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"They say, best men are moulded out of faults;
And, for the most, become much more the better
For being a little bad."
- William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, Act V, Scene i
"It started out so innocently." It's a cliché, because it's what everyone says to mitigate their transgressions of cruelty and deception. But I could say it, and it's mostly true. In fact, if things had gone exactly like I wanted them to, we'd all be drinking vanilla milkshakes right now.
But I am human. Worse than that, I am a man. Worse still, I am a horny man – No. 2 on the list of most dangerous things, right between smallpox and Ron Artest. And when a horny man is not screwing, he is usually screwing up.
Maybe my first mistake was my belief in the promise of online personal ads. They are seductive, those personals, and I'm not talking about the Match.com advertisements populated exclusively by J. Crew models. I'm talking about the ability to take a database of area singles, sort for all the attributes you want in a mate, and whimsically imagine all sorts of whirlwind "You've Got Mail"-style scenarios.
It's easy to be taken in. Every creative screen name from Ass_Queen_2000 to ZimaLuvr21 holds the mystery of a funny story. Each uploaded photo is carefully selected as the best photo ever taken of that person. Flaws are disguised as quirks, creatively euphemized or avoided entirely.
Sure, there is still a stigma about online matchmaking. If the Internet dating world were a singles bar, you would never go in there. You would think you were at a casting session for the cantina scene in Star Wars. If it were an airport, the baggage claim would be overflowing. But really, all bars are like that. The Internet simply makes everyone's neon VACANCY sign glow a little brighter. At least the Internet offers people the time and insulation to reject people on a more selective, personal basis.
I've browsed these sites, off and on, for five years now. It serves as a kind of supplement to my real-world dating experience. By and large, my real-world dates tend go better than my internet dates, if only because in the real world it is much harder to flee.
(This phenomenon puzzles me, though, because internet dating ought to be a writer's medium, and I write a lot better than I talk. (However, what I really want to do is dance!) I suppose, in actuality, Internet dating is a medium for writers at a sixth-grade level.)
Anyway, I've learned enough about online personals to be picky. Generally, someone really has to jump up and down to get my attention. One day, about two months ago, my monitor shook.
I saw her on the Onion personals, where it's free to post a profile and free to search. I hit the button "Match Me" and she was the first person on my list. She was pretty, perfectly within my age range and college-educated. I looked at her preferred specifications for a mate, and on the surface I seemed to qualify.
Along with basic information like height, weight and smoking preference, the standard Onion profile lists the answers to a number of provocative personal questions, such as what was the last great book you read, your favorite on-screen sex scene, your Most Humbling Moment, etc.
I remember we had a number of things in common; I don't remember exactly what they were. What struck me was the way she wrote about it. She had style. Her words crackled, like the fuzzy static playing underneath old 45s. She was funny, in a grown-up way that doesn't beg for laughs. She was smart in a way that you could tell she just couldn't help it.
Plus, her comments suggested that she recognized the allure of the bald-headed man. I was hooked.
Unfortunately, the Onion Personals business model is designed exactly for moments like this. Profiles are free, but responding to a profile costs you a "credit." The smallest number of credits available for purchase was 25 for $25. This is not an exorbitant sum, of course. However, it is a lot of money to spend on one larky e-mail to a stranger. It is not unlike going up to a woman at a bar and saying, "Hello. Can I buy you a sweater?"
So my mission was to find a way to weasel around the Onion, which had suddenly transformed from a helpful matchmaking tool into a crude pimp. I scrutinized her profile for clues to her identity or contact information, but found nothing. I explored a few other online dating sites for someone matching her description. Zero. Finally, I figured I'd just type her screen name into Google and see what came up.
Luckily, it was a weird screen name. I thought it might be an unusual last name, or a foreign literary reference, or an assortment of randomly selected letters. Whatever it was, it was unique enough to yield short page of links. The best I had hoped for was an e-mail address. After three clicks, I had her e-mail address. And her name. And her entire online journal.
Her journal was just as appealing as her profile, if a bit more spastic and goofy. But my excitement at solving the puzzle was immediately tempered by doubt and concern. Yes, I could now e-mail her free and clear. But how would that look? What would she think? "Not only is this guy too cheap to fork over a credit, he totally Googled me, which is walking that fuzzy line between 'weird' and 'stalker.'" I'm not that guy. Well, okay, evidently I am that guy. But I'm not proud of it.
I just couldn't do it. And I had invested so much energy already, I didn't want to turn back. So, in a moment of devil-may-care impulsiveness, I plunked down my $25 and credited up.
