I see some hands over here...
Craig,
I don't know if this helps but it's all I have to offer. I think the biggest factor in finding a relationship is simply luck. I found that a large portion of what you wrote describes me as much as it does you and yet I've been involved for nearly 7 years now (most, but not all, with the same fine woman!). I've had all manner of dating foul-up and relationship flubs. I've been "like a brother" or "too good a friend" to more women than I care to count. Yet here I am, and I can't for the life of me answer why.
My best advice is to keep at it. The more you try the better the odds you'll get lucky (and I mean that in every way possible). You honestly don't want to be single your whole life. A dear friend of mine is in his 60s, never married, and while he'll make the same "captain of my destiny" argument you cited, I still feel a profound sadness and lonliness within him. I don't think his is a good way to live.
Keep at it. You'll find her soon enough.
Rick
PS: Nice to find another redhead fan. Must be the Irish blood.
PPS: When's the movie quote tourney?
Well, not everyone is destined to be married. My brother is 35 and still not married. I'm not sure if it bothers him, but who knows. Obviously most of my women friends are hoping and wondering.
Just of interest, try out this test.
I also have written my reply to your epic.
When I first started blogging, I also intended to blog on anything personal (and still haven't done so). I went so far as to start out with a personal rule, (since broken) of not using the first-person (or talking like Rickey Henderson...still haven't broken that rule). And in keeping with that rule, I post in your widget instead of my own blog.
As for the the rest of your post, well it'd be easy to make jokes. Hell, starting narrow in your search and going wide is just screaming for a fat chick comment.
But, no. Widening the net is fine. Consider what your preferences say about you. How locked are you into redheads? (She can always die her hair, anyways.) Does she need to like sports right away? Perhaps a nice foreign grad student at Michigan who you can introduce to the joys of Tiger baseball. Perhaps not. If you're looking for a sports analogy, quit trying to buy a Premier League team and look for a Third Division squad that you can build up for promotion.
Serendipity rules. I can honestly say that any female I may have had a relationship with expressed (unsought) interest before I did. That being said, people do tend to meet their future spouses in certain settings. One is college. Another are the usual meat markets, which, come to think of it, sometimes college resembles. Work is another setting. That includes professional associations. Peer groups. Perhaps friends can set you up, or maybe not. Various primary groups, including religion. I've known people who met at Mass of all places.
I could play armchair psychologist and suggest you probably cycle through periods of despair on this topic. I suppose you are feeling some sort of non-buyers remorse about your anything in college. Maybe it means that you wallow in your own misery too much and maybe it means that you care enough about this matter that you will eventually find your way. Hell, Tampa Bay finally made the playoffs.
Salon had an article about something called the Soulmate Calculator), which estimates how many people you have to meet to find someone who meets your requirements, based upon census data and some basic statistics. While the process is fraught with potential errors (it treats all characteristics as orthogonal, when many of them should be positively correlated), it can make an interesting reality check. No checkbox for redheads, though, but you could probably extrapolate that yourself.
Speaking of redheads, as a high school friend of mine complained when the boy she was interested in was interested in a thoroughly unpleasant girl with flaming red hair, "why are all the geek guys so fascinated by redheads?" While that's an overstatement- I'm neutral on hair color and quite a geek, which is why I don't feel I'm being insulting to you or Terpstra here- I think there's some truth to it. Possibly because geeky guys are more likely to accept, or even prefer, women who are more socially aggressive than society typically considers appropriate for women, and redheads are stereotypically headstrong and impulsive. That also might explain some of the local shortage of possibilities at your end- geeks are more common than redheads, so the local redheads may have caught their geeks already.
But in the end, I'd have faith that everything should work out in a few years. My overeducated and undersocialized friends mostly made it to the altar in their late 20s and early 30s, so you have plenty of time. In fact, another couple of my friends are heading there now, and he's a high school history teacher and she's got red hair. Even I dated a pretty redheaded girl for a few years, and I'm me. You, not being me, should ultimately have better luck.
And hell with the playoffs, Tampa Bay won the freaking Super Bowl.
The redhead thing I think is leftover genetic memory from when my people were genetically programmed to live in a bog in Ireland somewhere.
But let me make this perfectly clear, redhair is a preference, but it is not a deal breaker. I am in no position to have that minute a dealbreaker.
It can happen at QB. Justin and I met through QB; Dave and Jessie met through QB; Phil and Victoria met through QB . . . so it can happen.
And on the good side, if you get really good at being friends with people, when you are in a relationship, you can be fairly sure that it won't end because of you not being there for them. Argh, that came out all convoluted. I guess what I'm saying is that there is a friendship part and a romantic part to relationships, and relationships can sour based on failings in either aspect -- or both. But you'll have the friendship part down, and won't have to worry about that. And that's good for the long term: Even if the sizzle fades a little, a strong friendship plus some romantic aspect will keep someone coming home every night for at least a few decades.
Uh, Craig, stop stealing blog entries I could have written (but making them more eloquent and referencing sports) or I might have to stop talking to you.
Seriously though, it IS tough being outside of the "Dominant Social Paradigm" (tm), such as it is. To paraphrase (and adapt) a very good friend of mine, "The available women who are perfect for you are probably writing 'blog entries wondering where all of the decent guys are." I don't know that that helps too much, but you get the idea, I think.
Also, I have stuff to send you before long. Man, have I been slacking or what?
I think the first post in this thread was right on the money. I don't mean to minimize the real effort that it takes to sustain a relationship, but as far as starting one goes -- you never know when you'll be in the right place at the right time.
In January of 1985, I was trying to make some clearly uninterested guy notice me (this had been a failed two-year effort). I had just started a new job, and coincidentally one of the other women in my workplace had a male officemate who was interested in her. However, she wasn't particularly interested in dating him, so she dragged him into my office to meet the new girl. He and I quickly found out that we were the same age (then 2
, both liked rock and roll and played instruments, and were both in the process of changing careers (at least for the first time). As of next week, I'll have been married to him for 15 years. I can also honestly say that neither one of us was actively looking for someone new at the time we met -- and neither of us could have seen this coming beforehand!
Glad you're getting out there meeting people. That's important, but it's also important to remember: At this stage of things, don't work too hard. 
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