"Their description of me made me sound like an arrogant prick."

John Horgan talks about the science of and his experience with eHarmony, in a Bloggingheads episode that begins with his revelation that he is separated from his wife and headed toward divorce. He doesn't talk about why he is getting divorced — that would be even more inappropriate than all this openness about dating while one is actually still married. But we wondered about his marriage. His wife is Suzie Gilbert, and here's an article about what she's been doing in recent years:

Gilbert floundered before landing work in a nearby Hudson Valley animal hospital and later volunteering at a raptor center. Hooked, she opened her own rehab operation, Flyaway, Inc.

I love the use of the verb "floundered." Before she found birds, she was like a fish.

“Some people are drawn to cuddly things,” she notes. “But I’m in awe of these creatures that can hurt you. I can’t get over their strength and nobility. It’s a force of nature.”

And here's a description of her book:

In this captivating memoir, Suzie Gilbert tells the rollicking story of how she turned her family life upside down to pursue her unusual passion for rehabilitating wild birds....

She began bringing abused and unwanted parrots home and volunteering at a local raptor rehabilitation center, activities she continued for the next eleven years, even as she started a family. Then came the ultimate commitment to her cause: turning her home into Flyaway, Inc., a nonprofit wild bird rehabilitation center.

Gilbert chronicles the years of her chaotic household-cum-bird-hospital with delightful wit, recounting the confusion that ensued as her husband and two young children struggled to live in a house where parrots shrieked Motown songs, nestling robins required food every twenty minutes, and recuperating herons took over the spare bathroom. Gradually, however, the birds came to represent the value of compassion and the importance of pursuing even the most unlikely of dreams.

Compassion and dreams... and a whole lot of birds. But eHarmony thinks the husband is an arrogant prick. Well, Horgan has quite a sense of humor about himself, I think. He's smiling and laughing there, isn't he? Or is that a grimace, a rictus?

In any event, good luck to all, human and bird. I know the human being and bird can coexist peacefully.