his techniques could have gone through a few more rough drafts before being inflicted on the viewing masses) trying to insult a girl is NOT the quickest way to her heart.  A friend of mine stopped me on campus the other day, a guy I haven’t seen in a couple of years, and when I was reintroduced to him, he did a double take and exclaimed, “Wow!  You turned out pretty!”  I felt my head tilt slowly to the side in confusion.  I knew he was trying to compliment me…but when he asked me for my number a few minutes later I simply didn’t want to give it to him because I still was reeling from the backhanded compliment.

Any thoughts?  Why is it so easy to attract people you don’t want and damn near impossible to attract the one you do?