Was He On A Different Date Than You Were...Or What?
The perfect man, the perfect date...the imperfect return phone call...as in...none. I just posted my Advice Goddess column, Moment of "Poof!" An excerpt:

You want to believe "This is love!" not "This is yet another guy who wants to get some while his girlfriend's on business in Boston." But, because of a common human cognitive error called "confirmation bias," you're prone to pay attention to stuff that suggests "We're meant for each other!" and ignore stuff that suggests he's thinking "For about five-and-a-half hours."

The human brain is a shifty little critter. Some evolutionary psychologists believe early humans would've been paralyzed by a clear picture of harsh (sometimes saber-toothed) reality, so we evolved the ability to shut down information-processing accuracy in the face of scary or ugly. So, you take in information -- wow, funny guy...nice Mercedes!...hmmm, 11 a.m. and he smells like gin. Your brain arranges the positive stuff in lit glass showcases in the front of your consciousness and dumps what you don't want to know behind boxes in some dusty storeroom...leaving you shocked when you finally hear "those three little words," and they're "That's All, Folks!"

Beyond your brain's tendency to say "Gee, that's depressing. I think I'll believe this instead!" if you're like many women, finding love isn't enough; you need a great story behind it: "We were childhood sweethearts, then we never saw each other again -- until that day in the Peace Corps when we literally bumped into each other in the jungle." When your story's something like "He 'winked' at me on AmishMatch.com," and especially if you're on the lonely/desperate side, it's tempting to fab it up with "Love at first sight! We just knew!" As opposed to "We found lots to like but thought we'd get to know each other before calling it more than a consistently good time."

The rest of the column -- and comments -- are live here.