Craigslist Follow-up

So the emails, phone calls, and late night texts from you readers indicate that you’re a horny lot, and that you're impatient for me to update the Craigslist missed connection. I apologize for the delay. It’s just that I was knocked over by a sucker punch of self-realization last week, and the deep reflection and funk that followed meant I wasn’t capable of writing much.

So what happened was that I realized I’m only one step away from becoming homeless. This realization occurred at Border’s. See, they have a policy of letting anybody read their books and sit in their chairs regardless of your purchasing habits. And they got really comfy chairs. So this policy attracts an undesirable element -- the cheap and the homeless. And as my cheap-ass has spent so much time with these degenerates, I've become to close to them. Like I’ve figured out whose raggedy clothes are marking what comfy seat territory. And I know who’s crazy or just plain lazy, and who's sleeping with whom, etc.

So the only material difference between me and them is at night I got a bed to sleep in and food to call my own. Now I know that’s the critical distinction between us and the homeless, but it’s just that I’m holding on to these things by my fingernails. The only reason I got them still is because I know I got the JAG job coming down the pipeline. And knowing this allows me to charge my rent and groceries assuming that I’ll be able to pay off the credit card someday soon. But there’s a chance the job will fall through, since nothing in life is a 100% guarantee. And if that happens then there’s the very real possibility I’ll end up exactly like these bums any day now. I don’t want that. I don’t want to worry about whether the trash food is spoiled or if tonight’s the night I get stabbed in my sleep. That’s not why I went to law school. That’s not why I signed up with the military. I want a pay check. I want to wave at parades. I want to feel that smug sense of superiority for having served a cause higher than myself while my classmates lose their souls trying to feed the insatiable beast of greed. But the military won't just send the orders confirming my employment, and for now I have to cope with stress instead of living on that schadenfreude.

So like I said, with this realization of how close I am to becoming homeless, I entered that funk where I couldn’t do the extras of life like write blog posts or floss. The only thing I could put up on the computer screen each night was, “Good-bye cruel world,” and that’s pretty sad, since that blog post isn’t scheduled for another 10 years or so. So again, apologies. But after finding The Wire Season 2 on demand and focusing my thoughts on the dysfunctional Baltimore Police Department, I was able to forget my troubles. With that peace of mind I was finally able to pound out an update:

Funny thing is, there's not much to report. Yet here we are. Craig took down my post within 12 hours. In the time it was up I only got two emails. One was from a spammer who wanted to either steal the personal info on my computer or get me to pay for porn at their site. (I didn’t click on the link they sent so I’ll never get to the bottom of that mystery.) The other email came from a nice sounding girl who liked the missed connection, thought it was funny and sent me a pic. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that the MC was for my blog. I mean, I can only hope she doesn’t get hurt feelings because I didn’t respond to her email and what not, but such is life. Actually, check that. I hope that someday she does come across this blog and realizes it was for the best that I didn’t get back to her, since she wouldn’t want me passing on my anti-social genes and elephant face to our children. (Thanks again Mom and Dad.)

Thus, given the utter failure of that post to amount to anything worthwhile, I created two more Craigslist ads. I wanted to run a science experiment of sorts. To find out what kind of words best attract the ladies who troll the internet looking for guys too cheap to join a proper internet dating site. The first post I made was the gentleman-like approach:

“Hey, I'm just looking for someone to spend some time with, meet up for a drink, share some laughs and then if there's something more we can take it from there.”

The second post was a little sleazier. It was titled “Let’s Get it On” and I wrote, “I work out a lot. I got a great body and been told I'm great in the sack. You want to meet up for a good time?”

Post number 2 won with five responses to post number 1’s three. However, the results were actually inconclusive since both posts only got one response from what could be considered a real live girl. The other six responses were clearly from spammers, since they were all trying to get me to click a suspicious link. (Four of the responses were the same link sent by the same jackass.)

So what conclusions can be drawn from this experience? One, it looks like nice messages attract the same number of females as sleazy ones, but sleazier ones attract more spammers. Two, I might not be all that paranoid. That is, I’ve always been under the impression that people are out to get me. Now I have the proof that people are more interested in stealing the personal information from my computer than they are in dating me. Three, apparently I still got it. I mean, even when times are tough and I don’t have a car or job, at least I know that if I needed to I could make a post on Craigslist and find love. And four, even though I might end up living with the homeless I can still write coherent blog posts. I’m pretty sure that would make me king of the homeless, or at the very least one of the technocrats that helps run things. Maybe then they’d led me institute my idea for a comfy chair rotation policy. It would make for a more pleasant daytime reading experience for everyone.