When I first signed on to OK Cupid because Fargo harassed me, I answered a few questions and then looked at my results, and I saw your lovely face looking back at me on the very first page of results. 84% match (very nearly the highest match possible for me at the time), and a list of interests that sent chills up my spine. I carefully made sure not to masturbate thinking about you (don’t want to jinx it), and pressed forward to make sure we were meant to be.

But something has changed. I don’t know what it was, but 100 more questions have passed, and I think we’ve grown apart.

You no longer show up on my first ten results, you’re back on page SEVEN! We are now only an 80% match, with 1% enemy! How did this happen? I blame myself. We never talked about it, I never made a point to find out why you hate me now. Was it my stance on polyamory? Is it that I mandate that gay marriage should be legal? I suppose now… I’ll never know.

You should go with your perennial runner up, Meliora84 (2% enemy, that bitch always hated me) and try to find a new life, together, reading crime fiction and having discussions about Rolling Stone. Try to find happiness, as you sink further away from my top 100 matches, and I will try to forget the purity, the power of our unrealized potential love.

I don’t know why every interaction has to be such a god damned chore.

You see, like most times when I post an personals ad, I got replies. Sure, I got the requisite random-letter-sequence@randomnumbers.ru Brunglish replies, but I also got a couple of genuine people. One didn’t respond after the first volley. One responded with “I LOVE TO LAUGH”, and was disregarded out of hand. Another responded and included a Myspace link that didn’t inspire a lot of interest. Another? Well… Let’s just say my interest was piqued.

So I mentioned that. And I mentioned that I might be interested in getting a cup of coffee (I have no idea what people “do” on dates, so this is the best idea I could come up with). I also included a picture of me.

And she responded with the sort of unguarded enthusiasm that is normally reserved for dental visits when you’re asked whether you’ll be paying by cash or check. There was a lot of heavily implied reluctance, along with plainly stated reluctance (the perfecta). But she also included a picture of herself, and indicated that it was I that had a choice to make, for some ill defined reason vaguely related to her age (Fargo and I both looked at the picture for a while, to see if I was missing something, she looks to be about my age to me).

Now, my natural response when someone does this is to run, not walk, in the other direction. I had a magnificently bad set-up with someone that started with this sort of - I’ll be generous and call it - lukewarm reaction. Nothing sets a date off right like showing up and having your date turn to her roommates to say, “Hopefully this won’t take long”. And that is the same gut reaction I had to this email.

Ladies, here is a free tip: If you aren’t interested, just fucking say it! And don’t think that I want to take out out to dinner for the pure unadulterated pleasure of buying you shit. Don’t make mealy mouth excuses about wanting to meet “all kinds of people” and “trying anything once”. If you have to make excuses to go on the date, you should really just man up and say “Hey. I’m not interested in you. Let’s both save an uncomfortable evening and not do this.”

I responded that I was still interested in going out, because I am holding out hope that this isn’t just some delightful game that translates to “Whoa, you’re not what I imagined you’d look like but I’m too ‘nice’ to just say no”.

I posted a craigslist ad:

What is with all the chicks talking about Fantasy Football? Where are the women who could give a crap about a bunch of drug-inflated semiliterate “professional” game-playing-adults? Honestly. Read a book, or something. Obsessing over spreadsheets of average-yards-per-jockstrap-ruined of some millionaire manchild between bouts of snorting designer caviar and shopping for larger rims for his refrigerator is about as pointless as reading one of their diaries.

I’m 28. I wouldn’t know Brent Favreau if he rushed a sack into my tacklebox. I have a job that sucks. I love Deadwood and William Gibson. As a child I drank an Orange Crush that had a layer of hot chili oil on the lip and I just cried from the pain and cried and drank more and cried. I have a dogs. One pair. I ate cereal for breakfast. I like my bicycle. I like the sunshine, and I hate that we’ve given up freedom in the name of safety. I have a Myspace but it’s really just so I can look at other people’s stuff. I don’t like polyamory.

You should probably be around my age. You should maybe have read a book in the past couple months. You can like sports, but you should understand that when you talk about how many runs batted in someone has I am going to get that faraway look and will probably be replaying old episodes of Duck Tales in my head.

Craigslist response:

I’m just curious if there are people out there who don’t love to laugh. Like they just really don’t like it. They are going out after work and when the idea of watching a comedy comes up, they just go “Boy, this is embarassing, because everyone is just gonna be laughing and that will be horrible.”

I haven’t met any of them. I’ve met quite a few people. I don’t think a single one didn’t, on one level or another, love to laugh. But you pointed out that you specifically do love to laugh, so I’m just wondering if maybe you met someone who didn’t love to laugh.

So did you?

I decided about three weeks ago to grow in some facial hair, and while it’s still only just a scraggly little streak of a thing, my junior high self would be totally jealous. I spent all day reading Spook Country and thinking about the conversation I just had with an ex where she said I was “like Batman”. I don’t really know what she meant, but I never really understood women and frankly, this will not be the last time that someone with too many X chromosomes baffles me.

I have a dog that is fat and a dog that is skinny. They are looking up at me right now like I’m some kind of food-magic deity. They get used to my schedule. Up in the AM, off to work, back in the PM, food for us both, some TV, some reading, and then off to bed. It’s tempting to be worshipped, watch them bark at the door to bring up the sun, but frankly mankind made it’s best leaps being disappointed by God and I think maybe they should have to stay up late worried about me too.

In short, I want someone to help me disappoint my dogs.

I don’t smoke anymore, I don’t drink every day. I think I think too much and maybe you should too.