Plenty of fish in the sea, plenty of birds in the cage.

Plenty of fish in the sea.  Positive as I try to be, (snicker), I’ve always thought that old adage was complete, you should pardon my language, horse shit.  Nice as it is to imagine, the fact is that the odds are against everyone finding their perfect partner, but the hope nestled in the breast of this old cliché is what keeps dating site C.E.O’s in brie, bling and bubbly.  One such person has gone the extra mile in terms of exploiting, pardon me, ‘helping’ the love-lorn.  The extra Green Mile, that is.  Like your lovers assertive/brutal?  Want to meet a guy who will love your kids, (quite literally)?  Don’t mind taking the wheel when it comes to taking long romantic drives, (seeing as he’s not allowed behind it anymore because of his pesky little vehicular homicide conviction)?  Don’t mind long chats on the phone…or from behind plexi-glass?  Meetaninmate.com has the person for you!  Oh, and if you’re the kind of person who just loves surprises, you’re really in for a treat, because the site has a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy when it comes to the reasons behind the cuddly crim’s incarceration!  Yep, it’s a veritable grab bag; you could end up with a financial fraudster, (very handy come tax time), or an arsonist, (great way to offload that lemon rental property), or you could really hit the jackpot and wind up betrothed to a multi-murdering nightclub bouncer, (no more worries about the kids being bullied at school). 

The men folk haven’t been neglected here, either.  Judging by some of the online photos I’ve seen of some of the belles behind bars, prison is a veritable smorgasbord of bodacious babes just itching for you to pay them a congical visit.  Oh, but there is a slight hitch; if you want them to look exactly like their pic, you’ll need to smuggle in some mascara, lippy, and a manicure set on your next visit.  Don’t forget the nail file. 

But seriously, is there ANY market these money-hungry matchmakers won’t dip there taloned toes into?  The only advantage I can see with a site like this is that at least you know up front not to expect perfection…unless your last name is Cray, Williams, or Simpson.

*If you don’t know who I’m referencing in the last paragraph, Google it.  Probably shouldn’t have included that bit, but I couldn’t resist.

Carelessly Selfless.

The contents of today's post have been brewing for a couple of months, when the issue I'm going to tell you about first reared its ugly head.  The reason I haven't said anything until today is that the person at the centre of it all is a friend, a very new friend who I've grown close to in a short amount of time and I did not want to jeopardise that by publicly airing my opinion on someone else's choices...until I remembered what a pseudonym was. 

Michelle and I first bonded over our similar experiences, with particular emphasis on bad relationships, so it was only natural that most of our conversations steered in that direction.  We are two very different people; I'm a thinker, she's a doer.  While I'm busy pondering the pros and con's of a decision, see: procrastinating, she has decided, acted and moved on.  It's a very admirable quality, and one she utilises to her friends advantage more than her own.  A word was all it took for her to deliver a weeks worth of groceries to an elderly neighbour who had run short, or babysit at a moments notice for a friend who didn't want her kids finding out about her new boyfriend just yet.  She also took my son out a few times to give me a sorely needed break when even his own father didn't offer.  In short, she is a wonderful, selfless person.  But being so altruistic as to ignore your own needs can be dangerous.

A couple of months ago, Michelle broke up with her boyfriend.  This guy was a moody, manipulative piece of work who isolated her from her friends and damn near put her into bankruptcy.  Making the break with him was just about the only thing she ever did for herself, and I was happy to see her finally living the carefree life to which she was more than entitled.  Then the phone calls started.  Hour after hour of messages ranging from eerily cheery to hostile were beginning to take their toll, although she was careful to put on a brave face.  She began to indulge him by talking to him for over two hours a day, reasoning that she didn't want to alienate him until he paid back all of the money he owed her, but that was an all too convenient fib that I don't think even she truly believed.  She was letting him down gently, attending to his precious mental health while her own psyche was becoming more and more fragile by the day.  He even intimated moving back into the house, and no amount of pleading from her friends could convince her to do what any other red-blooded wronged woman would have: change her phone number, change the locks and drop him like a piece of hot fat.  In the end, the catalyst for change sprang from a most unusual source: her phone company.

A three thousand dollar phone bill would be an effective enough laxative for a person whose finances were in good shape, but for someone whose debt could register on the Richter scale, it was the last straw.  Michelle was on the phone that very afternoon, making arrangements for an international student to come and stay with her, and is working out a debt repayment arrangement as we speak.  Whether or not she gets any money back from her ex syphon/boyfriend now is immaterial; she has her life back, and is taking care of the person who needed her most.

Giving business the business.

I received an email three days ago from a Dan T****ns, (I decided not to blank out the surname entirely so as to inspire just the right amount of terror in the sender), that went as follows:

 

Hello,

Long time no see. I was wondering what you are up to this weekend?

Dan

Because my email service providers spam filter has been working like a government minister on a fact finding mission in Tahiti lately, I was naturally a bit suspicious, and sent the following reply:

How do you know me?

