It recently occurred to me that the dating/mating scene in L.A. seems to be a constant pinball pivot between, to put it simply and pithily, ‘talkers and stalkers.’

The word on the street from outsiders–namely that French dude from last month and the Croatian guy from last week respectively–is that everyone in this town says they’ll call but never does. As a footnote, both aforementioned Euro babes uttered this and then failed to follow up with a phone call, pretty much corroborating their own monolithic statements. Indeed, this is a town of flakes, on one end, and the love-deprived and all-too-eager, on the other. Let’s face it, most of us have probably played both roles in our dating careers.

For every couple of flakey pretty boys I have dated or met who said they’d call and never did, there has been at least one frighteningly ardent suitor who has recalled the expression, “gum on your shoe.” And I’ve heard similar tales from my male friends. Why is this though? Where are all the “normal” single people who understand the delicate balance of follow-through, interest, pacing and personal space?

The answer is two-fold. Firstly, balanced people clearly don’t move to L.A. The promise of fame and fortune is the dream of the imbalanced and ungrounded. Despite the fact that native Angelenos can be pretty friendly and honest (if I do say so myself), let’s face it, this town was born to attract drama queens who bounce around from extremes when not on Paxil or between representation.

The second half of the answer is that there is a dynamic at play between love-hungry and blase. They feed off each other. Not all desperado, cling-ons (or “Captain Klingons” to quote my friend Bettina) were born that way. The Nature vs. Nurture argument once again rears its head. Many of these men were taught to be this way over years of Dating Boot Camp (a.k.a. L.A. or New York dating).

Let’s say a man starts out as laidback and mellow and hits the metropolitan dating scene. Chances are that even if he’s cute and gainfully employed, he’s going to get a little snubbed by some diva-in-training or other. Or perhaps she’s just non-commital. After some time, this man is going to become hungry for a down-to-earth, honest, interested female. Unfortunately, when one finally crosses his path–love-starved and hungry for a connection–he blows it by fastening himself to said female for dear life, believing that if he lets “this one get away” he’ll “never meet another ‘real’ girl again.” A stalker is born.

The reverse, as you might have guessed, is similarly true. After years of even harsher rebuffs as an over-zealous heavy-hitter, said man (and let’s be fair, woman as well) can become navigated by his own subconscious fear of failure and totally fake out. It gives him power to tell a beautiful woman that he will call her and then leave her hanging by the phone. That kind of power (in a power-hungry town) is, for some, better than sex. Personally, I’d rather have great sex.

So, what is the solution? Obvious. Go to Silicon Valley or Canada and export a partner. But wow, do we really need to resort to such extreme tactics? Perhaps. In a town of Extreme Dating, anything is possible…and nothing it set in stone (because really, who wants to make that kind of commitment?)

This is a follow-up to yesterday’s “Eurotic” blog post. In it, I had quoted from a rather shocking Reuters story that said that American tourists were being turned away from currency exchange shops not wanting to purchase U.S. dollars. My good buddy Remco from The Hague, Netherlands put one of his young colleagues at a Dutch newspaper on the trail of this story and found that it was, to quote him directly, “bullshit.” Apparently his colleague had no problem finding an abundance of exchange shops willing to buy dollars. She even spoke with Americans on vacation there (though I can’t imagine anyone but Hiltons and Gateses–and sil ol’ me–setting foot on Euro Union soil at the moment). They said they were fine and had no problems exchanging bucks for Euros. Apparently this is another case of overblown, inappropriately amped up coverage meant to get our knickers in a twist.

Image: Fiscal porn - the hot hot hot Euro

The latest talk around the (hormone-infused) water cooler, or in my case the local coffee spot, is the weakness of the Dollar vis-a-vis the Euro. As of today, according to Reuters, the Dollar has fallen to record lows against the Euro. The last I checked–and I’m checking every hour because I’m off to Amsterdam in the near future–the all-mighty Old Country currency was worth $1.7 U.S. Pesos (as I’m now calling our has-been currency). Yesterday, Reuters damn near killed me with the shocker:

“The U.S. dollar’s value is dropping so fast against the euro that small currency outlets in Amsterdam are turning away tourists seeking to sell their dollars for local money while on vacation in the Netherlands.”

Imagine, the notoriously hard-fisted Dutch saying, “you’re money’s no good here” and meaning it!

At my coffee corner, Lilly, our matron of Java, joked that she might decide to only accept Euros (or Euro, singular, as the Euros plural, call it).

There’s nothing more limp an desperate at the moment than the American Peso, and nothing sexier and more powerful than the all-mighty Euro, whose sheer mention now has an aphrodisiacal effect. One girl friend of mine was discussing a European guy we both know and touting his appeal, “He’s makin’ Euros!” Hey, don’t knock it, entreprenEuros are the latest “catches” of the global dating scene. And American women like myself will sadly soon be North American Melania’s and Ivana’s, hocking our whorish wares in the E.U. in hopes of catching sugar vaders, papas and peres.

“Hey, if the dollar keeps going down,” I told one Dutch friend of mine who I will soon see on my trip, “I will end up spending my trip to Amsterdam standing in a window.”

I suspect that the Euro will soon replace the Dollar as a cocaine utensil as well. It only makes sense. Can you imagine that final scene in Scarface with a wealthy, corrupt and over-the-top Al Pacino, snorting piles of coke with a rolled up Peso? Just doesn’t have the same opulent ring to it, now does it?

The same goes for strippers who will certainly scoff at some chubby desperate hand attempting to stuff dollars in their undies. The Euro is sure to go places…dark, wet places to be exact.

