Friday, January 11, 2013

Filling in the Blanks

"im an athiest lets meet for a drink," wrote the 64-year-old retired man who is interested in dating women between the ages of 55 and 67. Why he sent this cryptic one-line private message to 49-year-old me is a mystery. I don't know why he would think I'd be particularly interested in or turned on by his avowed disbelief in a higher being. Perhaps he was short-handing the idea that only in a *godless* world would we be forced to resort to something as awful as online dating as the way to meet the most special person in our life.

The more likely story I tell myself is that he's been doing the internet-dating thing for months now, and is as jaded and enervated by it as I am. When he started the process, I imagine he took the time to carefully read each woman's profile and wrote long compelling paragraphs that made logical sense as to why he and his special messaged one might make a good match. But now, after enduring an endless stream of no replies, along with a string of disappointing first dates, this poor man's e. e. cummings can barely be bothered to write anything, much less something that makes logical sense and uses proper spelling and punctuation.

Since I didn't want to leave him hanging with yet another no reply, I wrote back:

"i like beets lets be penpals."

Weird-ass random shit deserves even weirder-ass random shit.

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