I'm an ostensibly intelligent, reasonably attractive, often amusing, usually kind and generally considerate character who is, by turns -- and sometimes simultaneously -- hopeful and cynical about the human experiment. (I thankfully seem to be tending more to the former as I finally leave behind the extended adolescence oft-permitted to the overeducated and overprivileged.) I have semi-succesfully pursued -- and pursue -- various-and-related careers in music, journalism and education, and I love and am intrinsically motivated by my work. In other words, extrinsic carrots like remuneration are, for me, mostly a vehicle for paying my rent and utilities, maintaining my summer cabin and purchasing entertainments and amusements, including meals in ethnic eateries, movie and cheap-theater tickets, recorded music and, perhaps most importantly, the books I partake in so greedily. I think I am -- and know I try to be -- honest, sincere and grateful, without being cloying.

Meet in a mutually comfortable setting and try to get to know each other, despite the jitters and shyness inherent in first meetings. Hopefully discover that, in addition to being attracted to each others' pictures and profiles, we have the spark that creates the sort of interest that leads to a second, third and fourth meeting, ad infinitum.