Not long ago I had some household items to give away, so I started a thread on my favorite local group, which is part of a very large internet dating site. I posted my disguised but still understandable email and IM names in case anyone wanted to contact me with questions.
Before even a day passed the items found a new home; I posted a final message on the thread to let people know. Our board is extremely active, so within a few hours, that post dropped from the main page into archived obscurity.
Are we clear so far?
A week after the post archived itself, I received an IM from someone called “Joe” with a string of numbers following his name. Usually I don’t respond to IMs from people I don’t know, but this time I did. My unknown correspondent mentioned my beauty, offering up details of a (quite modest, really) picture I have posted on AFF of my torso clad in a spaghetti-strap cami. “Do I know you from AFF?” I asked, not entirely immune to compliments on my astounding gorgeousness, however random or undeserved.
“You don’t exactly know me,” he typed.
“Have we met?” This wasn’t, believe it or not, a euphemism for “fucked.” I keep careful records of these men. Really. In a spreadsheet.
“Not yet,” he responded, and he followed it up with the emoticon which looks like a laughing devil. He mentioned again the “hotttness” of my picture.
I inquired as to how he came into possession of my IM name. He danced around the issue for several replies while continuing to comment on my physical perfection. This tested my patience more than a little. But I was procrastinating with work, so I pressed on. He didn’t want to admit it, but it finally cam out that he’d come across it while combing through our groups’ archive. “Oh, are you a member of the group?” I asked him.
No, he answered. He was just looking around. And he came across my picture. My very hottt picture.
So let’s summarize. Man who is not a member of our happy little group begins perusal of archived posts, eventually finding a post with my far-more-hot-than-I’d-realized picture. And my IM. Which he used not to inquire about my household items, but instead to compliment me on my hotttness. Ohhhhhkay.
By the time my brain had gathered this information, my new correspondent was typing again. “I’d love to meet you,” he said. “I’d like to see if you’re as sexy as your picture.”
“I’m not,” I considered writing, but I tried another tack. “Joe,” I asked. “Did you happen to read my profile?”
“Yeah, it was hot, we have alot in common,” he wrote, and I am indeed quoting him exactly.
“Did you read the part where I wrote that I was happy with the relationships I’m in? And not currently looking for any new ones?”
There was a long pause. I surmised that he was reading my profile again, with more care this time. “Oh, I see that now.” I’ll note that the phrases in question are printed at the top of my profile. In large letters. In bold. Surrounded by stars.
“It’s not a problem,” I told him, and then began to extol the many virtues of participating in the local groups as a means to meeting awesome women.
But apparently he’d heard the only words he was interested in. “Hey, gotta go,” he typed, and as quickly as he’d arrived in my life he was gone.
I suppose after participating in that particular dating site for such a long time now, I shouldn’t be surprised by the actions of some of its members. But even after all this time, I can’t help but be slightly annoyed, annoyed and irritated and irked that someone would go to such lengths to get into contact with another human being and then act like such a fool.
Now, see, I thought the internet was invented for hitting on strangers. Thanks for the clarification. :P
But then, most technology is invented for sex purposes anyway. Or military. Mostly sex.
I know…I’m being very silly. I really shouldn’t knock the guy for using the site as it’s advertised. :)
I’m with Dylan. Internet= sex. Technology=sex. Life= sex. :)
“I can’t help but be slightly annoyed, annoyed and irritated and irked that someone would go to such lengths to get into contact with another human being and then act like such a fool.”
I’ve been those things and beyond. Be it an hour, a few days, a week…it’s mind boggling. Really and truly it is. How a guy can go from “I’d do anything to meet you and fuck you” to “oh um, that day doesn’t work for me. sorry, i have to cancel, can we reschedule?” and then woosh. into the ether.
*coughstalkercough*
So…the weather’s getting colder, no?
He could have at least had the decency to finish the conversation with you…but judging by the number of T’s he uses to spell hot with…I guess nottttttt.
I have a friend who uses AFF, but she’s tired of those types of guys who are just wanting sex… but I guess that is, as you said, the clientele on there. Which is all fine and well of course. But he really should have read your profile better indeed — many people frankly just don’t pay attention anymore, and that’s unfortunate.
Oh well, no love lost, right? :)
Can we say LOSER? I just dont get these guys. Do they think just because its the internet that they can do and say anything to any woman? Theres a phrase for guys like that…horny net geek. From al the decent guys out there Im sorry you ladies have to deal with scum like this.
You really can’t blame them when the site is advertised as “Join and get laid by a hottie tonight.”
Maybe I should join a site like that – if just to hear someone tell me that I’m beautiful. (okay, that came off as me looking for a pity party – I’m not, really!)
Yes, internet = sex. At least he was nice enough not to keep bugging you!
AFF is full of guys like that, but like you said, you can’t really blame them. (Well, not that guy. The ones who compliment me and then call me an “ugly bitch” when I turn them down, them, I can blame.)
Randi — AFF is quite possibly the best ego booster for a woman (in regards to her attractiveness) out there. There are the jerks, but the compliments far outweigh any meanness.
I’m addicted to the site. I admit it.
Oh hell yeah, I’m addicted to AFF. It’s a lot of fun to peruse profiles (I’m one of the few who actually reads the things, I think) and the pics (oh my lord, the pics!), and I love chatting.
However, Joe the Schmoe would be a turn off for sure. And it was rather forward of him to choose to make contact in any other way besides AFF since he wasn’t making contact about the household items. It was bad form.
Sorry, but what can you expect from AFF?
I can expect to be treated like a human being, not just a warm hole? Is that too much?
:)
Maybe it is…
Oh, I just posted about this exact phenomenon a couple of weeks ago. Men can be such dorks! Thankfully, there are many out there who are NOT :) ~ xo~Sadie
Expecting a fool to be anything less might as well be asking a bowling ball to tap dance. It’s unfortunate that even those fools manage to get laid.
I am a fool. I went to the masive effort to get through to phone tech support today, to be told to put the batteries in the right way round. To put it another way read the text in stars at the top of the instructions.
Luckly my children seem to have expresed my wifes genes in this regard.
Hopefuly my line of foolishness dies with me.
I doubt it though. This may just be in the human condition. Btw I accept men seem to be more afflicted than women.
You will be amused to know that, even as we speak, I am working wit the SEO to try to make the verbiage on another one of our sites (cough) less horrifying.
Most of the text on our sites makes m labia corl away to nothing.
Now excuse me…I have to go help “Sexy Smokin’ Swingers Connect with the most Luscious Lusty Ladies”
*sigh*
xoxo
~Mollena
No matter the site – AFF, Alt or one of the dating sites most men ONLY look at the pictures. Sooo he did really think you were hotttt!!!!! And then his little second head took over.
After being on AFF off and on for more than 4 years, I’ve come to call it the Island of Misfit Toys. I’m not sure what that says about me, but it’s accurate for these fools! LOL
Tack. You mean tack, noy tact.
“I’m not,” I considered writing, but I tried another tact. “Joe,” I asked. “Did you happen to read my profile?”
TACK!
Thank you!
That does not, in no way, shape, or form, even approach the level of fool that I and many others have made of ourselves on teh internets in chatrooms, personals sites, bars, clubs, offices, or anywhere else where erect penises and “hott” women are found in close proximity.