I think it is fairly easy for a doctor to meet people to date just by mentioning his occupation, but oftentimes the type of people who want to date doctors are not exactly . . . well, it's too premature to begin using pejorative terms. I'll just tell another story and let you form your own conclusions.

I met Anna through a personal ad I'd placed in a newspaper. My Mom opined that I could weed out most of the wacko respondents by omitting the fact that I'm a doctor, but at that point in my life I didn't think I possessed any sought-after attributes other than my education and its attendant implications. Hence, I didn't take my Mom's advice.

I picked up Anna in the parking lot of her apartment complex and we then drove to a cider mill for—can you guess?—cider and doughnuts. That was her idea. It's not that I dislike cider and doughnuts, but in my area of the country going to a cider mill in the fall is such a commonplace thing to do on a date that it left me feeling as if we were just following a script. In fact, the whole thing seemed so formulaic that I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing.

The next stop on Anna's agenda was to go to a country store about 70 miles away. Anna bought all kinds of odds and ends, and I bought a pack of Beeman's gum that I thought was extinct when I was in high school.

Anna then directed me to go to a farmers' market so she could stock up on fresh fruits and vegetables. I wasn't biting my lip any more. What seemingly began as a date, albeit a contrived one, had now degenerated into a session in which I was an unpaid taxi cab driver ferrying her around on her weekly errands. I couldn't detect the slightest clue that Anna was attracted to me, which I attributed to the fact that Anna was a knockout and I was not.

When I pulled into Anna's parking lot I thought I'd just drop her off, but Anna wanted to continue our tepid conversation that had filled the day. Suddenly and without any logical preface, Anna said, “Well, aren't you going to kiss me?”

Her request surprised me because she hadn't revealed the slightest interest in me during the course of our date, but she was beautiful and I'm a guy, so I kissed her. She began talking about another subject and then shifted gears out of sequence once more, saying, “Aren't you going to kiss me again?”

While kissing her the second time, I wondered if I had missed something. Had this date not been as lackluster as I thought it was? Who knows?

After Anna collected her purchases from my trunk, she coolly said “call me” and then walked toward her apartment.

Over the course of the next two weeks, I memorized Anna's answering machine message as I left several unanswered messages. Instead of being brief as I had been with the others, while recording the last one I told her that it was now clear that she wasn't interested in me, but I was mystified by why she wanted to kiss me and . . . .

“What?” She'd been screening her calls and had now picked up the phone, screaming into her receiver, “How dare you suggest that I'm not interested in you! How dare you! I am interested in you!”

Wondering if her prescription had run out, I asked, “Then why didn't you return any of my phone calls? And why were you screening this call?”

“I've been busy, that's why.”

One of the things I learned about her on our date was that she worked 40 hours per week for some perfume company training perfume counter girls how to sell more perfume. I'd been working about 80 hours per week in the ER, and somehow I had time to call. I did not mention any of this, naturally, but I wasn't buying her excuse.

“Anna, I must be honest with you. Until you asked me to kiss you, I didn't think you were interested in me. However, you did ask me to kiss you, and you did tell me to call. So I called you, but the fact that you didn't return any of my calls . . .”

“Look, I do like you, I'm just too mad to talk right now. I'll call you later.” Click.

She never called, and I didn't bother to try again. Great bod, pretty face, questionable sanity, no pizzazz, and no copulins. Pass.

Anna was a classic example of the beautiful woman syndrome (described on www.bwsyndrome.com). Like many attractive women (not all, obviously), she had a lackluster personality, lackluster intellect, and a firm belief that her looks justified her bitchiness. If a woman with average appearance were to behave in an equally contemptible manner, most men would dump her in a heartbeat. But what do guys usually do with hot women like Anna? Relentlessly chase them, no matter how rude or boring they are. This provides the hotties with very little incentive to change. So, predictably, they usually don't.

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