My Heart Goes on the Wow for You

As I've mentioned before, I have a Los Angeles friend who receives two corny love poems every day from a guy in Sri Lanka whom she has never met, nor to whom she even responds much. When she told me about her Sri Lankan poet, I was amused by the pointless absurdity of it and a little jealous that I didn't have a lovesick foreigner of my own (Daily Devotion). A month or so ago, I posted on my online dating profile a throwaway line about wanting my own poet from Sri Lanka writing me odes to our impossible love. Ask, and ye shall receive. Kinda. Sorta.

"I am thinks you are most attractive and my heart goes on the Wow for you," wrote a guy who turns out to be an American writer with impeccable English, living just a few miles from me in my part of LA. He was the first of several American guys who sent me messages parodying a lovesick Sri Lankan bachelor. Despite how funny "Wow" was, as well as being "geographically desirable," as our correspondence continued, I was creeped out by his frequently repeated desire to give me a foot massage. In fact, I think Wow would have insisted on rubbing my feet at Starbucks, had I let it proceed to a first date. 

Another Sri Lankan faker sent me this poem: 

I'm sending you this poem from Sri Lanka

Though we're not in the same room, I took a shot of binaca

It gets lonely under the stars in the Lanka named Sri

I wonder to myself, where can Sri... uh, she be?

Then I saw you

And I said to myself, "Woo hoo!"

I must write you a poem

From here in my home

Every morning and every night

I will write

To say how absolutely lovely you are to my eyes

And aside from that last statement, everything else is lies

I thanked him for the poem and told him I was blown away by a guy who rhymed binaca with Sri Lanka. "Binaca" is also an American writer (sitcoms) who lives within a few miles of me. He told me one of my pictures reminded him of Ann-Margaret, and I'm old enough to be wildly flattered by that comparison. All good stuff. But I soon became turned off by Binaca's verbal "grabby-handedness." Several times he suggestively invited me to come over to his house to watch Viva Las Vegas, that Elvis movie with Ann-Margaret. As a first date. Who the f*ck goes to a stranger's house on a first date? I told him a couple times I wasn't looking for a hook-up, but he must have thought my resolve was no match for his witty quips because he kept trying to seduce me with the funny. If he were a convicted murderer, he's the type who would convince his straight-arrow lady lawyer to marry him, and their unbelievable story would be made into an original Lifetime movie. Not me though. I'm skeptical to the core. 

No matter. I now have a real Sri Lankan penpal, a guy who alas is not a poet. In fact, he's admittedly "not much of a reader." Under most circumstances, a guy who is "not much of a reader" would be a deal-breaker for me. But as I scrolled through his photos, I decided that being poetic--or even, really, literate--didn't matter, particularly when I gazed upon the photo of him in nothing but a swimsuit with a waterfall cascading behind him. The one that looks like the cover of an International Male catalogue. 

"Sri Lanka" is a 31-year-old hottie who plays cricket professionally in the U.K. in the summer, but spends the rest of the time as an accounts assistant in his native Sri Lanka. I am 17 years older than him and we live 9,361 miles apart. Sure, that'll work out. Why would he even bother writing to me? What is he looking for? Nudie photos? A green card? Research for his own blog about finding true love in Sri Lanka? We'll see. For now, my heart goes on the Wow for Sri Lanka, his waterfall photo and pointless absurdity in general.