It was a cute letter I wrote, or at least I thought so at the time. In retrospect, I see that I may have had the volume turned up a little too high. It was aggressively friendly, almost manic. It was a series of silly tangents, strung together by a delicate silk thread of charm. To the experienced enchanted_pants reader, it would have been innocuous and at least mildly amusing. To an enchanted_pants beginner, however, it might have sounded like the scattered observations of a mild schizophrenic with a strange craving for doughnuts.
But I was confident. I sent her the letter and waited eagerly for her reply. Any minute now, I thought.
A day passes. She's probably just busy. I check to see if she's logged in to the Onion site since I sent my note. She has. The wheels are in motion.
Two days. She's probably just formulating a worthy response to my letter. I check the Onion site to make sure I didn't misspell my e-mail address.
Three days. She probably e-mailed me back, but the letter was lost in some kind of technological wormhole, sending the errant electronic impulse into deep space, where it was intercepted by an advanced alien race who have wisely decided to replace the dating process with a more efficient program of pharmaceuticals and periodic beatings.
In the meantime, I continued tuning in to her journal, which by this time had become rather engrossing. Initially I thought that maybe she would gush about this amazing response she received to her personal ad. ("He had me at 'Yo, wassup.'"). Or at least she would express her hesitation about replying to me. ("How can I possibly match his unbridled enthusiasm and sexuality?")
Ultimately, however, I was left to analyze her entries in the hopes that maybe she was referring to me in code. Maybe when she's talking about her sinus infection, she's really talking about me.
After a few more days, holding out hope, I went back to the Onion site once again. Not only was there no reply, but she had deleted her profile entirely. This is a bad sign. No, that was a STOP sign.
Frustration turned to disappointment, which turned to anger, and resulted in a severe ego bruise. Were this bruise visible, it would be roughly the size and color of Barney the Dinosaur.
After completing the standard self-doubt questionnaire – Was it my picture? Was "Cocoon" really a good choice for "favorite on-screen sex scene?" Should I have included my Zodiac sign? Is Scorpio a good sign, or should I go with Sagittarius? Should I put both, if I'm right on the cusp like that? Or does that make me seem indecisive? Can I lie and say I'm a Leo? That definitely seems like the coolest sign. I guess I'm glad I'm not Cancer. Who wants to be Cancer? Everyone's trying to get rid of you. "You killed my uncle," they'd say. And I would say, "But at least I have positive traits like trustworthiness, sensitivity and frugality." – I was still slightly miffed.
I say aloud that it would have been nice if she had at least replied with a simple "Thanks but no thanks," But that's probably a lie. I just would have kept at it, trying to be cuter and cleverer until it got embarrassing and I had a new Most Humbling Moment.
Meanwhile, I continued reading her journal. At first I think I was still scanning and hoping for some sort of reference to me. (I wonder what it means when she says she has a headache. Hmm, so many interpretations.) After that I think I kept reading out of some masochistic impulse. Then, as I got caught up in the plotlines and plot twists, it became fun. Vaguely naughty, slightly guilty fun, like the feeling you get from watching Ashlee Simpson.
I was just trying to be part of the fun when I started posting occasional anonymous comments to her journal entries. Cheeky but not obtrusive, sarcastic but not bitter. (Okay, maybe I was a little harsh when she solicited comments about her new boyfriend. But you should have seen this guy. Trust me, you would have wanted to kick him in the balls.)
And anyway, she liked it. And she was getting at least a little curious about who I was. This was gratifying, obviously, since it was proof that we would have gotten along if she had bothered to get to know me. And it was frustrating, because damn, that boyfriend. (I'm telling you. Right in the balls.)
She stopped short of asking who I was, which is a good thing, because I didn't know how I was going to answer that question. The term "secret admirer" carries too many romantic connotations, not to mention an association with a cheesy '80s John Hughes knockoff starring C. Thomas Howell. The term "secret appreciator" is probably more accurate, although it would have made me sound like some kind of stealth banker. Really, I was just a party crasher who ended up enjoying the music.
Once I felt comfortable enough, and once she threatened to deactivate anonymous posting, I exposed myself as enchanted_pants, though I was careful not to reveal my actual identity. And she welcomed me, and I felt like I had met a stranger and made a friend all at once.
And now, as it happens, she needs a friend. Well, not really. She appears to have about a zillion friends, and family members, and perhaps even some pets that I'm not aware of. But I want to be her friend. But I don't think I can do that until I say who I am.
I am i_crave_cheese, Onion Personals Number "ond1HNanY3Q%3d", and I'm sorry for being a weasel, and a cheapskate, and a horny man.
Let's be friends.
