Dear Madison,

I recently met a girl online, and we agreed to meet at a local drinking establishment. It was a disaster from the start. She didn’t look anything like her profile picture, and she apparently didn’t read the part about me not being partial to Aryan Nation forehead tattoos. She droned on and on about people who drone on and on about people. She was rude to our server, and had to be restrained when she tried to send back her napkin. On top of everything else, her perfume smelled like Chanel No. No Way. Needless to say, I was counting the seconds until I could leave. Madison, why is it so hard to meet your ideal match, much less your somewhere-in-the-ballpark match?

Appalled in My Appetizer

Dear Appalled,

Why waste even a second attempting to stay engaged with your date from hell or even Hoboken when you can look inward and spend a lovely evening with the nicest and most fascinating person you know: yourself? Why listen to someone rant about how “all the good ones are married or have the wrong pronouns” when your mind could be drifting off to a tropical island or, at the very least, having a witty conversation with the alien you imagine slithering out of your date’s cleavage?

You will never meet anyone as sensitive to your needs, who understands you, who finds you more interesting than yourself. Take advantage of it. Enjoy your inner life. You deserve to be with a wonderful person like you. The next time your latest Tinder tootsie babbles on about, well, who knows what, figuratively close your eyes and whisper to yourself, “Let me tell you about my day.”

Madison O’Rourke chairs the Spiritual Development department at the Learning Annex in Fort Worth, Texas. She is also the host of the cable-access cooking show, “Mexican Cuisine the O’Rourke Way.”

Comedy writer Ben Alper has written for Jay Leno, David Letterman and is the author of “Live From the Beginning of Time: Late Night Comedy Monologues Through the Ages”