W4M

I’m an asshole; just wait for it.

Realizing that my lifestyle of solitary riding, war mongering on the root system in my backyard, and my general shunning of going out in public unless totally necessary it has occurred to me, that given all that, meeting (a) girl(s) is tough. To feel like I’m making minimal effort I spend some time looking at the personals, the W4M ads, on Craigslist. Don’t judge. Ok, judge, that’s fine too. Anyway, I’m becoming increasingly creeped out by these ads and I now feel like the whole site is just slimy. Yeah, not the most original of conclusions so no need to point that out to me. One of the main problems I think is that it would run counter to conclude that attractive, smart, fit girls, the ones I’m attracted to, would even need the internet so I guess that’s problem number one. The rest I will delineate before getting to the actual reason for this blog, which, to give a spoiler, is about my most recent Craigslist misadventure.

Problems with most ads posted by women for men that I take issue with:

1. They often feel like English conventions (grammar and spelling) are optional and or just not necessary.
2. They have kids.
3. A car seems to be a main requirement for dating.

The first two are sort of self-explanatory. Right, so if I’m going to present myself to a bunch of strangers in an effort to garner enough attention wouldn’t I put myself in the best possible light? Yes, I would. And if in this case the best way to do that is to write clearly and concisely. To put those pesky punctuation marks there they belong as well as capitalizing those pesky nouns that require capitalization. Some girls opt not to, and I don’t think I’m even missing all that much when I just hit the back button and don’t read the rest.

Any mention of a kid and I’m gone. Maybe when I’m still alone at 37 I’ll let the filter go away but until then, sorry, no kids. It would take an exception but sadly that exception is not to be made for someone on Craigslist. This due mainly because of the aforementioned slimy feeling I get when I read ads.

Number three, sigh, number three. Okay I certainly do get it. A car is a status symbol. It says “hey, look at me my life is together enough I can afford insurance, gas, and the potential car payments to keep the repo man at bay!” Which makes sense, but at the same time it can be totally misleading. I mean almost everyone drives a car right? That would mean losers, the type this filter is in place to filter out, is actually actively failing. To be totally fair the car thing also seems to be in a sentence that also lists, stable job, and a direction in life. It’s like the trinity of potential dating stability. Job, car, direction in life. Find me an ad that has just job, and direction in life but leaves out the car and I’ll be genuinely surprised.

These three things I look for excludes about 99% of the ads I look at. Which isn’t to say 99% of all the ads available. Heck, I’m so selective I only click on like a third of the ads posted.

But anyway onwards to the real main point of this blog. Last week I found an ad tailored to me. The main point was “hey I’m bored at work, e-mail me and we can see where things go.” This was more or less perfect as I was also bored at work, but also it was free and I like e-mailing people. I responded and for about 4 hours we exchanged e-mails. At the end of the day she suggested we text that evening. By then it was pretty clear that my level of charm and wit via my written words had made her a tad smitten. I was game and thus we texted throughout the evening before I finally hinted that perhaps she stop so I could watch LOST in peace.

The next day I decided to go for my litmus test to gauge interests and, ahem, general intellect. If even do this I pretty much already have my answer. I sent her an e-mail pretty much outlining my top 10 albums, movies, and books. That would look like this:

Albums (I should warn you I’m an unrepentant metal head, as evidenced by the list)
1. Master of Puppets – Metallica
2. Angel Dust – Faith No More
3. Aenima – Tool
4. Reign In Blood - Slayer
5. Vulgar Displays of Power - Pantera
6. The City is Alive Tonight - Dog Fashion Disco
7. Oceanic - ISIS
8. The Blackening – Machine Head
9. Paranoid – Black Sabbath
10. Filfosem - Burzum


Movies
1. 12 Monkeys
2. Brazil
3. Die Hard
4. Children of Men
5. Wall-E
6. There Will Be Blood
7. Alien
8. Superbad
9. Serenity
10. Jaws

Books
1. Infinite Jest – Wallace
2. Sometimes a Great Notion – Kesey
3. The Brothers K – Duncan
4. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay – Chabon
5. The Count of Monte Cristo – Dumas
6. Catch 22 – Heller
7. Gravity’s Rainbow – Pynchon
8. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - Rowling
9. Suttree – MaCarthy
10. Invisible Man – Ellison

Now I should be clear. I could not give a fuck all what someone likes for music of movie tastes. My mindset is that albums take up about an hour of your and movies maybe two hours or a little more. I’m certainly not spending a lot of time invested in those two mediums. I think someone could make some strong arguments that my favorite movies are shit and I’d be okay with that. They could also say my music choices are puerile overaggressive music for mentally stunted teenagers. Sure, I’d probably agree. The real issue comes with the books list. A person may tell me they think Infinite Jest or any of the other books on my list are crap, but I know that the time I’ve spent with them has enriched my life. I’m not making my point very clear. Essentially, if you’re going to read books most of the time shouldn’t you challenge yourself and read something that makes you think and engages your brain?

Her response:
my taste varies..

Albums - how about I give albums and artists because I'm horrible with album and song names... (Edit: it appears that albums and artists she just meant artists)
1. Billy Joel
2. Elton John
3. Alice Smith
4. Aerosmith
5. Queens of the Stone Age
6. The Beatles
7. Weezer
8. Rooney
9. lily Allen
10. FOB

Movies
1. SpaceBalls
2. Super Troopers
3. Anchorman
4. Texas Chain Saw 1 and 2
5. The Quiet Man
6. Monsoon Wedding
7. Hamlet 2
8. Cool Hand Luke
9. When Harry Met Sally
10. To Wong Fu

Books
1. Angels and Demons
2. Twilight Series
3. House of Night Series
4. Congo
5. Chocolat
6. The Virgin of flames
7.
8
9
10

Okay remember I don’t care about the music or the movies, but seriously Aerosmith? No, I’ll stay on track I promise. Look at the book list. Angels and Demons number one? Sigh, the Twilight Series? Not only am I confident in saying those books are shit, but the whole series? Come on, I didn’t put down the Harry Potter series; I limited myself to the best book in that series in my opinion. House of the Night, again the series, is another vampire centric story. Vampires have never been cool, not once. Then, what, Congo at number four? When I look at that I just shake my head in a disapproving motion. I’ll not even make mention of the fact that she couldn’t even flush out the rest of the top 10. What like putting down The Da Vinci Code, The Kite Runner, Jurassic Park, and Sphere, just to guess, would have been too much thought and work? I will say this. I do respect her honesty. She could have looked on Amazon, seen my books were a little more intense than Angels and Demons and changed course. She didn’t she answered honestly which I can appreciated even it mean I then spent 1,500 words making fun of her. And with that I end with what I began with; I’m an asshole, I’m an asshole, I’m an asshole.

…came heavenwide multicolored flashes of light, which only the incurably complacent tried to explain away as heat lightening.