EPILOGUE
And, for the most, become much more the better
For being a little bad."
- William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, Act V, Scene i
"It started out so innocently." It's a cliché, because it's what everyone says to mitigate their transgressions of cruelty and deception. But I could say it, and it's mostly true. In fact, if things had gone exactly like I wanted them to, we'd all be drinking vanilla milkshakes right now.
But I am human. Worse than that, I am a man. Worse still, I am a horny man – No. 2 on the list of most dangerous things, right between smallpox and Ron Artest. And when a horny man is not screwing, he is usually screwing up.
Maybe my first mistake was my belief in the promise of online personal ads. They are seductive, those personals, and I'm not talking about the Match.com advertisements populated exclusively by J. Crew models. I'm talking about the ability to take a database of area singles, sort for all the attributes you want in a mate, and whimsically imagine all sorts of whirlwind "You've Got Mail"-style scenarios.
It's easy to be taken in. Every creative screen name from Ass_Queen_2000 to ZimaLuvr21 holds the mystery of a funny story. Each uploaded photo is carefully selected as the best photo ever taken of that person. Flaws are disguised as quirks, creatively euphemized or avoided entirely.
Sure, there is still a stigma about online matchmaking. If the Internet dating world were a singles bar, you would never go in there. You would think you were at a casting session for the cantina scene in Star Wars. If it were an airport, the baggage claim would be overflowing. But really, all bars are like that. The Internet simply makes everyone's neon VACANCY sign glow a little brighter. At least the Internet offers people the time and insulation to reject people on a more selective, personal basis.
I've browsed these sites, off and on, for five years now. It serves as a kind of supplement to my real-world dating experience. By and large, my real-world dates tend go better than my internet dates, if only because in the real world it is much harder to flee.
(This phenomenon puzzles me, though, because internet dating ought to be a writer's medium, and I write a lot better than I talk. (However, what I really want to do is dance!) I suppose, in actuality, Internet dating is a medium for writers at a sixth-grade level.)
Anyway, I've learned enough about online personals to be picky. Generally, someone really has to jump up and down to get my attention. One day, about two months ago, my monitor shook.
I saw her on the Onion personals, where it's free to post a profile and free to search. I hit the button "Match Me" and she was the first person on my list. She was pretty, perfectly within my age range and college-educated. I looked at her preferred specifications for a mate, and on the surface I seemed to qualify.
Along with basic information like height, weight and smoking preference, the standard Onion profile lists the answers to a number of provocative personal questions, such as what was the last great book you read, your favorite on-screen sex scene, your Most Humbling Moment, etc.
I remember we had a number of things in common; I don't remember exactly what they were. What struck me was the way she wrote about it. She had style. Her words crackled, like the fuzzy static playing underneath old 45s. She was funny, in a grown-up way that doesn't beg for laughs. She was smart in a way that you could tell she just couldn't help it.
Plus, her comments suggested that she recognized the allure of the bald-headed man. I was hooked.
Unfortunately, the Onion Personals business model is designed exactly for moments like this. Profiles are free, but responding to a profile costs you a "credit." The smallest number of credits available for purchase was 25 for $25. This is not an exorbitant sum, of course. However, it is a lot of money to spend on one larky e-mail to a stranger. It is not unlike going up to a woman at a bar and saying, "Hello. Can I buy you a sweater?"
So my mission was to find a way to weasel around the Onion, which had suddenly transformed from a helpful matchmaking tool into a crude pimp. I scrutinized her profile for clues to her identity or contact information, but found nothing. I explored a few other online dating sites for someone matching her description. Zero. Finally, I figured I'd just type her screen name into Google and see what came up.
Luckily, it was a weird screen name. I thought it might be an unusual last name, or a foreign literary reference, or an assortment of randomly selected letters. Whatever it was, it was unique enough to yield short page of links. The best I had hoped for was an e-mail address. After three clicks, I had her e-mail address. And her name. And her entire online journal.
Her journal was just as appealing as her profile, if a bit more spastic and goofy. But my excitement at solving the puzzle was immediately tempered by doubt and concern. Yes, I could now e-mail her free and clear. But how would that look? What would she think? "Not only is this guy too cheap to fork over a credit, he totally Googled me, which is walking that fuzzy line between 'weird' and 'stalker.'" I'm not that guy. Well, okay, evidently I am that guy. But I'm not proud of it.
I just couldn't do it. And I had invested so much energy already, I didn't want to turn back. So, in a moment of devil-may-care impulsiveness, I plunked down my $25 and credited up.
