For those of you who don't know, I've had a really long dry spell in what some of you who actually have one call a love life. A really long dry spell. Let me put it this way: if my love life were a place, it'd be Siberia. So I was talking to a good friend of mine, who happens to be gay, not that that's important to the story or anything, about the reasons behind this occurrence. And he says to me - and I've heard it from him before - "Well, no offense, Megan, but you're just too opinionated."

Well, exc-yoooooose me. Okay, so I'll admit that I'm opinionated, and the opinions that I have are strong ones. I've been that way since I was just a wee lass. Hell, in sixth grade, I had a button that I had pinned to my bookbag that said, "You're entitled to your opinions - I just don't give a damn about them." But what I don't understand is that while I'm opinionated, I'm not militant about the opinions I hold. It's not like when I meet someone, I say, "Hi, I'm Megan, it's nice to meet you, and before you say anything, you had just better not even be pro-life or I just can't talk to you, I'm sorry." I'm not like that at all.

I have a tendency, when in a heated discussion about something, to keep pushing and pushing, expecting the party to see things my way after exposed to my reasoning. Since about May of last year, I've suppressed the urge to push so much and realized that I can't change people's minds about things, no matter how clear my reasoning is or how obviously wrong they are. I can only think of a couple of isolated incidents in which I pushed harder than I should have, and both of those were with good friends who understand that I don't mean anything personal when I get a little too into a discussion. Even when I pushed too hard on a regular basis, I never did it with people whom I didn't know well enough to assess whether they'd take it personally or not, unless you count the many times I've argued with teachers and other figures of authority.

Yes, there is such a thing as being too opinionated, but I don't think that I'm a good example of that. I have strong opinions, but I try not to force them on anyone if they don't want to hear them. Also, if abortion or hunting or domestic abuse comes up in conversation, what am I to do but share my opinions on that particular subject? So there must obviously be some other factor behind my nonexistent love life, and I think that I know what that factor is: I'm just too damn fugly.