Actor and filmmaker Eric Schaeffer describes himself as "just a regular guy" looking for love. If "regular" means self-absorbed and insensitive with a fondness for kinky sex, then OK.

Then again, maybe he's more of a typical guy than members of either gender would want to admit. And that's part of the attraction and/or aversion of Schaeffer's documentary series, I Can't Believe I'm Still Single: From Portland to Portland, on Showtime.

The series chronicles Schaeffer's cross-country tour to promote his book of the same name and his search for a child-bearing wife -- who can't be older than 35.

It also offers up a steady stream of analysis into why he's single, including the opinions of everyone from ex-girlfriends to a hotel doorman to the strangers who attend his book readings. ("Why are you so fucked up?")

It doesn't take long before the answer to the title becomes apparent. It's not that Schaeffer's self-involvement or emotional immaturity are unusual for a 45-year-old,it's that he lacks the filter that most men use to keep women from thinking they're total douchebags.

After describing a dream in which he is a woman being raped by a man (who turns out also to be him) we expect he'll offer some insight into rape from a woman's point of view. Instead, he asks his therapist, "Dude, am I gay?"

For those unfamiliar with Schaeffer, he wrote, directed and starred in If Lucy Fell, playing a guy Roger Ebert called one of "the least appealing characters ever offered for the public's entertainment."

His other independent,semi-autobiographical films, My Life's in Turnaround and Wirey Spindell got mixed reviews and brought him a mixed following of fans and haters. His blog has been a target in particular for Gawker.com, which has promised to stop snarking about him but can't break the habit.

And then there are the women who datedhim. "[I] have honestly never met a man who is so obsessed with himself," one posted on Gawker, "and yet, seems to spend all of his time HATING himself and adoring himself at once."

That sums up I Can't Believe I'm Still Single. After being spurned by a 21-year-old bisexual "with some of the hottest tits I've ever seen," Schaeffer is dejected and indignant.

"It's inconsiderate," he tells a woman giving him a massage. "If you're going to throw that energy at someone and not follow through it feels manipulative."

Is that something a regular guy thinks? Absolutely. Is that something a regular guy tells another woman? Not if he doesn't want to end up on Don't Date Him Girl.

In endless conversations (OK, monologues), Schaeffer talks about his dominatrix, about having sex at age six with his friends, and claims that the reason he likes to be choked before climax is because his umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck in the womb.

To be fair, he is funny. And he does have a following of hip post-feminists who find such male introspection refreshing: He may be a dog, but at least he's sharing.

The series, which includes interviews with happy couples, covers some of the same ground as Sherman's March, a 1986 documentary in which filmmaker Ross McElwee searches for love in the deep South. Or even Myles Berkowitz's 1998 quasi-documentary 20 Dates.

Still, Single so far lacks the charm of these other films, and Schaeffer lacks the self-awareness of those filmmakers. It's possible that he gains wisdom as the series progresses, but we're not holding our breath.

Shirleen Holt is a freelance writer and former newspaper editor living outside of Portland, Ore.

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