I seem to have problems with intimidating people... I don't even mean to or anything, but apparently it's one of those inevitabilities of life.

Part of it is probably because I'm just really insanely huge (6'8), and part of it is the inherent physical strength that comes with that. That's usually enough to keep women from getting close, and has been a big barrier to relationships for me.

Occasionally though, a girl gets over that and realizes that just because I'm huge doesn't mean I'm going to crush her or anything. But the last time I got particularly close to a girl, she broke it off because she was intimidated by my intellect.

How much of a bullshit reason to end a relationship is that? It took me a while to figure it out ... she was a leech. The guy she dated after me (and ended up marrying, and then later divorcing) was also a big guy, but dumb as a rock. I realized, seeing that, that what she really wanted in a relationship was to be the "better half" and get constantly validated for it...

Realizing that about her (and that she's a fucking nutjob), I'm pretty glad I didn't end up with her.

So about half my relationship picture is intimidation... what's the other half, you ask? Missed opportunities.

So, I keep running into these girls at very bad times in my life or theirs ... things that aren't conducive to relationships working out at all. Like this girl Jen ... if I had picked up on her liking me a year or so earlier, we would have had a lot of fun together ... but she's no good at giving signals, and I'm not exactly a perfect receiver of them either (something about not having a poor self-image). So I lost a lot of time ... and by the time I noticed that she was sending these faint little signals, she was set to graduate and move 1500 miles away in like ... 2 months.

Now, one thing I know about relationships ... 2 months is not enough time to have a serious relationship that's about to get separated for the next 3+ years... so I didn't take the opportunity then. Now she's still in upstate New York (and planning on moving to the west coast in the next couple years), and I'm still in Indiana (and planning on being here for the next couple of years). That relationship wouldn't be ... you know ... working.

Then there's the girl from high school. Really smart girl, cute, absolutely hilarious. She went to a different school than me, but we bumped into each other at random events (we were in the same activities). Around the time we both went to college, she went off to Yale, I went to Purdue... we started bouncing IM's off each other. I was into her, she was into me ... but even our breaks were different weeks, so I could only actually see her like twice a year.

Yeah, that didn't work out so well either. We just sort of both lost interest. Now she's graduated, and moved back to the Chicago area, and I'm still a couple hours away and lacking in transportation... so it's still in a "nothing's happening" state.

Dammit ... I need to find a smart, funny, attractive local girl who's into me and isn't graduating at the end of the semester! Why are they so rare?