Ok, so who of you out there is pimping yourself on the internet? Gettin’ busy—carefully dropping your personal stats all over that pay-for-access single’s scene web site like they were measurements for a matrimonial suit. All cleanly laid out and symmetrically aligned with that alluring digital photo that coincidently your last inamorata took of you when you were all set in happier times and it wasn’t such a chore to be social and real live people actually asked you out for dates or things sort of like one?
As here it is 2005 and impersonality is the vogue and while you’re perfectly content to be encapsulated in an iPod, cell phone, text generated on-my-computer-screen-love-letter populated universe, there’s still that seemingly obscure want and desire for something resembling human touch lingering around the back of your skull and yeah, I myself coulda just waited for the movie. Or rented a minute or two of flesh indulgent empathy at any of the increasingly more frequent massage parlors that have popped up even in the best of SF’s neighborhoods.
But why would I start that sort of “pay for my sins” behavior now?
And in case you’re wondering just where all of this amalgamated angst comes from, well its been brewing for a long time. Though what finally provoked a verbal rise outta me was when a friend of mine emailed me that she was all incensed as well as amazed that women she knows and who she considers bright intelligent and attractive, not to mention that they’re her friends, were paying good money to throwing their likenesses up on the internet and getting dates out of the deal and she felt that this was odd if not risky behavior! And though I too find it a bit strange and a lot impersonal as well as cold, I had to admit that friends of mine were doing the exact same thing! Though seeing as they were friends of mine they were doing it on the cheaper free sites. Yet the more that I heard about it the more that I came to the conclusion that quite possibly, with the exception of the Pope and Angelina Jolie, it seems to be that me and say this one friend of mine that had emailed me were the only ones not getting dates this way!
But I just can’t see myself doing this and just why do you suppose that is?
Well first off maybe it’s because I take a really bad photograph, or to be more precise, I’m nowhere near photogenic and my last few glossy stills had me looking like some deranged thug! Ah, sorry, those last photos where actually my Department of Corrections mug shots so maybe I wasn’t just looking like a deranged thug, I was a deranged thug!
And secondly like what in hell could I say about myself that would incite anyone of the opposite sex to want to contact me? “Slightly depressed overly opinionated ex-junkie, ex-con, ghetto dweller who would just love to share 1000 watt anti-crime streetlight lit long walks through the piss soaked alleyways of his charming urban blight district.” Or how about: “Five foot ten midlife crisis embracing Caucasian male who tends to think himself fat while obsessing on anything else vague and obscure that doesn’t make him too irate! Likeminded hot minx need only apply.”
And do I really gotta state a third thingy here? Ok, I started this dysfunctional date material count down. So I guess I do. Third: I hate meeting people. Especially people that I don’t know! Which would pretty much entail the entire universe these days as I don’t know that many folks anymore and I’m not exactly replenishing the acquaintance pool once someone that I do know and actually associated with vacates this world of ours, now am I?
So let’s just pause here a moment and take a little inventory of the pros as opposed to the cons, now shall we? Looks like a dork, is unable to verbally sell what little assets he has and the inertia that being overly introverted instills makes even talking with the telephone operator a painful ordeal. Well, after I put it like that then I’m thinking here that these sites like match dot com are not exactly the forum for my pursuits of the amorous nature and that maybe, just maybe, my friend was right and at the moment something is truly amiss with the world’s populace and their mating habits.
Or maybe I am just truly fucked and there isn’t a chance in hell of ever again meeting someone who would want to be my girlfriend, well, at least not one that has any self esteem or at the very least a sense of self worth greater than say one of the local crack hos that I bump into everyday in my building’s hallways.
Yet just recently, as some of you may have presumed, I got totally overwhelmed and exited not only my life but my apartment as well inadvertently leaving the lights blazing away and intentionally walking away from what constitutes my daily work routine in order to take a bit of time off and slow my stroll. As I was obviously very stressed out and as they say “going through it” or whatever little colloquial aphorism would appropriately convey the idea that I was going bonkers. And instead of sticking around my hood and just taking it easy I opted to fly off to a preordained destination 3000 miles away and bask in the opulent comfort that my family and friends were offering me!
However true to my usual form somewhere during this celebrated sojourn I found myself momentarily alone while the visions of happiness that my family portrays with their material wealth and beautiful families came crashing around my already bruised sense of self worth and one night while indulging in a little self pity I looked back on what a mess I had made of my life and all the chances at fame and wealth and even happiness that I had squandered and it left me a tad remorse. And so rife with regret was I that I self indulgently wallowed in my sorrow until it suddenly dawned on me that there was no way in hell that I would have ever gone down the “lets-settle-down-and-buy-a-house-and-raise-some-kids” path that they had. As I had been much too self absorbed to have ever wanted to share the spotlight with my “kids” let alone to have put that much diligent work into being as solvent as they have!
I can remember an incident that occurred way back when I still lived with my mother and I was lying in my bed and pondering this thing called work and there was absolutely nothing about it that I found appealing or in the least bit rewarding and if I recall it all right I sort of made up my mind right then and there that I wasn’t going to engage in that type of behavior as working was a very square ideal and I had better things to do with my time. Like put needles full of drugs into my arms and make plans to do really avant-garde and outrageous art and music projects that were just that—plans and nothing more until it was too late. And now here I was lounging on the guest bed some thirty years later wondering if I had done things differently would it have all turned out for the better and I’d be happy now instead of running from my convoluted existence while being forced to contemplate the past?
Sounds like fun, huh?
Wanna date?
“Lazy self indulgent penniless somewhat lumpy reluctantly adult male seeks… Anyone to at least humor him into thinking he did the right thing by not conforming thirty years ago and instead essentially retired from life!”
Of course to be perfectly honest I already do have my picture of sorts posted up on the internet along with some minimal personal facts and a line of communication installed so that others may engage me. It’s to your right just below the “About Me” heading and alongside of that cleverly obscured photo of me engulfed in flames! Though in truth I am a bit taller than that, sans flames, though with the Rosacea, just as red. So, is this where I say – whoops, never mind! Or is this where I begin to weave that old black Voodoo magic that’s sure to entice women to write me, come see me, send me money, LOVE ME DAMN IT!
Though I already do get my share of unsolicited emails: “mr shitty cheese you suck you drug addict slime why dont you go back to where you came from and kill yourself with your drugs that you love so much!”
Or how about this one: “Are you gay? You write gay and you do live in San Francisco, so I think your gay! Do gay people do a lot of heroin?”
Then of course there’s my favorite:“have my babies you wicked sick barbarian”
So maybe taking a chance with whoever’s waiting for you out there on match dot com isn’t as risky as posting my writing once a week.
Or maybe it is?