I am not "laid back" or "easygoing"; I'm intensely passionate, and I can't imagine being any other way.

I'm not entirely normal, and I'm nice, and I don't want to apologize anymore for either of those. I can also be a little overly direct at times, but I'm always working to improve.

I'm beloved by animals and small children, because I'm kind, reliable, and gentle to those who require gentleness. I'm less gentle with others, but I do have a heart of gold.

I have a tragic physiological disability which prevents me from smiling on cue, but I'll laugh if you're funny (I'll try to restrain myself if you're funny even though you didn't mean to be).

I can carry on a good conversation, and I'm quite willing to talk about things I never knew anything about before, since it's the best way to learn.

I am fiercely loyal to people for whom I'm responsible (like my students), and to people who treat me decently--good friends are too hard to find to let one down, and anyway, sticking up for your friends is just the right thing to do. I'm also inadvisedly generous to anyone I love, and to anyone who really needs my help; again, it's just the right thing to do. When I fall in love, I fall hard, and I commit completely. I'm certainly old enough to marry someone and settle down, but I'm flexible enough to take things as
they come.

I taught English in Prague less than a year after the fall of communism, I've been detained by the police in Kyiv, and I once arrived in a foreign country where I didn't know the language, with nothing but a hotel reservation and a single phone number, and managed to conduct nearly 20 interviews over the next week and a half.

I once shared an apartment with a methhead. She left for an overnight trip and took $20 out of my wallet. In partial compensation for that and the money she owed me, I confiscated a really nice-looking black leather trenchcoat she'd inherited from her boyfriend after he died of an overdose. I have no idea where her boyfriend got a women's coat, but the buttons are not on the men's side.

If you met me in person, it would probably take you a long time to find out all of the above. I love to talk, but I'm hesitant to say anything that might be seen as bragging. If you win my trust, though, I'll tell you anything you want to know, and likely a lot more than that.

If you really want to know what I'm like, though, click on "Compare Profile" on the right over there. The answers to 600-something questions will give you a much more accurate picture of my personality than any colorful prose I write here.

I'm a professor of political science, specifically comparativepolitics, at Emory and Henry College. I'm interested in the relationship between ethnic identity and democracy, especially in Eastern Europe. This involves a lot of political psychology, which is something I find particularly fascinating.

I recently visited Iowa for the caucuses, and while I didn't get to vote, I did get to touch Chris Dodd and Joe Biden, and got awfully close to Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Mike Huckabee--and I got to watch a caucus in action.