It’s common knowledge that I consider O, The Oprah Magazine, to be as holy a text as the Upanishads, the Mahabharatha, and “I Am America (And So Can You!).” Consequently, it’s no surprise that after reading the tantalizingly titillating article “The Love List” in this year’s February issue, I was moved to action.

If you’ve been living in Crother’s basement for weeks and somehow haven’t had your paradigms shifted by Alice Gorman’s touching tale, here’s a synopsis: after enduring a painful divorce, a broken engagement and the loss of a husband, Alice began to worry that true love would always elude her grasp. In her despair, she consulted a “clairvoyant” who advised her to make a “love list” consisting of the 100 qualities she wanted in a life partner, with the goal of clarifying her priorities and “directing her request into the universe to send that person to her.”

Usually when I direct a request into the universe, it tells me that if I want to send a numeric page, press 1 or else just wait for the tone. Luckily for Gorman, though, the cosmos were in an acquiescing mood, and some years later she received 98 percent of the man she desired, whom she then told she would consider a threesome if he took up sailing and dancing.

Before reading this O article, my love list consisted of two items: my partner had to be 1.) able to breathe, and 2.) not in a persistent vegetative state. Since even this minimalist strategy generally failed to produce results, I was quite skeptical about the worth of increasing the number of my requirements fifty fold. Then again, it’s almost Valentine’s Day, and if I check my e-mail thirty-seven times a day, I’m clearly not too busy to explore conceptual dead-ends.

I started my list with things I imagine we all look for in a partner: kindness, thoughtfulness, generosity, honesty. As I progressed, I found myself running out of the fundamentals and straying into personal penchants — I prefer secular, humble vegetarians who have lived abroad, for instance. Yet even with these more tertiary tastes, I couldn’t fill out the list, so I had to close with a couple that I don’t think even the most benevolent universe could bestow upon me: 99) a woman with the last name Subramanian, and 100) a birthmark on her left calf that resembles a post-Soviet republic, preferably Azerbaijan.

After I finished enumerating the qualities that I imagine everyone who rejects my advances has, I felt conflicted. Had Martha Beck — Oprah and my life coach — led us astray? Individuals are more than the sum of their characteristics, so was my list flawed in not representing the intangibles? Also, we are rarely the best judges of what will be good for us in the long-term, so might my efforts merely have left me more set in my maladaptive ways?

And what ever happened to loving someone with whom we initially thought we would be incompatible? When I was a kid, beautiful women like Paula Abdul slept with talking animals, and nobody seemed to object (except maybe James Dobson). If MC Skat Kat had made a list, I bet “being feline” would have made the top ten. But he didn’t, and look at how well he did for himself — they came together ‘cuz opposites attract.

Romance is wonderful, I hear, but at the end of the day, it’s undeniable that luck has a large part to play in how my love life will turn out. I might never meet my perfect partner. I might meet her after my marriage has been arranged (thanks mom!). Or, I might meet her after she is already married to my brother (hi Padma!). Then again, maybe I’ll be fortunate like Alice and meet a companion who has most of the qualities I want. If her last name happens to be Srinivasan instead of Subramaniam, I could live with that. I mean, it’ll be Sridharan soon enough, right?

Vishnu is completely willing to hyphenate, combine or otherwise modify his last name. If you have a post-Soviet Republic-shaped tattoo on your left calf, drop a line to vishnus "at" stanford.edu.