Serial Monogamy, Part 2:

Math Camp is over, and orientation has begun. My classmates are very cool, and I am being overwhelmed with information.

You are taking these six classes with these 60 people in this cohort for this much tuition which must be paid by Friday or else you can't register and get us your resume by then too and get something ready for the Wednesday potluck and learn the bus routes because the parking passes are hard to get and only available between 10 a.m. and noon at University Hall and get involved in clubs around your 50 hours of homework and DON'T FORGET TO HAVE FUN!!!

Damn.

With this blitzkrieg of do-this-do-that and the specter of a grueling semester of core curriculum classes, it's an ideal time to be single. So why am I trying not to be?

When I got to Berkeley, I decided on an informal vow of celibacy, not even knowing that my grandma would later challenge me to "stay away from women."

But there I was in a pub on Durant Street, being chatted up and aggressively hit on by the waitress as soon as her shift ended, in front of 20 of my classmates, whom I was just meeting for the first time. (The waitress and I ended up having lunch the next week, but she was too young and a bit too crazy for me.)

And there I was on Day One of Math Camp, sitting in back, checking out the females, looking for diamonds on fingers, listening for mentions of boyfriends, trying to find out who was available and who was claimed.

And here I am, developing a crush on an exquisite, just-my-type classmate.

So, maybe the vow of celibacy is the wrong approach. Maybe I need the comfort and thrill of a female relationship. Maybe I should just date casually.

I have a friend who lives here in the Bay Area, who has always been known as a bit of a "player." He's a very good-looking dude with a lot of self-confidence and intellect, and he uses this to date multiple women on a casual basis. While in college, this made him more enemies than friends, in the Big City, it's another story entirely.

But I can't do this. When I check someone out, I'm looking for relationship material from moment one. If she's too boring, unattractive (to me), unintelligent, conservative, zealously religious, or wrong for me, I won't even go out on a date with her. If she's perfect, I want to own her and be owned. Thus, my pickiness traps me in monogamy and keeps me away from "casual dating."

I stated in my last post that "I don't want to be married." Some people inferred this meant "I don't ever want to be married." That is not the case.

As much as I like to hold this idea that somehow I am especially unique in this world, I have to admit that I have the boring, ordinary, species-sustaining dream of someday marrying and procreating and watching my little ones spawn grandchildren.