This is the dating game that won't ever end.

I didn't date many people before I met Jonathan. There was a guy in high school who turned out to be gay. There was a short-lived thing in college that was really more of a friendship. Besides a few random dinners and movies, the most serious relationship I had was with my now husband. And after we met, it was only a few months before we knew we'd get married.

Me and houses? Not so much.

In August, my husband and I began a wonderful relationship with a lender. We contacted our realtor in September. We set up an online profile and eagerly checked the listings everyday for a perfect match. We thought there was a possibility we'd meet "the one" by the November deadline tax-credit, so we enthusiastically set out into the ocean of young first-time homebuyers. There had to be a smallish fish in the sea that needed just our touch of TLC.

After a few months of retro kitchens, walls of wood panelling, a couple of french doors, and one scary profanity-ridden foreclosure, we thought: maybe a more realistic aim is to plan on meeting ours in the new year. Maybe we could still meet the extended April tax credit?

And that's when we found out who we were competing against.

THE INVESTORS.

Voluptuous, wealthy investors. Heavily endowed investors. Investors who decided to take advantage of vulnerable real estate instead of aiming their assets at the feeble stock market. Investors who could swing a hammer and make a few extra bucks with house makeovers. As I write, they're multiplying, parading their scantily clad loans--without shame I tell you!--in front of our houses and strategically forming brothels of house flippers.

They have cash and every asset we don't have.

Well, almost every asset.

They're missing one key ingredient:

love. (Sigh.)

We have an unlimited supply of love to pour into the one house that's out there--somewhere out there I tell you!--waiting patiently for us to meet and fall in love and spend every last penny we have on its maintenance and improvement. If only we could get married by April.

Some people are lucky with guys. Some people are lucky with jobs. Some people are lucky with houses.

But I live in California.