Two more days until Valentine's Day, that fateful day devoted to making you feel like crap every year for being single, and making money off of your feelings.

It occurred to me, just yesterday I believe, that I sort of instantly fell victim to the disdain for Valentine's Day almost immediately, without much thought. As soon as I saw the signs in stores alerting us to this day's nearing presence, I couldn't help but feel a slight bit depressed.

But, why?

The thing is, Valentine's Day is marketed towards love. I haven't really got a problem with romantic love, in fact I would like to have some. Perhaps what I hate most of all is that there is an absence of love in most of today's modern relationships.

Everybody's just looking out for themselves, and trying to further their own goals anymore. They see members of the opposite sex as short-term entertainment, rather than living, breathing people.

When people think of buying candies and flowers and lingerie for other people nowadays, it's because they're using each-other. If they're buying cheap candies and flowers for other people, it's because they're preparing to break-up. (If they're buying cheap lingerie, it's because they're just plain cheap.)

I think maybe I've confirmed an old and sneaking suspicion I had over a year ago, about attraction between members of the opposite sexes.

We all have a "ranking" on the totem pole, so to speak, and that means we're limited exclusively to people within our own pools of "attractiveness".

For the past year, I wanted so badly to prove this suspicion wrong. I thought if I could keep my self-esteem up and keep myself looking alright, that I could date women who I thought were too pretty for me before.

My results suggest that maybe, in the short-term, it's possible to have a fling with someone slightly more attractive than one's self. But in the long-term, the only way we can hope to maintain a relationship for more than a couple of weeks is to lower our standards.

It's pretty simple. Women are selfish, and only want to date men above a certain "rank". Each imperfection you have, no matter how trivial, takes points away from you and effectively lowers your "rank". Women - who have much less trouble meeting men than men do meeting women - will take every opportunity they get to surround themselves with potential mates. Since today's women are much more likely to be feminists and body-positive activists, this means that even many less-attractive, overweight women will have inflated egos and they, too, will be more difficult for a man with low self-esteem to get than ever before.

I challenge any single guy to create a profile on Plenty of Fish to test this theory, and see what kinds of women they meet over the course of a year. Chances are, if she looks too hot for you, she probably already thinks she is too hot for you.

I'm hoping to date someone as close to my level of attractiveness as possible, but I realize I might have to make the sacrifice and start dating women who I'm not really that attracted to in order to find happiness. Who knows? Maybe I'll at least meet someone who is young and who has a good personality, and likes a lot of the same things I like?

~ Andrew