Two days later, I received an email, in my spam filter this time, about an 'Exciting new service for singles,' signed off on by its creator, one Dan T****ns.  This aggravated me for two reasons.  The first, obviously, is the fact that this person/money-making concern was able to bypass my spam filter by posing as an individual.  Insidious to say the least.  The second, and most important reason, is that it came on the very same day that I sent out several aggrieved responses on Twitter to the seventeen or so companies who followed me under the guise of individuals.  Some of these companies were also dating services; one offered to bypass dating altogether for a fee, if you know what I mean.  My blocking these users and exposing their tactics to my seventy or so followers resulted in yet more faux individuals following me, which I could only assume was either a pathetic attempt at revenge, or a barely literate programmer's misapprehension of exactly what I was driving at.  My regular readers will know that I like to give dating sites, and matchmaking services in general, a thorough going over with a rusty chainsaw, and for good reason; they take advantage of lonely people in order to fund their creator's lifestyles.  So, Mr Dan T****ns, and any other individuals/concerns with designs on bilking me out of my hard-earned child support, I offer the following response:

I am not now, and will never be, interested in utilising your services.  Whilst companionship would certainly be desirable at this point in my life, I would prefer to rely upon my own, admittedly sketchy, judgement and good taste when it comes to procuring it.  I thank you for your kind offer, and wish you luck with your business endeavours in the future.  On that subject, I've noticed that there are several underground pharmaceutical companies advertising their services in much the same way; perhaps you should consider a joint venture?  I should imagine the earnings you could derive by finding companionship for lonely eighty year-olds who have regained the use of their penises after twenty odd years of flaccidity would be more than substantial. 

Too much?  

My community service

The following post is a community service announcement. 

I love you all, my dear readers.  Three times a week for the last eight weeks or so, you have loyally checked in and read each of my posts, and have in turn validated my choice to pour everything I have into them.  Your loyalty means the world to me, which is why I am willing to risk the wrath of the powers that be behind dating sites such as Oasis, RSVP and Zoosk in order to warn you not to make the same mistake I and, judging by Google search, plenty of others, have made.  Regardless of the mission statements made in their ads, dating sites were not designed to find you love.  They were created to line the pockets of the self-serving bastards behind the scenes.  A few posts ago, I told you I had killed off my online alter-ego, and now I am advising you to do the same.  I am not the least bit afraid of the consequences I may have to face by mentioning actual company names here; in fact, I'd actually get a rather perverse kick out of watching their C.E.Os try to sue an unemployed single mother.  Form an orderly cue with the other debtors, guys. 

I have read countless horror stories online about women and men who have had all manner of dreadful experiences with online dating, ranging from the bizarre to the fatal.  What you must first realise is that anyone can create a dating site.  One particular site was created by a man whose credentials consist of a diploma in computer systems technology; hardly the background one would expect from a man whose vocation is to help decide people's romantic fates.  His site, as with the ones I mentioned above, generates the majority of its revenue through advertising, and is estimated to have earned him over ten million dollars thus far.  But wait, I hear you protest, what's wrong with making money?  Absolutely nothing!  I have no moral objection whatsoever to people who can live comfortably while following their passions.  You Tubers, for example, can make a very tidy living, netting thousands of dollars a year from sponsorship deals and banner advertisements.  Why do I not have a problem with this?  One word: motivation.  I don't think any of the film makers on YouTube suddenly went down to their local electronics store one day and bought a camera with dreams of early retirement dancing in their heads.  What shows in the final product is that they do what they do because they love it, and I along with thousands of other fans happily come along for the ride.  Call me cynical, but I struggle to imagine that the aforementioned computer genius embarked upon his little business venture with altruistic dreams of mending broken hearts the world over. 

It isn't only the site creators/administrators whose motives I am calling into question.  How many of you have spent hours chatting to people you've met on dating sites, nodding approvingly as they say everything you want to hear and more, only to meet them and realise that they were feeding you lines from your own profile; using it as an auto-cue to put in an award winning performance, with you as the trophy.  Sometimes, these bottom feeders don't even care enough to carry the play through to the final act; the ultimate catalyst for writing this post was a recent phone call I received from a guy I had chatted to over a month ago and made tentative plans to have dinner with.  My creep radar started blipping during one of the previous weeks conversations, when he casually mentioned (several times) that he regularly stayed in a hotel.  Anxious to get him off the phone, I made my excuses and hung up.  The following week, he called again, asking when we were going out on our 'hot date' (Blip; Blip; Blip).  I informed him, falsely admittedly, that I was emotionally unwell and could not possibly think about dating anyone at the present time.  I breathed a sigh of relief when the call came to its inevitable end, confident that that would be the last I would hear of him.  Undeterred, our horny little hero called again yesterday afternoon, suggesting that he may be able to alleviate some of my suffering with massage - I kid you not.  I told him my therapist advised me to stay away from dating for a while.  He countered with 'Oh, you shouldn't listen to therapists.'  Finally gathering up the courage to tell it like it was, I told him that I was under no circumstances interested in dating him.  'Oh,' he said, 'Well how about just sex then?'  Any shred of diplomacy I was still hanging on to went the way of disco and I hung up on him.  Sadly, this is not the first encounter I've had with men who think women on dating sites are volunteer sex workers.  I can look back on it and laugh, but I wonder how many lonely, more vulnerable people have actually been conned by this sort of sexual profiling.  Hear me and hear me well: no amount of loneliness should be enough to convince you to settle for less, especially from yourself.  Internet millionaires and their Lothario clients do not have your best interests in mind.  Matchmaking services rob you of your money, your dignity and your time.  The only person who truly knows what you want and need in your heart of hearts is you, so how about you erase that profile, turn off your laptop, and start listening to yourself.  You might just learn something.