Do I desperately need to make friends? Yes, yes you do.

"Does Speed Dating Really Work?"  Um, that kind of depends on your definition of "work," doesn't it?

Does it get you out of the house for a few hours?  Sure.  If that's your goal, it works.  Does it allow you to engage in a truly desperate, humiliating experience with equally desperate, sad, lonely people who can't figure out how to meet each other through traditional means?  Yep.  If that's your goal, it works.

Does Ask.com work?  Sure, it does.  It's a nice way to get answers to all those burning questions you have but are too humiliated, or friend-deficient, to bring up to an actual human being.  Questions like "Why is Water Blue?" (Seriously, that's a question in one of these Ask.com commercials.  No kidding.)  And does it encourage you to remain socially isolated, seeking solace from crippling loneliness through electronics (as if people who can't bring themselves to ask an actual acquaintance if Speed Dating works would ever work up the nerve to engage in Speed Dating.  Please.  The next question- after SpeedDating.com, a proud sponsor of Ask.com, lets you know that Yes, In Fact, Speed Dating leads to Meaningful Relationships- is "Can I do Speed Dating by texting, or do I actually have to show up in person?")

I have a question.  What kind of emotionally crippled losers are so bereft of people in their lives (not to mention, an apparent inability to spend ten minutes of research on the web) that they have to direct their queries to strangers working for Ask.com?

Let's see. Who can I ask?