Similarly, I would imagine that briefcase companies like Samsonite and such will not want to endure the negative branding of having suitcases be filled with dollars for gambling and hostage exchanges. They will have to be packed with the sexy and virile Euro.

We Americans can laugh at their rainbow colored cash. We can snicker that its name, Euro, sounds like a guy who wears leather pants in the summer, smokes Gitanes and liberally uses the word “lover.” But, thanks to 8 years of Bush, they’ll be laughing all the way to the bank.

But the pot of gold at the other end of this rainbow-colored cash are the small business opportunities for the enterprising and resourceful. I envision a web-based charitable organization, Adopt-an-American, geared at philanthropic Europeans. For their payment (in Euros, of course), they will receive photos and letters (unless you have adopted an illiterate person) from their adopted American, a plump burger-slinging bastard who, rest assured, without them would be unable to over-feed himself on corn syrup, fried foods and pharmaceutical water. The plus is that now they can adopt Sally Struthers.

I cannot tell you how many times I have had discussions concerning “the smell” with my single girl friends. For those of you not familiar with the utterly scientific sounding term, it has come to mean (at least in my inner sanctum) that perhaps thrice-in-a-lifetime sexual chemistry that is SO intense that you practically want to devour each other. Really it boils down to a hormonal scent that your “match” emits (through saliva, sweat, and other good stuff). On a subtle level, said aroma makes your mind go wild, and on closer inspection it makes you want to jump their bones.

Of course there are degrees of “the smell.” A pure concentration of it produces a relationship not unlike that of Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner (all passion and unfortunately the double-edge to that sword: intense animosity). Lesser degrees make you pleasantly aroused by the person with slightly less animosity. But I can attest to the fact that with “the smell” there is always some level of animosity because this is a purely ‘opposites attract’ kind of phenomenon and opposites, well, they tend to clash. Other types of scents can produce a romantic feeling of sameness where kissing goes on forever and feels rhythmically congruous. And then there is of course what I have dubbed “the anti-smell,” an odor that is unmistakably repellant to you.

I am generally consciously drawn to men of Nordic, White Anglo Saxon Protestant or Germanic descent and guess what, the four guys I have experienced “the smell” with were respectively mixes of: Dutch, German and WASP, surprise, surprise. I am consciously turned off by Italians. And I will never forget, when I lived in New York, dating an adorable young Italian guy named Federico. He was sweet, gorgeous and fun and we liked each other on the surface, but there was a subtle “repellant” thing going on. I didn’t like the way he smelled. And believe me it wasn’t bad (as in body odor), just unfamilar and unpleasant to me (”the anti-smell”). Obviously we would have produced mongoloid babies.

I bring all of this up because just a couple of months ago, a company called Scientific Match launched in Boston. You subscribe to their service for an annual fee of something like $2000, send in a swab of your DNA and they will identify your matches (the people you would produce healthy children with and have a good sex life with, etc.). ‘The future of dating,’ seems to be the unsaid tagline. Possibly. But in my mind it’s more of an early harbinger of the future of dating because it seems to exclude another very important factor in the dating/mating game: demeanor.

I promise you, that had this service had the opportunity to match my DNA with, say, most of the men I know and have dated, it would certainly pair me with at least two of the most WRONG and awful matches for me. The sex would be stellar but our relationships would be a plate-throwing mess. Until Scientific Match has finessed its system to include compatible demeanors in conjunction with genetic opposition it will see an awful lot of law suits and quite simply create monstrous relationships.

In an ideal world, a service would be able to match you with someone who had 70% “the smell,” because 100% might just kill you both (or you’d end up cannibalizing each other, either literally or figuratively), and then an additional 80-100% match for demeanor. In other words, to make the latter work, you’d match a neurotic, control freakish alpha female say (and I’m not talking about anyone we know here) with a laidback, unphased, somewhat compliant beta male, and so on.

In the future, I imagine us all wearing tiny (albeit chic) devices that would flash red when in the presence of an absolute no match (crappy sex and clashing demeanors), orange for a poor match (crappy sex and complimentary demeanors), blue for a good match (good sex and somewhat complimentary demeanors) and green for an excellent match (incredible sex and totally complimentary demeanors). What a time saver!

Of course, there would be those rebels who would intentionally defy their own DNA’s judgment and go ahead and dive into the “red” zone. In a normal situation (sans DNA match-up technology) that red zone would imply running off with the guy on the motorcycle who’s in the band or your trainer at the gym. But within a DNA matching context rebellion loses that thrilling edge. You would quite simply end up with someone who you had terrible sex with, couldn’t stand the smell of, and argued with incessantly. Not quite as exciting as “Sleazy Rider” or “Pumping it Up with Sven.”

In conclusion, I’m sort of on the fence about the whole DNA matching thing. Part of me thinks that life’s too short to waste time with someone whose stench repells you and who couldn’t turn you on to save his life. The other part of me believes that “everything happens for a reason” even when it ends up being a catastrophe. I’m reminded of that brilliant scene in the quirky ’80s romantic comedy “Moonstruck” when Nicholas Cage is trying to get Cher to go home with him against her better judgment (he’s her fiance’s brother). She worries that they will ‘make a mess of things.’

He responds: “Love don’t make things nice. It ruins everything. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. We’re not here to make things perfect. Snowflakes are perfect. The stars are perfect. We are here to ruin ourselves and break our hearts and love the wrong people and die.”

Ah, say it ain’t so. But I suspect it is.