The Great Los Angeles Manhunt

My name is Steve Scott, and out of a population of 10 million people, I'm compatible with only 122 of them. I never thought my criteria for a boyfriend would eliminate 99.99% of the population of Los Angeles County, but it does. Before you jump to any conclusions -- unless the conclusion involves how fabulous I am -- let me explain.

We all have our "list" -- the qualifications we'd like to see in a potential partner. Some of these are reasonable -- some not so much. (We can't all be destined to marry a professional athlete or a prince, right?) We go out into the dating world to find those people who meet our criteria. But dating sucks. At least in my experience.

There was the guy who had me laughing until it hurt on the first date only to reveal himself as a total jerk on the second. Or that time I was on a date and became a witness to a near-shooting and the guy I was with thought it was an appropriate time to make out. Through it all, I knew that there was one person in my life I could look to for consolation in response to these horror stories: my roommate.

A quick description of my roommate: He's straight. We've been best friends since we met in college, and there are times when I think his sole purpose in life is to crush my dreams.

He decided to investigate why I was having such rotten luck. Shortly after, I received an e-mail from him that made me nervous before I even opened it. The subject line read, "Don't kill yourself, please." He'd taken my criteria for a boyfriend and compared it with the latest Census information to select 122 guys from the 10 million people in L.A. County.

I'm sure that openly admitting how I'm compatible with only 122 men makes me sound like a huge diva. But I'm really not that picky. I am looking for a guy who is taller than me (I'm 5'11"), gay (please), single (thank you), and doesn't own a cat (I'm deathly allergic). Those aren't so unreasonable, right?

Apparently it is. The math will astound you. I know I was shocked and frightened. For the first time, I was worried I might never find a husband. To settle my nerves, I correlated the odds of finding a member of The 122 and being struck by lightning. The results were so depressing that I actually wanted to be struck by lightning. That's not to say I'm walking around the beach holding a lightning rod in a thunderstorm -- but I'm not counting it out at this point. There are some hot doctors in this town.

But you don't even need to be a doctor to be a member of The 122. The site explains the criteria and the math involved. It describes more about me and contains a blog where you can read about the search. The most important part of the site is the contact page. It allows potential matches to contact me so we can set up a date!

The search is just beginning. I launched the site in late March and have had a few responses already. The 122 are out there -- somewhere. You might be one of them. And if you happen to be a professional athlete or a prince, please immediately point your browser to www.datestevescott.com.