It was a cute letter I wrote, or at least I thought so at the time. In retrospect, I see that I may have had the volume turned up a little too high. It was aggressively friendly, almost manic. It was a series of silly tangents, strung together by a delicate silk thread of charm. To the experienced enchanted_pants reader, it would have been innocuous and at least mildly amusing. To an enchanted_pants beginner, however, it might have sounded like the scattered observations of a mild schizophrenic with a strange craving for doughnuts.
But I was confident. I sent her the letter and waited eagerly for her reply. Any minute now, I thought.
A day passes. She's probably just busy. I check to see if she's logged in to the Onion site since I sent my note. She has. The wheels are in motion.
Two days. She's probably just formulating a worthy response to my letter. I check the Onion site to make sure I didn't misspell my e-mail address.
Three days. She probably e-mailed me back, but the letter was lost in some kind of technological wormhole, sending the errant electronic impulse into deep space, where it was intercepted by an advanced alien race who have wisely decided to replace the dating process with a more efficient program of pharmaceuticals and periodic beatings.
In the meantime, I continued tuning in to her journal, which by this time had become rather engrossing. Initially I thought that maybe she would gush about this amazing response she received to her personal ad. ("He had me at 'Yo, wassup.'"). Or at least she would express her hesitation about replying to me. ("How can I possibly match his unbridled enthusiasm and sexuality?")
Ultimately, however, I was left to analyze her entries in the hopes that maybe she was referring to me in code. Maybe when she's talking about her sinus infection, she's really talking about me.
After a few more days, holding out hope, I went back to the Onion site once again. Not only was there no reply, but she had deleted her profile entirely. This is a bad sign. No, that was a STOP sign.
Frustration turned to disappointment, which turned to anger, and resulted in a severe ego bruise. Were this bruise visible, it would be roughly the size and color of Barney the Dinosaur.
After completing the standard self-doubt questionnaire – Was it my picture? Was "Cocoon" really a good choice for "favorite on-screen sex scene?" Should I have included my Zodiac sign? Is Scorpio a good sign, or should I go with Sagittarius? Should I put both, if I'm right on the cusp like that? Or does that make me seem indecisive? Can I lie and say I'm a Leo? That definitely seems like the coolest sign. I guess I'm glad I'm not Cancer. Who wants to be Cancer? Everyone's trying to get rid of you. "You killed my uncle," they'd say. And I would say, "But at least I have positive traits like trustworthiness, sensitivity and frugality." – I was still slightly miffed.
I say aloud that it would have been nice if she had at least replied with a simple "Thanks but no thanks," But that's probably a lie. I just would have kept at it, trying to be cuter and cleverer until it got embarrassing and I had a new Most Humbling Moment.
Meanwhile, I continued reading her journal. At first I think I was still scanning and hoping for some sort of reference to me. (I wonder what it means when she says she has a headache. Hmm, so many interpretations.) After that I think I kept reading out of some masochistic impulse. Then, as I got caught up in the plotlines and plot twists, it became fun. Vaguely naughty, slightly guilty fun, like the feeling you get from watching Ashlee Simpson.
I was just trying to be part of the fun when I started posting occasional anonymous comments to her journal entries. Cheeky but not obtrusive, sarcastic but not bitter. (Okay, maybe I was a little harsh when she solicited comments about her new boyfriend. But you should have seen this guy. Trust me, you would have wanted to kick him in the balls.)
And anyway, she liked it. And she was getting at least a little curious about who I was. This was gratifying, obviously, since it was proof that we would have gotten along if she had bothered to get to know me. And it was frustrating, because damn, that boyfriend. (I'm telling you. Right in the balls.)
She stopped short of asking who I was, which is a good thing, because I didn't know how I was going to answer that question. The term "secret admirer" carries too many romantic connotations, not to mention an association with a cheesy '80s John Hughes knockoff starring C. Thomas Howell. The term "secret appreciator" is probably more accurate, although it would have made me sound like some kind of stealth banker. Really, I was just a party crasher who ended up enjoying the music.
Once I felt comfortable enough, and once she threatened to deactivate anonymous posting, I exposed myself as enchanted_pants, though I was careful not to reveal my actual identity. And she welcomed me, and I felt like I had met a stranger and made a friend all at once.
And now, as it happens, she needs a friend. Well, not really. She appears to have about a zillion friends, and family members, and perhaps even some pets that I'm not aware of. But I want to be her friend. But I don't think I can do that until I say who I am.
I am i_crave_cheese, Onion Personals Number "ond1HNanY3Q%3d", and I'm sorry for being a weasel, and a cheapskate, and a horny man.
Let's be friends.
EPILOGUE
