http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/04/ask-polly-why-do-men-even-want-to-date-women.html

But you have to remember that you're not courting the entire human population. You're just looking for one person who makes sense. That person is not going to be creepy, obviously. You will pay attention and you'll make sure. That person will be a lot like you: somewhat bewildered, somewhat aware, constantly tempted to take the easier route to simple answers, to superiority, to alienation, to learned helplessness, but too deeply principled and too pure-hearted to ever stay in that easy place for too long.

You'll find smart, good-hearted men and women out there. But in order to find them, NAG (how fitting, that even your acronym is an unfair stereotype of female behavior!), you're going to have to set aside some of your preferred intellectual positions, the ones that make you feel cooler and better than everyone else. It's funny because when I wrote for suck.com, I'd get a letter from an older person who told me the same thing almost every other day, and it always made me laugh out loud. "Haw, haw, haw, this old fucker thinks that my ability to see clearly how rotten and fucked up the world is is just an elaborate way of seeming cool!" I didn't understand what these people were trying to tell me. They were trying to say, "OPEN YOUR HEART, DUMMY. Don't keep yourself safe from the world. Don't hide behind your bulletproof rhetorical positioning, just because you're smart enough to try." You don't have to be the best, sexiest, most "I already knew that" lady on the block! You don't have to be better than all the rest, just to have love in your life, just to feel strong and confident and sexy. Love comes to the woman whose eyes and heart are wide open. Educate yourself. But then stop debating everything and feel what you feel. Dare to be vulnerable. Dare to care more than a tiny bit about the most embarrassing, soft, sentimental squishy things. Admit that it's not JUST that pandemics seem scary. You're afraid of being alone, afraid that the world could end and you'd still be alone, afraid that no one will ever see you clearly, that no one will ever see straight into your big, big heart. You have to show your heart for other people to see it. Stop leading with your big brain, and show your heart. Show it even when people humiliate you for it. Show it even when it feels weak and sad to do so. When you show your heart, the whole world lights up, and love rushes in to greet you.