Show Us What's Behind Door #3, Carol Merrill

I guess Jack likes my responses and is convinced I am not a boring, sedentary sloth tipping the scales at 300 pounds, so he moves things to the next step.

The Must Haves and the Can't Stands.

He can't stand laziness. He can't stand someone overweight. He can't stand someone who chronically worries. He can't stand someone with a victim mentality. Can't stand someone who watches an inordinate amount of television.

Me either. But I have bigger fish to fry and lots of them. You can only pick 10. I have about 40 Can't Stands and only about 6 Must Haves.

His Must Haves are fairly predictable. Must have chemistry. Must have humor. Must have intellectual curiosity similar to my own. Must have a sense of financial responsibility.

I get all that but I have a philosophical argument with them being on the list at all.

Chemistry? Really? You want to spend more than an elevator ride with someone with whom you have no chemistry???? Who would NOT have that on their list besides those who are emotionally dead or unavailable?

Humor? Sweet bearded Jesus, strike me dead rather than suggest I am a perfect match for someone who is utterly without humor. I will nail myself to the cross, thank you.

Intellectual curiosity similar to my own? Safe to say I want neither an intellectual snob who will grimace when I struggle to name the first 3 elements of the Periodic Table in a game of Trivial Pursuit, nor a Neanderthal who will complain about all of my "Big Words."

Financial responsibility? Yes to Financial Responsibility. If you have a better than average chance of living in a dumpster within the next 5 years then there is no reason for us to meet. Save your date money for the rent. You can not afford to by me even one beer.

I whittle down my list of Can't Stands to 10 and try to get the most mileage out of them. I'd love to say that I can't stand someone who is a bigot. And I would like to check that I can't stand someone who is intollerant. I check instead that I can't stand someone who is mean spirited, figuring that covers a wide variety of assholes who are less than charitable toward various races, religions, sexual preferences and garden variety differences.

There are a variety of ways to say that I can't stand someone with chemical dependency of some kind. I choose the one with the broadest amount of coverage. Between Lars and his pills and J. and his closet alcoholism, I need an addict like I need a second set of boobs.

I try to cover as much acreage as possible at this stage so if the herd should be thinned it is apparent.

My bigger issue is the Must Haves. Fidelity. Honesty. Communication. These are so basic I feel like I am missing an opportunity to tell Santa what my dream house looks like by asking for the basic model. But by not checking Fidelity and Honesty and Communication what on Earth would I be saying I am signing up for?

Eventually my patience dwindles to a microgram and I just hit the send key.

And remarkably, Jack responds.

We are in a whole new stratosphere now. EHarmony email.

Lord love us and save us.