Even given my less than centerfold standards, Lincoln Park's coffee shops are a bust (pun intended). Potential partners for sharing a spiritually elevating exchange are few and far between. No one is making eye contact except for the baristas, and try as I might, I cannot project images of two children, a cat, a dog, and a white picket fence on the girl demanding $1.75 for a cup of the house blend.

You: A punk rock girl at the end of a long shift at an all-night convenience store. Your impatience and attitude made you all the more attractive and exciting.

Me: Buying pornography.

A morning el ride isn't much better. All potential candidates are either putting on make-up or are half asleep. The Loop provides a slightly more aware demographic, but everyone is in a hurry and there is little time for perfect moments. I'm also starting to feel a little bit creepy trying to make bedroom eyes at professionally dressed young women on street corners. There is an exciting moment when I realize I could follow someone, accompanied by the harsh reality that doing so would be even creepier. It also occurs to me to actually talk to someone, but this would be forcing it, and would be counter productive, as it might actually lead to something.

The ace up my sleeve it the Art Institute. It has to be the Art Institute, and not the MCA, since contemporary art is too snobbish, or the Science and Technology or even the Field Museums , because any woman interested in WWII submarines or dinosaurs would require drastic “please give me your phone number” action.

The institute presents problems of its own. It has been a few years since I've been, and I had forgotten just how much is there. Walking through I get a bit overwhelmed. I get driven into a frenzy looking at the medieval stuff, and am positively foaming by the time I work my way up to the twentieth century, not even looking at the work anymore, just fighting to keep a list of every artist I recognize, cataloging it for a time when I can spend a week walking through the museum. I get so worked up I'm half way out the door before I remember an arty looking blonde that was staring at me in gallery 236. As I piece it back together, I have to cringe. Here's this bright, attractive, sensual young woman practically begging me to look her way while I'm enraptured by the nearly pornographic imagery of drug addicts in Larry Clarke's “Tulsa.” Bad form. I'd look in the missed connections sections during the coming week, but I doubt I'll show up.

Me: Tweed jacket and wire frames spouting a list of obscure literary theorists and hair-brained ideas about the novel you've been reading, stupidly unable to come off as smart without being condescending.
You: Really unimpressed.

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